OPINION:
For many decades, humanity has dreamed of conquering space. And the first person who managed to take a step towards the endless starry space was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin.
The USSR and the United States almost simultaneously began to develop space exploration projects in the second half of the 1950s. The “father” of the Soviet program was Sergei P. Korolev, the pioneer of practical cosmonautics who coordinated the work of a myriad of outstanding engineers and innovators: Vladimir P. Barmin, Valentin P. Glushko, Nikolai A. Pilyugin, Vladimir N. Chelomey, Mikhail K. Yangel and others.
After the Soviet Union successfully launched the first artificial Earth satellite on October 4, 1957, preparations for sending a man into space were put on the agenda. Out of more than 3,000 candidates, a special commission selected 20 people who became members of the First Cosmonaut Team in the first half of 1960. Many of them later went down in the history of world cosmonautics: Pavel I. Belyaev, Valery F. Bykovsky, Yuri A. Gagarin, Vladimir M. Komarov, Alexei A. Leonov, Andriyan G. Nikolaev, Pavel R. Popovich, Gherman S. Titov. As a result of a thorough competition, Yuri A. Gagarin was chosen to be the space pioneer.
The first orbital flight took place on April 12, 1961. The “Poyekhali!” (“Let’s go!”) phrase Yuri A. Gagarin uttered at the launch opened the era of human presence in space. In 108 minutes, the Vostok 1 spacecraft completed an epochal orbit around the Earth, and then the reentry module with the cosmonaut on board landed safely in the Saratov region.
The Vostok 1 mission changed history. During the last 60 years, hundreds of people from dozens of countries have followed the path beaten by Yuri A. Gagarin. In 1963, Valentina V. Tereshkova became the first woman in low Earth orbit. And in 1965, Alexei A. Leonov was the first to conduct a spacewalk. Numerous research missions allowed mankind to obtain invaluable information about the closest “neighbors” of our planet (the Moon, Venus, Mars) as well as distant corners of the Solar system.
The memory of Yuri A. Gagarin, who tragically died in a plane crash in March 1968, lives on. Dozens of streets, boulevards and squares have been named after him. Memorials honoring the space pioneer have been erected in cities all around the world. In the United States, there are busts of Yuri A. Gagarin set up in Washington, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, New York and Chicago. In 2012, a monument to Yuri A. Gagarin was opened in Houston.
The path to space exploration paved by the first cosmonaut of the Earth became one of the key areas of international cooperation. Then, in the midst of the Cold War, despite the ideological and political contradictions, US President John F. Kennedy wrote in a congratulatory message to Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev: “The people of the United States share with the people of the Soviet Union their satisfaction for the safe flight of the astronaut in man’s first venture into space. We congratulate you and the Soviet scientists and engineers who made this feat possible. It is my sincere desire that in the continuing quest for knowledge of outer space our nations can work together to obtain the greatest benefit to mankind.”
The words of the American president turned out to be prophetic. Cooperation between Moscow and Washington became an important factor of the success achieved by mankind in space exploration, including the Soyuz-Apollo joint flight and the Mir-Shuttle program. For more than two decades, cosmonauts and astronauts have been working side by side on board the International Space Station.
Despite all the difficulties in Russian-U.S. relations, cooperation in space research demonstrates how much Russia and the United States can achieve by working together. This experience can certainly be used on Earth.
• Anatoly Antonov is the Ambassador of Russia to the United States.
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