Citation Needed - Yuri Gagarin

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin [a] (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space, achieving a major milestone in the Space Race; his capsule, Vostok 1, completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, his nation's highest honour. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

Well, because the implication there is that black Adam is stronger than Superman and he's not. Okay, he's just not. They were just plugging the movie. That's all. Well, plug it with the truth then. Ten, nine, eight, seven. Oh my god, I'm so bored, hurry up. Seriously, it is a ten second countdown.

Do a five second countdown. That's not how space- Guys, guys, what are you doing? Oh, hey, Noah. So, you know how I'm always trying to think of like awesome and innovative ways to promote our podcast? Is that what we would call it? Yeah, one time you ran a pirate ship into our studio.

And the way is this week I was thinking about the essay and it aimed to me. What's the best way for us to be famous? Do the first podcast from space, space, space, space. When you do my part upside down, he is going to be upside down. Okay, guys, guys, no, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but you can't just launch yourself into space.

Yeah, the first crude flights into space cost millions of dollars. They use their best minds at their time. I don't know what you're working with here, but it's definitely not gonna get in space. Oh no, this this is actually the Russian space shuttle It's the real one seriously. Yeah got it on eBay. Okay. How much did you guys pay six dollars not a lot? Yeah, no that that actually tracks go ahead But all right, let's do it. Yeah Turn faster due to five. Now I have to start over! Start over faster! Hello and welcome. Sitation needed. Podcast where we choose a subject.

We're just single article about it on Wikipedia. We're Ken we're experts. Because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Heath and I'll be hosting this story about alleged space travel in 1961. I don't lie. We hadn't even invented a soda can top. alleged space travel in 1961. I don't buy it. We hadn't even invented a soda can top. It doesn't stab you in the hand when you open it.

But let's go ahead and meet the panel. See what I'm going to say about this. First up, first up, we'll be in the hands. We'll be in the hot castrenates who are clearly in on the cover up. Okay. So, and no, you can hide literally anything in my Castro like beer. So that does make sense.

I go, I'm rocking in here. I don't have a beer, so I have to use my grassy knolls when I want to hide. Yeah. And also joining me, our man who definitely needs to take his protein pills and another who needs to put his helmet on. Eli and Major Tom. How much does another big government infringement on my freedom to endure severe American-style head trauma?

Fuck yeah. Yeah, and he's admitting your own come is a protein pill that I guess I'm banned from the Olympics. Well, welcome to the podcast. I'll see you later. Hope you enjoy this show. So, this is a no-bye. Let's just start right here right away.

What person place thing comes up phenomenon event? Are we going to be talking about today? Eli eating his own car. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I was surprised, I say. Yuri Gagarin. Okay, great space travel.

He trust getting stupid boo. We have a weird format. I don't know, like I'm interested in this case. I wanted to do boo. We have a weird format. I don't know. I'm interested in space travel. I wanted to do incredulous. You guys do it. You guys do it. Yeah. No one incredulous. Okay. No, so who was Yerega Garden? So Yerega Garden was the first human being to journey into outer space and perhaps even more impressively the first person to return safely to the earth. Yeah, it is nice that those are the same first because they didn't have to be. And that's very, very, very much did not.

Yeah. So I'd say that all the people to ever crawl into the tip of a missile to be hurled skyward, Gagarin did it. And I think the English language is ready for this word. He did it the ball-seously. It cannot be overstated how very climbing into the part of the rocket where the warhead goes. This really was. Literally what happened to it.

The launch vehicle, the Vostok program used was an ever-so-slight adaptation of the R7 Sebiorka Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Okay, so beanbag chair and bottle of water, no explosives. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No explosives above this line.

Yeah. But that means that basically this whole program started with some guys were launching an ICBM and one of them turned to the other and said, here'd be fucking awesome. You could just get on there, hold real tight with your legs, salt on a movie, don't worry. Oh, all right. We finally invented bubble wrap this year. So, yeah, shoot myself into the cosmic abyss

with a WFD to find the internet gravity loop. Yeah, that's the next one. That was the best. It makes sense. 1961, this is real, this definitely happened. to find the gravity loop. Yeah. That's the next one. That was the thing. It makes sense. 1961, this is real. This definitely happened. Hey, do not worry.

