Yuri Gagarin and The First Human Mission Into Space.... Or Was It? 

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Restoring Simon’s hair would be a mega project

There were a couple of unusual reasons why Gagarin was chosen for the first flight. The first being that the first man in space needed a great smile because you didn't want a scowl on all those magazine covers. The second was that when the candidates had the opportunity to sit in the capsule Gagarin was the only one who took his boots off before getting in. The engineers felt this showed significant respect for their work and appreciated it.

Another fairly obvious argument against there ever being unsuccessful manned Soviet missions was that surely if there had already been fatal missions which the Soviets wanted to keep secret, they would never have made Gagarin's mission public before he landed safely.

It's actually stated that Yuri was heavily slated for Komarov's spot on the rocket that blew up but Komarov, KNOWING the launch was tremendously flawed did not wish his good friend to die so, he demanded to take Yuri's place aboard the doomed rocket. The rest, as they say, is history.

I remember hearing that the Eisenhower administration wasn't too worried about Sputnik 1 because of the small mass/throw weight of about 100 lbs. They were more worried about Sputnik 2 because it' had a throw weight of about one ton which was considered the minimum needed for an ICBM.

At 13:39 the mass of the rocket was said to be 4730kg, but to clarify, that is the payload that the rocket (and its boosters) was capable of lifting to orbit. The actual weight of the Vostok-K would have been hundreds of thousands of kilograms. Edit: just realized someone else has already pointed this out

I really believe that Yuri's heartbeat was around 64 bpm, let's face the facts the man had huge brass balls to be a test polite and to volunteer for the Soviet space program. A 60 something heartbeat was probably considered him being excited or nervous, the man had to have nerves of steel and knew little to nothing of fear!

An idea for a mega project that people really don’t talk about is how GPS and satellites make modern life what it is and how drastically life would change if suddenly they all went offline.

It is the whole 'ejecting and landing apart from the capsule' thing that 'officially' queered the deal. According to international rules of aviation and space flight, landing apart from your craft was not considered a 'success' but a big 'whoopsie'. This is why the Soviets claimed for years that he and the capsule set down together. They admitted the truth many years later, but but officials basically accepted the fact that he DID go up and came back alive so, no harm, no foul. And yes, he certainly did make it to space and back, so good on you Yuri.

13:46 The PAYLOAD mass was 4730 kilograms, not the rocket. It would be impossible to launch a spacecraft to orbit with a rocket the same size. The rocket's mass isn't stated in wikipedia, just the payload mass.

the title is almost bordering on History channel consipracy theory levels

I stood next to the concrete statue of Gagarin where he is looking up at space in Kyzylorda, Kazakstan. I also saw the capsule near Bykanor museum made of cheap aluminium and rivets, how it never disintegrated on launch amazes me.

The Vikings were the first in space. A few years after they discovered America, they also went into space.

3:00 - Chapter 1 - The space race 4:45 - Chapter 2 - Humans in space 6:15 - Chapter 3 - The lost cosmonauts 7:45 - Chapter 4 - Early rumours 8:35 - Chapter 5 - The torre bert recordings 11:20 - Chapter 6 - Vostok 1 12:45 - Chapter 7 - The spacecraft 14:10 - Chapter 8 - 04/12/1961 17:35 - Chapter 9 - History maker

Simon, the differences in the times taken to carry out various activities during the space between the USSR and the USA are very easily explained. Every step within the USSR was pushed through very fast by the Soviet leaders with a disdain for safety while the US system was delayed due to being heavily bogged down with politicians negotiating whose supporters would get what contract for supplying the equipment needed.

If several people died in earlier manned flights, it makes what Yuri Gagarin did even more remarkable. He truly WAS a hero of the Soviet Union.

Those Vostok craft were so scaringly crude compared to today's space vehicles. The technological advances since then are truly remarkable, but almost as surprising is that the last manned lunar mission (Apollo 17) was in way back in 1972.

Komarov's tragic story still gives me nightmares. But I've been hearing about the Ilyushin mission from aerospace experts since probably before you were born. It's sort of an 'open secret' that only two things might reveal the truth: the Russians open their books, or the Chinese do. [edit: I believe Jim Oberg counts as an aerospace expert, last I checked.]

