To the 55th anniversary of the death of Yuri Gagarin: he will remain the main “star” of mankind

Already in the 19th century, science fiction literature about space travel became quite common – just remember Jules Verne’s dilogy “From a Cannon to the Moon” and “Around the Moon”. Science did not lag behind literature – already in 1881, our brilliant scientist, revolutionary and socialist Nikolai Kibalchich, while in prison, a few days before his execution, developed a project for a jet aircraft that was supposed to make manned space flights and even proposed ways to control it changing the angle of the engine. The paper also spoke about the principles of stability of such an apparatus, and even about solving the problems of braking in the atmosphere. Alas, the tsarist authorities did not even allow the publication of Kibalchich’s works, they were made public only in 1918, immediately after our country socially made a real breakthrough to the stars. It is significant that Kibalchich was a scientist and a revolutionary – the psychotypes of these people are often similar, and it is they who most often think about the stars and the future.

Already at the beginning of the 20th century, literature on interstellar travel became mass, and the most prominent writers paid tribute to it, such as Alexei Tolstoy with his novel Aelita, in which two earthlings go to Mars and make a socialist revolution there. The ideas of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky that humanity will become cosmic no longer looked like something incredible.

After the Second World War, the most terrible war in the history of mankind, in which the brightest idea defeated the darkest, everything connected with the future, with progress, received a huge push forward. Both socially and technologically, people were the number one readiness for space flights. World literature was simply swept by a wave of science fiction – from consumer goods to the most brilliant, from the best writers, which was almost entirely devoted to space flights. Even the most distant from space inhabitants, at least sometimes, but looked at the stars.

Science, like all other spheres of our life, was spurred on by the competition of two systems – for the two superpowers, the USSR and the USA, it was important to prove that it was their system that was the best and that it was the future in the most literal sense of the word, and the space race, which required large resources, suited for these purposes like nothing else.

On October 4, 1957, a real breakthrough occurred – the USSR was the first in the world to launch an artificial Earth satellite into space. Just 12 years after the most destructive, bloodiest war in the history of mankind, our country has taken the lead in the space race. However, the main achievement in the history of mankind was ahead.

On April 12, 1961, a citizen of our country, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, communist Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin made the world’s first manned flight into space. The whole world heard his famous “Let’s go!”. Humanity has become cosmic. I’m not afraid of this word, but I think this is the main event in the history of mankind. In thousands of years, when people become much wiser and step forward not only technologically, but also socially and morally, all wars that will be studied as distant, distant history will stop, and people will conquer space, Yuri Gagarin’s flight will objectively be perceived as the beginning of a new era. Perhaps it is from this main event in the history of mankind that a new chronology will be conducted. Those who are older remember that all mankind, far beyond the borders of our country, even in capitalist countries, was seized with pride, happiness and enthusiasm. And despite the fact that Gagarin made only one orbit around the Earth, the stars became closer to us than ever before.

The Soviet Union demonstrated to the whole world that in our country a simple young man, from the people, can be the first to go into space. Of course, before flying into space, Gagarin went through a tough selection, primarily for health and professional criteria. But I am sure that our government was well aware of what a huge psychological burden would fall on a person who was the first to step into space, so psychological stability was also important. I think external data played a role. After all, after returning to Earth, Gagarin became the most important “star” of mankind, incredible fame and worldwide love fell upon him, reinforced by the fact that Gagarin himself was so charming, pleasant and in the best sense of the word simple that the term “Gagarin’s smile” entered to all languages ​​of the world as one of the main compliments. I think Gagarin was and will remain for a long time, if not forever, the most famous and popular person in the world.

The Soviet government was not mistaken in its choice – Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin honorably completed all the flight tasks, and later fully justified the trust of the people. I think you can’t say better than Gagarin himself: “It is hardly worth talking about the feelings that I experienced when I was offered to make this first flight in history. Joy? No, it was not only joy. Pride? No, it was not only pride. I experienced great happiness to be the first in space, to enter one on one in an unprecedented duel with nature – is it possible to dream of more? But after that, I thought about the colossal responsibility that fell on me: to be the first to accomplish what generations of people dreamed of, to be the first to pave the way for humanity into space. And if, nevertheless, I decide on this flight, it is only because I am a communist, because I have behind me examples of the unparalleled heroism of my compatriots, the Soviet people. I know that I will muster all my will to do the best job. Understanding the responsibility of the task, I will do everything in my power to fulfill the task of the Communist Party and the Soviet people. I would like to dedicate this first space flight to the people of communism – a society into which our Soviet people are already entering and into which, I am sure, all people on Earth will enter … “

After Gagarin’s flight, mankind had many more achievements in the space sphere, and our country as a whole retained its leadership. The space race and competition between the two powers continued, although by the end of the 1980s it had become more commonplace.

And in the 1990s of the last century, the stars not only turned out to be further, they simply ceased to be needed by the majority of those who were supposed to determine the strategic line of mankind. We can say that the slogan “Do not look up!” and its variations “Take everything from life!”, “Live for yourself!”, “Live for today!” became the slogan of many political parties and politicians. Science fiction forecasts of the 60s, which predicted by the 2000s flights throughout the solar system, joint space exploration, international space bases on the Moon and Mars, did not come true at all, and not for objective, technical reasons – if desired, humanity can implement such projects in the coming years. They were not justified for purely subjective reasons, it just became somehow not up to them. A lot of other things have appeared, because of which even not the worst people are now forced to look not at the stars, but more and more at their feet.

Exactly 55 years ago, on March 27, 1968, Yuri Gagarin, together with the most experienced pilot Vladimir Seregin, set off on his last flight. His plane crashed near the village of Novoselovo, Vladimir Region. The exact causes of the disaster have not yet been clarified.

But some say that Gagarin did not die, but was saved by representatives of a super-civilization that is watching us and comes to the rescue at critical moments. And now he lives with them, but he will definitely return – he will return when we learn to look at the stars again!