We aim to it the Madagas. So if it goes wrong, we're in. All right. So Yuri was born in a rural area just west of Moscow. He was born in March of 1934, and he are a town that was then called Jotsk. Oh, Jotsk. And yeah, to give you an early taste

of how important this guy is going to beotsk. Oh, and yeah, to give you an early taste of how important this guy's gonna be to Russian national pride, these days, that town is called Gagarin. Keep in mind that the Soviet Union is all a 12 years old when Urears born, and they're not exactly running on all cylinders yet. So the state infrastructure, even relatively close

to a major city is virtually nonexistence, and his parents worked on a collective farm, and probably would have been classed as peasants a couple decades earlier. Okay, no, I'm trying to decide if living in a Soviet Union not running on all cylinders is better or worse than one that was like peak Soviet thing. Oh, better.

Absolutely, better. Yeah. So, but so long before he orbited the earth from 203 miles up, Yuri was already bad asking at a pretty high level. He was a bit too young to fight in World War II in any official capacity anyway, but he was a bit too in between Germany and Moscow to avoid it all together. In fact, with little Yuri was only seven years old, Nazi soldiers came to his hometown, and German officers took over the Gagarin residents. His parents were allowed to build a mud hut in the backyard to house

their family for the damn near two years of occupation that would follow. Jesus fucking. My kids wouldn't last one hour in a mud hut that didn't have Wi-Fi and Yo Crunch Oreo yogurts. Right. Right. That's really good yogurt. It is good yogurt stuff. Yeah. But brought to this week's episode of the citation needed. But so we're kidding. We don't have ads.

You can buy that spot though whenever you want. Buy that spot. You can buy us. Yeah. Right after Eli talks about eating some, but you know, all right, but look at your eat. Yo, crunch yogurt. talks about he just come, but you're all going out. All right, but but you're a little bit, you'll crunch. You know, same amount of crunch though.

Same. Why is it so? I'm very sick and very sick. All right. Black flags crack. So now, it's like it hurts. All right. So now little Yuri didn't take the Nazi occupation lying down.

After one particularly sadistic German soldier tried to hang Yuri's little brother, he decided to take up a career in sabotage. And now he was almost entirely uneducated. He'd been going to school for less than a year before the Nazis moved in and closed the school down. But he was mechanically inclined and he realized that the batteries that they used for their tanks were an easy target. So he would pour like soil into them while they were waiting to be recharged and in a move that seems almost like a gritty reboot of

home alone, he would randomly mix the labels on their chemicals. Not the open to door. Canna's icon be swings down its smashes in the face. And all this before he got his sabotaging degree. Unbelievable. Right. Unbelievable. Right? Okay, you joke, but that was definitely a Russian like core curriculum. So eventually Yuri's older brother and sister were shipped west by the Nazis as slave labor. Now ultimately the two of them would escape and then on their way home get conscripted

by the Russian army before they could make it. But the Gagarin family assumed that they were dead when they weren't heard from again. After that, Yuri gave up a period of refuse to eat and he refused to work for the Nazis. That resulted in the nine-year-old getting beaten within an inch of his life and he'd spend the rest of the war at the hospital where he recovered first as a patient and then as an orderly. I get it. I had a note to get out of swim class because I was susceptible to colds at that age. I understand. I understand.

I'm sorry. It's like working as an orderly after being the patient at the hospital, the same thing is like doing the dishes because you couldn't pay for your meal at the restaurant. Yeah. Pretty better. Get a mop. So on March 9th of 1944, which was Yuri's 10th birthday, the Red Army blew through the

area and routed the Nazi occupiers. And you know, while ousting the Nazis was generally a good thing for allied countries, Yuri was trading Hitler for Stalin. So he was immediately put to work helping the Soviet Army a hunt and clear land mine. Sorry, kid, your whole life's going to be about mud until you enter orbit. That's the thing. I guess you could say he went from ground control to major top. Nice.

Nice. Well, the entire episode was set up for that. I didn't even know it. Now, I should emphasize at this point, just how devastated the USSR was in the wake of World War. Right. Well done. The entire episode was set up for that. I didn't even know it. Well done. I should emphasize at this point, just how devastated the USSR was in the wake of World War 2. I mean, like, I know we all know it and all, but Russia is a country that was barely a decade off of seven years of violent revolution at the beginning of this thing.

And that came on the heels of the first three years of World War 1. So even before the entire Western half of the country was level by the Nazis, it was already pretty fucked up. So it took a while for them to get things like schools up and running. It was 1946 before Yuri could return to school in any fashion at all. And even then, it was a makeshift school that taught the kids to read from a discarded

Russian military manual. So to be clear, the kid was 12 years old when his formal education started. Yeah, and you do not want to know about the things that Yuri saw Jack and Jane do. You've been down for an hour. But over the next few years, the school improved a bit. They got So they got two manuals. It was not crazy over here. Okay. He's a hundred percent matter. So no, but a former Russian airman joined up to teach math and science and it turned out that Yuri excelled at both.

