Into That Silent Sea - Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965 by Colin Burgess

Author:Colin Burgess [Burgess, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780803226395
Publisher: Bison Books
Published: 2007-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

These views reflected some of the considerable unease felt by many outside of the Soviet Union. Though there was undoubtedly a degree of admiration for their historic achievement, it came hand in hand with concern about Russia's new assertiveness, best symbolized by the construction the year before of the Berlin Wall within a week of Gherman Titov's flight aboard Vostok 2. The New York Times declared that though the United States was not irretrievably behind in space exploration, it was further back than had been imagined. It acknowledged that putting two spacecraft into close proximity, however briefly, was a scientific achievement "that represents another triumph of human genius in which all men can take pride." Yet the global celebration of Russia's dual flight was tempered by the caution and suspicion of political realities, together with a distinct feeling that these flights pushed the Soviet Union well ahead in the race to put humans on the moon.

Not everything about the tandem flight went according to plan, of course. On Nikolayev's twenty-ninth orbit he reported that the temperature in his spacecraft had dropped to around fifty-six degrees Fahrenheit. The cabin felt unexpectedly cool for the cosmonaut, threatening earlier plans to extend the flight from three days to four. Fortunately, everything else in the spacecraft was working well, and Nikolayev later told ground controllers that he was happy to fly an extra day. The senior spacecraft designers were consulted and agreed that the prolonged flight plan could continue as long as the cosmonaut remained in good health and spirits.

With every passing hour, the dual mission broke more space records. A little more than fifty-seven hours after liftoff, Nikolayev had completed his thirty-ninth orbit and had become history's first "space millionaire" in terms of miles traveled, achieving a distance equal to two round trips to the moon. Tass News Agency reported that both cosmonauts were eating normal food as well as special food squeezed from tubes. The menu also included salted fish, prompting Popovich to joke during training that he'd like to take along some beer to wash it down. Unlike the unfortunate Titov, both men reported that their appetites were good and that they felt well. His usual cheery self, Popovich exclaimed: "My spirits are wonderful!"

In a very human moment that demonstrated the camaraderie among the cosmonauts, Nikolayev found that Yuri Gagarin had stowed away a little joke for him, very much like the small gags American astronauts played on their colleagues. "I picked up the logbook," he recalled, "turned to a fresh page, and my mouth dropped open in surprise: a page covered with brightly colored road signs was lying in the book. Where had it come from? I looked more closely, began reading, and immediately guessed that it was a joke of Yuri's—it was his handwriting. He had put a sheet of road signs in the book, added comments to each, and beneath this was the recommendation 'Learn your road signs! Space is not the Earth—you have to know the rules of the road well.

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