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The conversation soon turned to the exploits of NASA. Gagarin made gentle, but pointed, fun of the Mercury project, which had achieved only its first tentative 15-minute sub-orbital hop on May 5, with astronaut Alan Shepard aboard. Burchett and Purdy suggested that the American capsule incorporated more sophisticated attitude (orientation) controllers, thrusters and navigation systems, so that Shepard could genuinely pilot the machine to a greater extent than a cosmonaut could fly a Vostok. This was quite true, but Gagarin evaded the issue by concentrating on the short duration of the Mercury mission. ‘How much driving can you get done in five minutes?’ he challenged. ‘And what would be the point of manual control? I could have guided Vostok, had I wanted to. There was a dual-control, but the manual option was not necessary or important.’ For a pilot this was like saying that his job – his essential skill – was completely irrelevant, but at the time Gagarin could hardly have said anything different.12

The journalists changed tack and suggested that Mercury’s cabin equipment was better than Vostok’s. Again, this was largely true. Gagarin countered, ‘It’s difficult to compare them. Vostok’s cabin is very big, and the thrust of its engines much greater. We went higher and faster for a much longer time.’

Burchett and Purdy asked him which had been the worst moment during his flight? ‘The re-entry,’ he replied without hesitation – then collected his thoughts for a moment and efficiently covered his tracks. ‘But “worst” is a comparative word. There wasn’t really any particular bad moment. Everything worked, everything was organized properly, nothing went wrong. It was a walk, really.’

Not surprisingly, Burchett and Purdy missed the nuance. Phil Clarke, a modern British expert on Russian space history, suggests that if the story of Vostok’s retro-pack separation failure had leaked out in 1961, it would have caused a sensation, but Gagarin remained consistently skilful at listening to his own answers and guarding against errors.

As always, the most sensitive issue was his method of landing. In the wake of his homecoming celebrations in Moscow, Gagarin was pressed for answers by suspicious foreign journalists. On April 17 the London Times correspondent wrote:

No details have been given about the method of landing. Asked point-blank about this at the crowded press conference, Major Gagarin, more hesitantly than in his other replies, skated over the questions with his answer: ‘Many techniques of landing have been developed in our country. One of them is the parachute technique. In this flight we employed the system where the pilot is in the cabin.’ The pictures published in the press here also give little idea of the spaceship’s structure, but some light was thrown on Major Gagarin’s pride in it when he was seen to wince at the use of the word ‘plane’ at the press conference.

The sports official Ivan Borisenko flew to Paris in July 1961 to negotiate far more searching questions thrown at him by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) about the altitude record he was claiming on behalf of Vostok. The IAF Director-General asked Borisenko’s delegation outright, ‘Where was the pilot on return, in relation to the space vehicle?’ Borisenko bluffed shamelessly. ‘Ask the Americans if they believe these records for Gagarin were actually achieved! All the people of the world have already endorsed Gagarin’s flight and have accepted it as fact.’13

The wrangling went on for several hours, but eventually the IAF caved in without pressing the Soviets for clearer evidence. From now on Borisenko could wave his newly minted IAF certification in front of sceptics as ‘proof’ that Gagarin had landed in his ship and rightfully claimed the altitude record.

On July 11, 1961 Gagarin and his escorts flew to London on a Tupolev-104 Aeroflot airliner. The left-leaning London newspaper the Daily Mirror heralded his arrival with a glowing tribute, accompanied by a bitter critique of