He'd always been interested in aircraft, but having a former airman as his favorite teacher turned that interest into an obsession. So at 16, he went to work at a foundry because Russia, but he maintained his interest in airplanes. And when he was 18, he volunteered in a local flying club for weekend training and learned to fly a biplane. One thing I haven't mentioned about Yuri yet is that he was an exceptionally short dude. As an adult, he was all a five foot two or 157 centimeters. Yeah, that kind of thing happens when you're eating mud soup for two years. Exactly.

Exactly. He was short, though compared to the other mud soup eaters. Well, most fields of professional bad-assery aren't super accessible to short dudes. Fighter pilot is a notable exception. So in 1955, Gagarin was accepted into the first... Oh, God, that's a lot of consonants in a row. Okay, the first Klobsky Nice higher air force pilot school and and he was actually so short that he almost

failed out of the school early for not being able to see what was going on For all those instruments But his instructors find a promise in him to bend the rules and let him complete his evaluation Essentially in a little boosters the rules and let him complete his evaluation essentially in a little boosters. That's adorable. That's okay. That's adorable. Thrusters online, phone book, sitting on the right.

Okay, who would Cippy Cup in my cockpit? Fuck you. We'll big volleyball again. Damage you guys. Nice. I must be this tall to fly the plane really, really. A clown. Take your clown.

Take your clown. Sorry. Sorry. So, by 1957, Gagarin completed his training and he was flying solo for the Soviet Air Force, but the whole idea of what flying meant changed considerably that year, because 1957 was also the year that the Soviet Union first launched Sputnik, regardless of what Heath will tell you. And I don't know that people today can really appreciate just what a big fucking deal

that was at the time, right? Launching a satellite into outer space was so impossibly science fiction that some uneducated people simply refused to believe it. All together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you could tune in and listen to the motherfucker pass over ahead if you had a short views to believe it. All together. Very, very, very, very, very, very good. But you could do it in and listen to the mother fucker pass overhead. If you had a short

way radio and people all over the world did just that. Here is like, why is it got to be shortwave? What are you saying? And once they accepted that a machine could be launched into orbit long before there was any conceivable purpose beyond bragging rights, they wondered if they could do the same thing with a dude. Yeah, at least the dude could do some, I don't know, comedy during drive time. All right, so when it came time to select potential cosmonauts for what they were calling the Vostok program, Soviet positions insisted that the candidates be qualified Air Force pilots, which if you think about it is actually kind of weird because like nobody was going to fly the space capsule, at least nobody who

was in it, it was just going to be strapped on a rocket and all the pilot had to do is sit tight and hope not to die. But the insisted that Air Force pilots had relevant skills like exposure to high G forces and familiarity with injection seats, both of which is relatively easy to catch up on. Yeah, exactly. A lot for, but yes, but there was also some more sensible qualifications they used like intelligence, fitness, and comfort and high stress situations. They also had to be men between 25 and 30 years old, couldn't be taller than 175 centimeters. It's five nine and couldn't weigh more than 72 kilos or 150.

Oh, I agree. Yeah, it's five nine and couldn't weigh more than 72 kilos or 150. I agree. Yeah. It's fun. Every airline since makes the seats and coats just like a Russian rocket for 1961, right? I like that. It's fun for me. I have to get in like a moving a couch through a hobbit door. Sometimes we have to gate check in. So in all the Soviet program interviewed 200 pilots that met the criteria and by interview I mean asked a bunch of questions sure, but then sent them to this grueling battery of physical tests that seem designed to see how much vomit they could produce. Ah man, I miss my calling. What do they were? They weren't looking for the most vomit.

Ah withdrawn then withdrawn. they weren't looking for the most vomit. Withdrawal then, withdrawal. Okay, all right, and know it to be fair. There is no amount of money I wouldn't pay to watch Eli endure quote, a grueling battery of fat. Yes. Yes. I, I had the little G-Force machine, okay. Pay the honor call.

The Lula does not. Comes in, you're not true. Two five burpees. Yeah. Yeah. It's a Lula. I got a formula baby, man. That's a Lula. and not two five burpees. Yeah. Absolutely. I got a formula, baby, man, that's a little. All right.

