"The Earth is blue"

By Dario Palhares

First, it was the Greek Pythagoras of Samos (570 BC - 497 BC) who discovered the spherical shape of the Earth; then came the Greek Eratosthenes (276 BC - 194 BC), responsible for the precise calculation of the extent of its circumference, and the Pole Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 - 1543), formulator of the heliocentric theory, according to which the planet, far from being the center of the universe as was believed until then, moved around the Sun. The privileged Russian pilot Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was able to verify in practice, for the first time in history, all these theories and something that had never crossed the minds of the great astronomers, physicists, and mathematicians of Antiquity: "The Earth is blue!"

Gagarin's achievement turns 50 years old. At 9:07 AM (local time) on April 12, 1961, aboard a Vostok 3KA-3 spacecraft, he shouted "Let's go!" when the Proton rocket's thrusters were activated at the Baykonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, then part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Thus began the 1 hour and 48 minute flight, 315 kilometers above the Earth's surface, which earned him the glory of being the first man to travel into space. Upon his return from space – after completing an orbit around the Earth, after being enchanted by the planet's color and the objects floating inside the spacecraft – he, aware of the magnitude of his mission, whistled the verses of a song by Dmitri Shostakovich and Yevgeniy Dolmatovsky: “Mother Earth listens/ Mother Earth knows/ Where her children fly in the heavens...”.

Born in the village of Klushino, in western Russia, on March 9, 1934, Yuri was the third of four children of Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin and Anna Timofeyevna Gagarin. He embraced a career as a military pilot in 1955 and two years later was already flying MiG-15 fighter jets. As a lieutenant, he was selected in 1960 for the group of 19 pilots in the Soviet space program. During training, he quickly won the admiration and preference not only of his commanders but also of his peers.

Official reports highlighted Gagarin's intelligence, learning ability, memory, openness to dialogue, quick reactions, and profound knowledge of mathematics. Among pilots, he was almost unanimously chosen: when asked who should be the first Soviet to enter orbit, 17 out of 20 competitors indicated him. In the end, his main competitor was Gherman Titov (1935-2000), and he ultimately prevailed thanks to his physical stature, worthy of a jockey. At only 1,57m tall, he was a perfectly sized passenger for the cramped Vostok spacecraft. Titov had to settle for the "title" of second man to navigate in space, on August 6, 1961, when he orbited the planet 17,5 times, so calmly that he even dozed off on board.

Skilled pilots, Gagarin and Titov were, in fact, passengers aboard their Vostok spacecraft. Just like the first American astronauts, who reached space two years later, the Soviet cosmonauts did not interfere with the trajectory of their spacecraft, which were automated. They were only authorized to take control in case of emergency. Both, incidentally, ejected from their space capsules and landed by parachute, a fact omitted by Soviet authorities until the 1970s.

A national hero, Gagarin never returned to space. He became an informal ambassador for the Soviet Union, which at the time was waging the Cold War with the United States. The space race was one of the arenas of this dispute, and the Soviets, until the early 1960s, were far ahead. They had overtaken the Americans by launching, in October and November 1957, Sputnik, the first artificial satellite in history, and the first living being to enter orbit, the dog Laika, who died in space. With the success achieved by the short man from Klushino in his pioneering mission, no one was more suited than himself to announce to the world Soviet supremacy over the USA.

As a "diplomat," Gagarin was responsible for establishing diplomatic relations between Brazil and the Moscow government. Between July 29 and August 5, 1961, shortly after returning from space, the cosmonaut visited São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasília, and received the Order of the Southern Cross from then-President Jânio Quadros. In the federal capital – which he considered, from the height of his experience, a city from "another planet" – he delivered a message from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to the "man with the broom." This was the starting point for the exchange of information between Itamaraty (Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and the Kremlin, officially established in December of that year.

Amidst his official missions as a representative of the Soviet government, Gagarin remained active as a military pilot. It was aboard a MiG-15UTI, alongside instructor Vladimir Sryogin, that he met his death on March 27, 1968, near the Chkalovsky air base, 31 kilometers from Moscow. It is known that his fighter jet entered a spin before crashing to the ground, but the reasons remain controversial. Some say the aircraft collided with birds, others argue that the Chkalovsky control tower mistakenly sent the MiG into an area of ​​strong turbulence, and the hypothesis of instability caused by breaking the sound barrier shortly before is also suggested. "There are 25 versions about Gagarin. This event haunts the nation to this day in the same way that the assassination of Kennedy haunts the Americans," states Russian journalist Lev Danilkin, author of a recently released biography of the great Russian myth.

Gagarin lost his life at only 34 years old, and only survived to be saved from dying even younger thanks to a courageous friend. Determined to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917 in grand style, the Soviet authorities chose Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov, a comrade of the most famous cosmonaut in history, to become the first man to travel into space twice. Komarov quickly realized that the inaugural launch of the Soyuz series had a high chance of ending in tragedy. He frequently complained to friends that the spacecraft project was disastrous, but refused to consider abandoning the undertaking, as had been suggested to him by those closest to him on several occasions. "No, because if I do that, I know they'll send Gagarin into space. And he won't come back," he replied.

Komarov had already entered orbit on October 12, 1964, aboard Vostok 3KV, the first Soviet spacecraft with more than one crew member (three in total). He repeated the feat on April 23, 1967, but had no chance to celebrate his achievement. Upon returning to Earth the following day, the parachutes failed to deploy, and the spacecraft – which no longer had a crew ejection system – crashed to the ground. It is said that Gagarin, upon learning of the serious problems with the Soyuz, volunteered for the launch on launch day, properly dressed in his spacesuit. His friend, however, refused the offer and unknowingly granted him another 11 months of life. From one hero to another.