The only possibility that I see as viable is that Vladimir Ilyushin was the first in space and survived a very hard landing. He kept quiet about it if it is true and was an incredibly successful test pilot. Gregarin also died a very suspicious death in a Mig just a few years later..

I *love* the way that Simon jokes about his baldness when Keeps does a sponsorship! A really positive attitude and great sense of humour and I really like people with that approach to life!

Yuri: "So, what's the override code?" Control: "12345678"

I'd love to see a whole Biographics on Valentina please!

Please cover the YF-23 vs the YF-22. It was a huge deciding factor in the Next-gen fighter race, and who would build what would become a billion dollar investment.

Super great vid. Thank you Simon, I love all your videos and not just from Megaprojects. Some are so good we watch them 2 or even 3 times.

Here some names of death cosmonauts, bevor Gagarin's flight: Alexej Ledowsky (1957) Serenti Schaborin (1958) Andrej Mitkow (1959) Iwan Katschur (09/27/1960) Piotr Dolgoff (10/11/1960) Alexis Grassiow (December 1960)

I'd love to see a video on the red ball express to include not only the truck mission but rail service once it was up and running and how it changed the rate of supply transportation and how important it was to the war efforts of the European War efforts in World War 2. Thank you for the consideration.

They were in such a hurry to be first that it's entirely plausible that they would risk lives unnecessarily and cover up any failed missions.

The sad story of Laika, the first dog into space should be covered as well.

The other aspect of the Italian brothers’ recordings is that *apparently* the doomed cosmonaut in question had a noticeable Italian accent lol

Great show Simon. Even as a kid, I'd always looked upon Gagarin with awe and thought a decent bite-sized doco about him and his amazing achievement was long overdue.

Only recently found this channel and been loving watching all the space program and war/spy plane vids. Would love to see one on the A10 Warthog. :)

For those who do not follow hockey, the championship trophy of Russia's top league (the KHL) is called the Gagarin Cup.

Yuri’s smile is so iconic

I wonder if Gagarin asking where a phone was when he landed was part of the flight plan? "Comrade, we're not sure exactly where you'll land, so when you do, find the nearest phone and call this number"

Dear Simon, Alan Shepard was not second nan in The Space, he was third !!!! Second man was Germán Titov & even Alan flight was achievement, it took US almost one year to do full orbital flight with John Glen PS: paradoxy is Gagarin was very inexperienced military pilot with very low Hours on MiG15, Titov. Was good experienced not just military flier but also test one !!!!

In 1959 Robert Heinlein and his wife spent a month in Russia. When they got back he wrote two non-fiction articles on the experience. "Inside Intourist" is a lightly comical essay on how to avoid getting totally screwed by the Soviet Travel Bureau. The second was called " 'Pravda' means Truth", and is a much darker tale. In it he relates one day. In the early morning Pravda edition The Soviet Union proudly proclaimed that they had launched a man into space. By mid-afternoon reports were coming out that they were having some kind of difficultly with the capsule. That evening the story had completely changed, with Pravda now saying that they had successfully launched an *unmanned* capsule. It's a rather frightening tale both of how easily someone can become an Unperson in a totalitarian State, but also at how effective complete mind control from birth can cause people to believe everything they are told by the government, even when they were told to believe something completely different just hours before.

Thank goodness you're throwing in some scepticism regarding the claims of lost cosmonauts. Judica-Cordiglia brothers were talented at receiving actual Soviet and American satellite and spacecraft transmissions, even when the technical radio details were not public information. So, they had a bunch of journalists hanging around at the bunker. They were clearly under pressure to give the journalists something juicy. So if they heard some vague noises that could be interpreted as coming from manned spacecrafts, of course they let everyone know, even when it didn't make sense. My particular favourite was some recording that they claimed had a cosmonaut breathing laboriously and with a distinct dying heartbeat. Never mind that the recording is noisy as hell, and it makes no technical sense to send down medical telemetry as audio. Vostok 1 had EKG and breathing monitors aboard and sent it down as an analog signal!