So in all 29 people were approved by the military positions, 20 of whom were deemed sufficiently loyal to the state to be selected. We were full third. And we're just like, I'm just not that into you. I just like the physical abuse of the system. No, like a third of them had a like, I'm just not that into you. I just like the physical abuse of the physics. No, like a third of them had a grandmother that was Ukrainian, right? So like, yeah. So and while they weren't told at the time that this was about flying into space, they were being selected for intelligence. So it's safe to say that they'd pretty much all

figured it out by the time they get to the end of the process. These guys are getting shot out of a catapult and they're unlooked at resumes. It's just a cloud of papers behind these pictures. You know what? Why did they run those guys through the tests? Like they were already off the list because of right-wing these two of them. That's a lot of cheek skull. Lidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlidlid make a little puke too, I guess. So, okay, so in January of 1960, the USS are established the Cosmonaut Training Center,

doom America to the far less cool sounding astronaut, is we're a bunch of pricks that couldn't just use the name that the guys who invented Cosmonaut and came up with even if it dooms our space guys to have ass in their job by all forever. Now, the resources were limited as were the trainers. So it was decided that rather than trying to train all 20 people together, they'd select the top six candidates

for accelerated training. The men selected would be known as the Vanguard six. Oh, yeah, I would really inspire a lot of confidence, huh? Oh, hey, so we're gonna like, got about 500,000 gallons of rocket fuel under your ass and shoot you into space at a speed of about five miles a second, but uh, it was sure not cash for the project. So we're going to make some pie sure. Yeah, we're doing a lot of fun. Like I said, we have the balls, the leaf. Now from

all accounts, it seems like the from the beginning, the job was your reach to lose. During the training, there were several points where each candidate would be asked like to secretly vote for the person other than themselves that they thought was most qualified. Gagarin won all of those votes by wide margins and on April 9th of 1960 the head of Cosmonaut Trading made it official. Yuri Gagarin would be the first man in space or he would blow though fuck up. Or maybe both. Yeah. Vernon had his fuse up there alone. But before we find out, they are going to limit the number down again.

It's about fucking time. I hope they get rid of puke tube over here, right? Puked tube? Yeah, you're a look we get it. Huh? Hey, hey, I ever tell you guys about the time I photo a bunch of Nazis when I was nine. You have your, yep. Okay, I'm gonna tell it again, just in case anyone hasn't hear it. So there I am, right? I'm nine years old.

Gentlemen, gentlemen. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, right. I have gone over your secret ballots for who you'd most like to see launched into space. And Yuri, your comrades have chosen you for every whole each and every I have gone over your secret balance for who you'd most like to see launched into space. And Yuri, your comrades have chosen you for every whole each and every poll. So you will be the first cosmonaut in the atmosphere. Fuck yes, you guys love me. I do it.

Oh, I'm sorry, sir. Are you saying that when you asked who we wanted launched into space human literally? Because like that's the mission. That's right. That's what was on the balance. Yes. Oh Any chance I could vote again just in case new information There is no need for that comrade. It's obvious. You're the man for the job Fuck yeah, I am hey Gonna miss you most of all, you two. Okay, enjoy space. And we're back. When we left off, it was almost zero hour.

9 AM. Well, after no, it was already high as a kite button. Yeah. All right. Okay. So a quick word on how stupid fucking dangerous this was. I mean, like all of us have been alive long enough to see that blowing up as an occupational hazard for astronauts, right? The last major accident we had in the US was in 2003 with a space program that was four decades

old and then some. Literally. Right. So even today, the fatality rate of astroslash cosmonauts is 3.2%. Woo. Yeah, about one out of every 33 people who has ever tried to go to space, died during that trip. And it's not like this Evan Devar started at peak safety, right?

Like, by 1961, Russia had launched 24 spacecraft, 12 of them blew up on the launch path. In Soviet Russia, ahead and flaps you. I look at the plan for this rocket and I would literally have preferred a Wily Coyote drawing that was yours. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,

yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes down at the end of the parachute ride. I'm pretty sure they drew a flat neck dead guy. Yeah. People clearly dead. He's put the picture in the show notes and it really really looks like that. They didn't even get a guy who could draw Alright, but so here's the fuck up thing up. It's so mean. It's so mean. So here's the fuck up thing up.

Seriously, this is like, Rocket goes like, and then you just fucking, I don't know, you got the sad like, that's the picture I'm looking at. I will use it as the show for the episode. Just look at the episode image and you will see how I will use it.

