BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Cosmonauts - Birth of the Space Age *new*

The starter's pistol for the space race was fired on October 4, 1957. It was in the form of a small highly-polished sphere that orbited the Earth every 98 minutes. This was the Soviet Union's Sputnik, Earth's first artificial satellite. It shook up the United States, and there was more to come.

Cosmonauts - Birth of the Space Age

Sputnik 1 didn't carry any scientific instruments, but when monitoring its orbit, scientists could learn about the density of the upper atmosphere. Its radio signals provided some information about the ionosphere. Click to hear what Sputnik's signal was like.

But its main job was to be there, orbiting, and annoying the heck out of the Americans.

This is how Valentina Tereshkova's space flight was supposed to work.

Of course, the details were secret. Having told the world that Yuri Gagarin landed safely in his space capsule, the Soviets weren't going to let on that Tereshkova parachuted down!

Tereshkova also realized that there was a mistake in the the control program and when it was time to descend from orbit, in fact she would start spiraling outwards. Fortunately, she was able to persuade ground control about this and upload a correction.

Laika, the first cosmonaut, is commemorated in a monument to fallen cosmonauts in Star City, just outside Moscow. She died only a few hours after the launch, though this was kept secret of course. Another secret was that she was doomed from the start because there was no way to return her to Earth. Later canine cosmonauts fared better.

The L-K 3 lunar lander, built by the Soviets, as displayed in the Cosmonauts exhibition. It was designed for only one cosmonaut unlike the Apollo lander which took two onto the surface of the Moon.

(Photograph: Science Museum)

55 years ago today Yuri Gagarin had been the first person to go into space. He orbited the Earth once and then parachuted back to Earth. (That bit was a state secret for many years - the official story was that he and his space capsule had arrived back together.)

First Orbit is a film made five years ago to commemorate Gagarin's journey. You can see the film First Orbit online.