Great video ! Vostok K's weight is wrong.... wikipedia 🤦🏻‍♂️. 4730 KG is payload into orbit. Rocket weighs 280T.

thank You for and interesting , well researched video. we must remember there courage . Not just the Astronauts , but the rest of the design teams , the people that built the tools to make the parts , the scientists that found the answers Mission control , the list goes on, As a concept everything was designed with slide rules ,pencil and paper drawn and built with minimal actual experiance . Showing that everything builds on everything else

Good stuff as always, Simon! Well done!

17:31 imagine being the person who pick up that phone call

Re: Hair loss.....I honestly don't care about my hair, so if it starts falling out, I'll just shave my sweed. It started going grey when I was about 15 and I wasn't bothered about that either, I'd been expecting it as my mother went grey early. I've got green hair now but that's not because I'm trying to hide the natural greyness.

Love all space content great job 👏👍

Simon, why did I have to find your channels mate lol, Ive been binging them all for days. Love it

I always suspected there had been failures in the Soviet space program before Gagarin's success. This is why I think he was the bravest of all the cosmonauts or astronauts.

0:03 Been gradually balding since 24. Just hit 28 and I feel I'm rocking the bald look, didn't feel like letting the receding hairline win on its own terms. Just wanted to say your look inspired me to go for it, and don't let anyone tell you it's not a cool look.

I was talking about this with a coworker of mine who escaped the Soviet Union in 1987. He maintained that Gagarin was probably not the first human in space, but the first one to come back… alive. The USSR maintained so much control over the media. To me it seems absolutely plausible.

My favourite chanell out of Simon's channels....awesome editing and subjects...🙂

It was about 20 years after Tereshkova flew before the Soviets sent another woman into space just before Sally Ride’s flight. Gagarin landed west of where he was launched from therefore not completing a full orbit. The Soviets lied about that to make it seemed like he made a full orbit. John Glenn’s orbital flight was on an Atlas rocket not a Redstone.

8:24 Russian version of "test dummies" is two guys with a gun pointed at you saying, "It's a rocket test, now get in the capsule dummies"

I'm 7 years old and the morning newspaper displayed, with the biggest letters they could find, MAN IN SPACE. I thought "what's the big deal?" my comics have had stories about men in space for years.

Thanks for getting the ad out of the way at the beginning. I wish more Tubers would do that. 👍

In deep space, all alone, Keeps will not help you in a hairy situation!

I did a presentation on Gagarin for Russian class in school. The sad story is that after his first flight and the overview effect. The Soviet union made him into an exhibition. There are stories of him jumping out of a window because of some girls, breaking his arm. But the trurer story involves alcohol and a driving accident. He also wanted to fly again really bad - and ended up doing assisted suicide with a plane and a friend.

Here is a story I cannot corroborate. My fathers sister was obsessed with everything Russian. She was a school teacher and taught French. She visited the soviet union many times, but was eventually banned from entering the country for smuggling drugs (licorice allsorts, it was in fact bibles!) Anyhow, she asked my father and myself to attend the Russian industrial exhibition at earls court in London in 1968, which we duly did. I would have been 9 years old at the time. I can remember the exhibition as if it were yesterday. They tried their very best to portray a technologically superior civilization, over courteous and possibly a bit patronising. We visited many of the stands, but the one that struck me most of all was the stand that had Yuri Gagarin's spacecraft on it. My aunt Mary began speaking in Russian to the lady manning the stand, within seconds a man wearing a colonel's uniform came from behind the screen at the back and engaged in conversation with her. Mary knew her russion military uniforms, so could identify his rank. He disappeared behind the screen and returned with a soviet childrens book. He gave it to me to which I was prompted to say 'spasibo'. As we walked away, my father turned to me and said 'do you know who that was?' I of course hadn't a clue. He replied, 'That was Yuri Gagarin.' Which strikes me as strange now as Yuri Gagarin was apparently killed five months earlier in a jet crash. As I say, I cannot corroborate this, but it will stick with me forever. Only wish I still had the book.