Fucking amazing. It's got the optic. It looks like it's hastily drawn on a back of a napkin. Right. It genuinely looks like a back of a napkin. So the guy right before the really weirdo said somebody the space meeting was like, like this, like this, like this.

This actually is doing coke and drinking a bunch of bar and being like, no, no, I'm gonna do space flight. Look at his, look at his drawing on this napkin. I'm the head of the Russian space. All right. So, but now here's the most fucked up part. Like so blowing up on the launch pad was actually one of the best worst case scenarios, right? Because like in that instance, it's like five, four, three, dead. You don't even know, you don't even know that two is missing. In spaceflight, there are all kinds of worst ways to go. Take, for example, the retro rocket. Okay, so the spacecraft that Yuri's gonna be

in the Vostok one doesn't have a lot of rocket power on its own. It's being strapped on the top of a rocket that has a rocket under it that has four rocket strapped to the side. No, no. Are you sure these were rocket scientists? Look at the drawing, dammit. or rocket strap to the no no rock but

but so but that's how the rocket is fucking power to have the space craft is power it has a couple of the thrusters to keep the spin under control itself but its main thruster is this retro rocket and that has just enough to slow spacecraft out enough so that it'll fall back to Earth.

But because of weight constraints, there is no backup on that. I'm like, what? Well, it fails to fire. He just keeps orbiting. It's not totally infinite, no? No, it would decay. They put a 10 day supply of food and water on board with him in the hopes that should the retro rocket fail. The natural degradation of his orbit would bring him down within like a week and a half or so. But again, 10 days was chosen because

that's how much weight they could focus on. That's how long they thought it would take. He's just cutting weight the day before like the MMA fight. He's a nice guy. I'm bringing these fucking cliff bars to you. Been asshole. And this is rope, the sheet rope that I made. No, there's also the minor problem work up here. No, it's just pointless. It's actually comfortable. I like this. This is okay. I like this. Thank you from. No, okay. So, so this minor problem of communication. So we didn't exactly have the level of international cooperation and spaceflight that we have come to expect today. In later post-acmission, the Soviets would keep

planes in the air all around the world so they could communicate directly with the cosmonauts. But in Yuri's case, they were just relying on ground stations and all of those ground stations were located in the USSR. That meant for a substantial chunk of his journey, he was just on his own. Okay, we're going to shoot you out of this cannon, but we won't be able to talk to you mid-flight. That's gonna be a problem for you. Yeah, man, I think in space, you're on your own no matter who you're chatting with. I have a problem.

Right, in space. You are not here to help. Okay, right, right, no, but keep in mind that they're the one steering as fucking ship, right? So a little to the ground. Yeah, it's too high up in space. I've both guessed it. I'm not doing it. Why do people think it did not?

It's crazy. It's crazy people. All right. So after a training regimen that he later compared to training for the Olympics, the day of the launch arrives April 12th of 1961, 60 years and two days ago, the day before the whole launch assembly, that is the six ballistic missiles that have been strapped together with a tiny little house on top, which we into position and visually inspected and they chose 907 as the launch time. 907? Why not not in a clock? Let's see, this is why Elton John wasn't singing about you. He was doing a lot of things. 907 and a little bit to lyrics. They just doesn't flow. The sun over

Africa would be ideal at that moment for them to calibrate their instruments. Anyway, but that morning, Yuri was visibly scared, chillous. He was examined by a doctor prior to the flight who later recalled, quote, Gagarin looked more pale than usual. He was on a social Russian. Yeah, right. Exactly.

Yeah. So why does a fucking sheet? Yeah. Continuing the quote, he was unsocial and quiet, which was not like him at all. He would answer by nodding or a short yes to all questions. Sometimes he would start humming some tunes. This was a different Gagarin. We geared him up and hugged and I said, Yuri, everything will be fine. And he nodded back and, and then he blinked out, help me and more. Yeah, I hugged him and said, Oh, yeah, is he going to be fine?

I'll tell you what then Doc, why don't you get on top of the problem. I'll give you a hug and tell you. Okay, I think this is for ground control. Come on. Yeah, right. All right. So one of the unknown variables here is weightlessness. So, okay, so a lot of people get this right. You're not weightless in space because there's no gravity out there. You're weightless because you're in orbit.

