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Astronautics

Jordi Gutiérrez

Astrophysicist and assistant director of the Castelldefels School of Telecommunications and Aerospace Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia

Destination: History

APRIL 12TH, 2011

On April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union put a manned spacecraft into orbit around the Earth, much to the dismay of the United States. The single cosmonaut aboard calmly controlled the instruments that informed him of the status of the craft. A neutral observer would think this way just a routine trip, but nothing is further from the truth. Yuri Gagarin had become the first human to leave Earth’s atmosphere and venture into outer space.

The Soviet scientists and engineers in charge of the mission decided that Gagarin should make only one orbit around the Earth and return to the surface of our planet. Retro-rockets were used to make this maneuver, and if these did not work properly, then the craft’s orbit was so low that the friction with the atmosphere would cause the ship to return to Earth in two or three days. Fortunately, this plan B was not necessary and the mission was a complete success.

Both the ship and the one-man crew performed exactly as planned. Even though serious concerns existed about the crew: Gagarin was an extraordinary pilot, and his abilities to man the ship were beyond question, but how would a human behave in microgravity? This was a question that tortured the mission’s medical staff, and that this flight answered.

Gagarin died in a practice mission while preparing his return to spaceHaving become an icon of Soviet propaganda, Gagarin did not receive permission to once again leave the surface of our planet for many years. And fate was cruel to this pioneer because when he was preparing for his long-awaited second space mission, the plane he was piloting crashed, killing him. At that time, his American competitors (and, even so, his colleagues) were preparing to land on the Moon.

Little remains of those days of glory and passion. Some routines do linger. For instance, Russian cosmonauts stop to urinate in the same spot where Gagarin did just before the historic launch, or the countdown, typical only of the Europeans and Americans. We are in a phase of space exploration in which it is difficult for anyone to remember the name of an active astronaut, except perhaps those of fellow countrymen who travel into space. But the excitement of exploration is due to eventually return, either with a trip back to the Moon or with more ambitious milestones, such as missions to Mars or an asteroid.

Rockets that can be used only once are a major obstacleToday, space travel is still hampered by a major burden: the reliance on single-use rockets (the old space shuttle is about to be decommissioned after having proven to be an extraordinary machine, but very expensive and unsafe). The cost of each of these rockets amounts to tens of millions of euros, which makes space travel astronomically expensive. How many people could travel by plane if they had to pay the entire cost of a craft that after landing was useless junk?

One day, when humans have colonized the solar system, our descendants will look back and see this time with a mixture of disbelief (how could they get into such archaic machines?) and admiration for the courage of those early space explorers.

Today, we have barely wet our toes in the ocean of space, but certainly what we have found on our journeys of discovery will help us to better understand who we are and what our place is in the universe.

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