I spoke with German Titov at length, years ago, on Delta Flight 31 SVO-JFK. He asked me, in Russian, "Misha, do you know who the first man in space was?" "Gagarin," I responded. "Nyet, Misha," he responded. "Gagarin is the first one who came back." To be fair, Titov was well into his cups but there was an air of authenticity in his statement. N.B. Valentina Tereshkova was also on that flight but the two did not sit together.

First city abroad that he visited was Manchester. Home of the industrial revolution, the computer and all that jazz. Legend!!!!

I used to work with an ex-Russian. He had been involved in the Soviet space program. He said "Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. But he was not the first man that tried."

Other potential space mega projects you can do include Luna 3 (first moon probe), Mercury-Redstone 3 (Alan Shepard’s flight), the Gemini program, Apollo 8 (first trans-lunar injection), Venera 13 and 14 (first landers on Venus), and Pioneer 10 and 11 (first probes to Jupiter and Saturn respectively).

Another excellent episode. Thankyou.

Simon doesn't suffer from hair loss, he just has his head on upside down

A bald guy advertising hair products? 🤣👍

This brings back memories. I remember hearing the Sputnik beeping with my shortwave radio.

I've heard the Judiga-Cordiglia tapes and, while the content may be questioned, they are interesting and compelling. If it's true that the Soviets lost so many people and then covered it up, that's a damned shame. Their sacrifices should not be forgotten all because of geopolitical "concerns" for secrecy; they should ALL be celebrated for what they were: heroes and pioneers on the forefront of scientific exploration.

Good video 👍

New released footage shows that the first person to go to space was actually a Soviet Vampire girl. They're releasing the documentary right now.

There's also a rumor that the Russians landed a man on the moon but the landing module got stuck in the soft soil and he was trapped and died there . And that's why the American landing module was in two sections . If the landing gear got stuck they could still lift off .

Excellent video; thank you.

I really wish we knew for sure if they sent up cosmonauts before Gagarin. If they did, those individuals deserve to have their names remembered -- they (willingly or unwillingly) sacrificed their lives for scientific understanding and advancement.

I wonder if a video about the beginnings of American space program would be riddled with as much skepticism as this one.

Gagarin’s daughter or grand daughter is a United Airlines flight attendant. I was a United pilot/captain and she was on my crew on one of my flights.

Yes, Gagarin was indeed the first man in space. No, the conspiracy "theories" do not hold water. We know about the failures of Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 in a fair amount of detail; and also that the missions of Soyuz 4 & 5 (successful docking and the transfer of two cosmonauts from one to the other by spacewalk) and of Soyuz 6, 7 & 8 (failed attempts to dock two spacecraft while the third filmed it) were not without their technical hitches. We even know the name of the dummy that was used to test the ejection seat of the Korabl capsule (the capsule that would later be renamed Vostok). Hell, we even know the names of other dogs that were sent into space as part of the Korabl programme. (Off the top of my head, I can recall Belka, Strelka, Chernyushka and Zvezdochka; and there were two others.) With the state of radar technology in the 1950s and 1960s, it was not possible to put a spacecraft into orbit without the whole world knowing about it.

Very Brave Man RIP Yuri .

I have you beat Simon, I lost most of my hair starting at 15

Great videos I love them. Most of them are practically dead on. However the keeps ads are kind of funny and they chose an interesting person to pitch hair care products+❤

What a trip. Watched an older video of Simon educating the viewer about what Neil Armstrong actually said. to go from that directly to this was an.... interesting transition that really ....hit. Culture shock or whatever. Just a stark difference.. Keep up the good work Simon!

The idea of lost cosmonauts is spooky and chilling, but false. As for Gagarin and, frankly, the other Vostok cosmonauts, bailing out of a ballistic projectile falling from orbit is the most fantastic badassery. The flight of Valentina Thereshkova frankly gets a lot more credit than it deserves. Ooh, America took another twently years to put a woman in space. ooh, the Soviets were so committed to women's equality. Ooh! Umm, no. Like many Soviet space "firsts" Tereshkova's flight was a publicity stunt, nothing more. Women dod not become an integral part of the cosmonaut corps and did not start making regular flights for Mother Russia. In fact, it was very nearly that same twenty years before another Soviet woman made another space flight. That being Svetlana Savitskaya who flew about a year before Sally Ride, also as a publicity stunt to steal some of Ride's thunder. Savitskaya later made a second flight, and was all the women the Soviet Union ever flew in space, two on three missions. Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has flown a grand total of three women, including the actress Yulia Peresild, on four flights, one of which was aboard the Space Shuttle. In contrast, since the flight of Sally Ride, Women have been an integral part of American space operations, The United States having flown fifty women in space, plus international partner astronauts, on NASA missions, plus those who have flown on recent commercial flights, both orbital and suborbital.

