Public Loneliness: Yuri Gagarin's Circumlunar Flight Read Online Free Page A

was a rumbling and a growing noise. And in the middle of that I realized
I was feeling the rocket rise.
    “Here we go!” I called out. (Or
so they told me—I don’t remember it, but there it is on the tapes, my voice!)
“Everything is going well, I am feeling fine, I’m in a cheerful mood, everything
is normal.”
    From the ground: “We all wish you
a good flight!” and I replied: “Goodbye! See you soon, dear friends!”
    And the rumble continued and
there was an anxious voice in the headset as I rose: Korolev kept asking me how
I was feeling—he was a nervous wreck!
    And it occurred to me, there on
the rocket, that he hadn’t slept a wink. “I’m fine,” I yelled over the noise.
“How are you feeling?”
    The G-forces were making it
difficult to speak, and there was a bright light for the television camera in
my face. But I made sure to keep telling them I was feeling fine.
    Then came a quiver beneath me as
the four booster blocks separated. Nothing unexpected. And the nosecone, the
protective covering, separated as planned three minutes in to the flight, and I
peered through the porthole and saw dark blue sky and thought: It is real, it
is happening. I will be the first.
    More G-forces. Old Number Seven
was working exactly as it was supposed to, or so it seemed. And the central
core fell off and there was another lurch and I rode the upper stage to orbit.
    Soon the vibrations and the
G-forces were gone. Everything had fallen away. There were still the familiar
noises of pumps and fans, and the same side panel with its switches and the
front panel with its dials and globe, but it all felt different. Although I was
strapped in tightly, I felt my arms floating up and my torso moving against the
straps, almost as if I was hanging suspended.
    Just like that, I had gone from
being just another earthbound mortal, to something else entirely: the first.
Only nine short minutes had passed. And I’d done nothing. They’d strapped me in
and I’d read the gauges and told them I was feeling good—but I’d done nothing!
Another Ivan Ivanovich, a mannequin with a pulse. Surely you can understand why
I felt a little awkward after that, a little humble, certainly, compared to
someone like Alexey Maresyev, a real hero who was shot down by the Germans and
lost both legs and went through the trouble of getting cleared to fly again so
as to get back to killing Germans. How could I compare with that? (If you don’t
like me and have nothing in common with me, perhaps you’re latching on to this
fact, the fact that I did nothing, as proof that I’m not as impressive as all
the posters and the parades would suggest!) Nine minutes. How often in your
life has so much changed in so short a time? 
    •••
    But I’m in a new spacecraft now.
Manual controls. The chance to really fly. Which is the only thing I’ve wanted
all along. (I have that in common with Maresyev, at least!)
    My path slashes across Chile and
Argentina. In the orbital night I can see stars, stars, stars: clusters and
clumps, and the bright swath of the galaxy. More stars than you have ever seen
on the clearest darkest night on earth. And I’m headed northeast across the
Atlantic for the final burn. Second cosmic velocity.
    “This is Cedar, this is Cedar.”
    Somewhere in the dark ocean, the
relay ships are re-transmitting my signal to Yevpatoriya. I hear a slight
delay, then Blondie’s voice, crackly: “Cedar, this is Dawn-2.”
    “Dawn-2, I am just about to head
back into daylight.” I scan my panel. “Buffer batteries have been working as
expected. Electrical current is still 25 amperes, 27 volts. Realigning with the
100-K.”
    Again, a transmission: crackly,
inaudible. There are strange readings on the ionic control system. My globe
indicator shows I’m off the South American coastline.
    “Dawn-2, I am passing through the
Brazilian Magnetic Anomaly. Please repeat your transmission.”
    I hear something that sounds
like: We are monitoring your