Wonders of the Universe - Brian Cox [57]
This bus ride to the Vostok launch on 12 April 1961 was the first part of the journey that was to make Yuri Gagarin a Soviet hero and worldwide celebrity.
NASA
On his return, Gagarin became a Soviet hero and a worldwide celebrity, leaving Titov to become the second man to orbit our planet. Titov’s name will be unfamiliar to most, although to this day he remains the youngest man ever to make the journey into space, at just under 26 years old. He piloted Vostok 2 on 6 August 1961, completing 17 orbits of Earth. Titov also claimed a rather less glamorous place in the history books; on the 25.3-hour mission, he not only became the first man to sleep in space (snoozing for a couple of hours as his spacecraft orbited the planet), but also the first to suffer the symptoms of a condition that has affected almost half of those who have experienced weightlessness for an extended period of time. Titov was the first victim of Space Adaption Syndrome. Known more usually as space sickness, this condition includes a variety of symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, vertigo and headaches as a common reaction to the odd sensations of space travel. Although weightlessness remains one of the great thrills of being an astronaut, it is also one of the most difficult to prepare for. Since Titov introduced medics to Space Adaption Syndrome, space agencies around the world have employed the only method they can of creating weightlessness here on Earth. How is it possible to remove the effects of gravity? The answer is by doing the same thing that Gagarin and Titov did: by falling towards Earth.
The American response to the Vostok programme was Project Mercury, a series of six manned launches which included the historic flights of Alan Shephard, the first American in space, on 5 May 1961, and John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth. The astronauts selected for the programme, known as the ‘Mercury Seven’, became celebrities in the United States, and all of them eventually flew into space. The final flight of the Mercury Seven was John Glenn’s Space Shuttle mission in 1998, which he completed at the age of 77. The Tracy brothers in the TV series Thunderbirds were named after five of the Mercury Seven: Scott (Carpenter), Virgil (‘Gus’ Grissom), Alan (Shephard), Gordon (Cooper) and John (Glenn). Wally Schirra and Deke Slayton missed out. (I think Wally and Deke would have been great names for Thunderbirds pilots. The days when astronauts were bigger than rock stars are sadly missed.)
Astronauts prepare for Extravehicular Activity by practising techniques on a Hubble Space Telescope mock-up in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. Underwater conditions simulate the weightlessness experienced in space.
NASA
During training for Project Mercury, perhaps after hearing about the experiences of Titov, NASA developed a way of flying a regular military aircraft to take would-be astronauts on an unusual ride. Using a C-131 aircraft, weightlessness was achieved by flying an unconventional flight path. This parabolic path creates a brief period of around 25 seconds during which all the occupants of the plane experience the sensation of weightlessness. This is because they are actually weightless; it may be brief, but when repeated twenty or thirty times in succession, the physiological effects are just as intense as those felt in space. This led to the C-131 being named the ‘Vomit Comet’, a name that has stuck with every plane used for this task ever since.
I’ve known about the Vomit Comet since I was a child, because I was, and still am, passionate about the space programme. Imagine my delight when I heard we were going to ride in it for our film on gravity. Who cares if it makes you feel rough, if the Mercury Seven could face it, so could I.
The Vomit Comet is