Please Mr Whistler. Please. The Venus Project. 🥺

lived at Woomera rocket launch site Australia as a child in early 60s loved the space race

Great job!

Soviet people: We are fucking fighting for our lives with hunger Soviet: Sends a Doggo to the space

EVERY Cosmonaut who participated in the early Cosmonaut training program is known by name by people who are still alive(Tereshkova) and their relatives(Gagarin's and Leonov's family - Leonov died several months ago). There has never been any "cover up" as all cosmonauts who died and nearly died are also well known and remembered. Until the successful launch of "Vostok-1"(Yuri Gagarin) there were 7 test launches on R-7 rockets. The launch before Gagarin's in March 1961(Sputnik-10) involved a dog(Zvezdochka - "star dog") and a test dummy("Ivan Ivanovich" - which can be seen at the US Air and Space Museum). The majority of test flights(most of which successfully returned to Earth) for this program used test dummies or dogs, contrary to some inane comments. Vladimiri Ilyushin - son of Soviet aircraft engineer Sergei Ilyushin(Head of Ilyushin Aircraft Design Bureau) - died on March 1 2010. He was a Sukhoi Aircraft test pilot since 1957 and was NEVER a cosmonaut.

These are the type of videos we are subscribed for

I would love the megaprojects to do a piece on the YF-22 and YF-23 projects and ultimately why the YF-22 was chosen.

Ah, the Torre Bert tapes, back when conspiracy theories used to be fun and didn't threaten American democracy.

“It is a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.” ― Alan Shepard. Imagine what went thru Gagarin's mind, probably something to the same effect but ...."built by the Soviet Government..."

Great video..

The real Soviet coverup of Vostok 1 is the USSR long claimed that Gagarin rode his spacecraft to the ground, rather than using the ejection seat. Apparently this was done to comply with aeronautical recordbooks, which required the pilot to ride his craft all the way to landing.

I think you’ve got your figures mixed up, I’m sure the Vostok rocket weighed more than 10,000 lb

Regarding the success rate of launches in the Soviet Union at that time (50's-odd percent, according to this video) we should note that the success rate of the Atlas was only 54% when it was selected for Project Mercury. Launch Escape Towers cover a multitude of sins!

Amazing! Should be a movie

Can't picture you with hair. The accent, the beard, the glasses. Bro ... you got it all ~

While visiting the Ukraine several years back I had the opportunity to meet the man who was the chief of the engineering team that designed the environmental control system that is aboard the International space station and in discussions with this man he did point out that Gagarin was the 1st man to go into space and come back alive, that the 1st man To orbit the Earth in a space flight was the son of the space director and his space flight went about normally with no problems Until the actual touchdown we're the Vostok capsule rentery system failed crushing the directors son, which is why Gagarin bailed out toward the end of his flight so as not to suffer the same fate!

Probably with the computing power of a calculator

I watched a documentary about 10 years ago on BBC and the host pointed out a man who was moving an aircraft on a military base. He claimed he was actually the first man in space but the guy who was a retired Colonel refused to talk to the documentary-team, quite fascinating

Nice one for mentioning Valentina. I have read, and listened to the transcript. That woman was burning up on re-entry. "its getting hot" were her last words. God bless ya Girl.

Everyone is like cover this and cover that and I’m like just please don’t cover that shiny glamorous bold head of yours! You’re a true gentleman and a scholar, keep up good sir, keep up!!!! One of your biggest fans from the treasonous states of ‘Murica!!

Given how many failures the USSR had both before and after Gagarin's flight, I'd be extremely surprised if they were successful with their very first attempt at a manned orbital flight.

I've not seen evidence of lost cosmonauts but would be 0% surprised if someone came forward with it.