Technically orbit is just a very stylish form of falling. So the appearance of weightlessness comes from the same place it comes from when a person skydives. You're already going the same speed as gravity would pull you. But acceleration, you do gravity. Yeah, speed of gravity would pull you. Acceleration, due to gravity. Yeah, speed of gravity is the speed of light. At the time, but at the time, they didn't know what that would do to the human body. There was fear, for example, that it would deform the shape of your eyes and you would

be temporarily or even permanently blinded if you were up there too long. There was a fear that it would fuck with the circulation of your blood and make you pass out. And there was a list of concerns like that, a myel fucking long. So the solution that the Russians came up with was a fully automated system that would be controlled by people on the ground. So again, the vast majority of Gagarras job really was

just not die. Okay, don't worry buddy, if your eyes explode, we got your shift covered, so. That's pretty cool. Here is just like, seems like we could do a run of this with hear me out without me in it. Right? Maybe a dog. I hear Americans are doing a month.

Eli, I think you are severely overestimating the value of individual Soviet lives. Like this is the people who would just want a war. They should not have won by just throwing human kindling on top of the fire until they smothered it in screams. I'm scared. Didn't they lie about that dog? They sent Leica to space and then they pretended that Leica didn't get burned up by some sort of like super hot.

They were like, no, he was cool. He had a very, very, very hot farm. Some of his badger, he's clearly good boy. So he's going to be a long, long time. So. All right. So they took the garden into the ship about 10 minutes after 7 a.m. And then he would sit there for what had to be the longest two hours in the history of any goddamn body's life.

Well, they run all their systems checks and everything, but somehow he managed to stay calm throughout his medical data is still available. And apparently his post never went above 64 B. What? It's impressive. Right. Like mine went over that reading about this. Yeah.

I just looked at my Fitbit. My heart rate hit 119 opening a can of Pringles to heart. All right. All right. So the main engine fired at 907 and Yuri famously shouted instead of like the affirmative or whatever, he shouted, Poi Akali, which I've seen that translated a half dozen ways, but it basically means like, let's do this shit. Okay.

It was a very common man expression that means like let's roll and it reassured the Soviet propaganda machine that they had chosen the right guy. Okay, Moscow 907. Yolo. You're fired. You're fired. You're fired. You're fired.

You're fired. You're fired. You're fired. You're fired. You're fired. You're fired. You're fired. You're fired.

You're fired. You're fired. You're fired. You're fired. You're fired. You're fired. You're fired. They low shroud fell away and uncovered a window at Gagarin's feet. Yes, unlike the Americans, they thought of putting a window in the first one. He reported, quote, I can see the earth, the visibility is good. I almost see everything end quote in all the mission lasted one hour and 48 minutes long enough for your a to complete a single full orbit of the planet. So the retro rocket's fired perfectly, which is fucking awesome because based on the orbital path, he was on there's no goddamn way. He would have come down in 10 days. After the retrofire, the reentry module, which they call the little ball separated from the main surface. Well, but so here's the thing, it separates from the main module,

or at least it was supposed to a bundle of wires failed to separate and caused a whole contraption It gyrate like hell all the way down before they broke way now the reentry module was a little ball So that chariomest didn't fuck up anything except for the g-forces that the that Gagarin felt on the way down But somehow displayed eight to ten g-was the fuck you managed to stay conscious holy shit Okay, but somehow just played eight to 10 G was a man to stay conscious. Holy shit. Okay, but did he put his hands in the air? Right, right, right. I just do it. It's a car. The ref is on fire. It's on fire.

All right. So the main parachute deployed at 10.55 am 10 minutes later, Gagarin was safely on the ground. And I love this detail. So God damn much. This is so USS are the only witnesses to the event were a farmer and his daughter who just watched a giant metal ball descend from the heavens. Now needless to say, would a dude pops out in a space suit and freaked him the fuck out. But he calmed the down told him he was a Russian dude

It was a problem and then he asked to where the nearest telephone was because that was their goddamn reaction When you land find a phone Three stewed you shit trying to get his space suited to the phone booth He turns himself sideways and he's bouncing off the side Oh so many pockets but none for change Now there was actually some mystery about the landing for a while so the Soviet government was concerned that your Reckards might not count because at the time the world's governing body for setting standards and keeping records for aircraft required that a pilot land with their vehicle. Right? So Yuri ejected from the main vehicle and parachuted down in a landing module,

a fact that they just admit it. They didn't mess up about that in fact until they launched Vostok 2 and had to kind of let the world see how they did it, because the US had already done that. So ultimately ultimately the, Ely, you have better French pronunciation than me. The, Thank you. Federation,

I don't know, peak in, thank you exactly. Christy. They ultimately adjusted the rule so that all of your Rees records would still count. That's such a dick move though, before they did that. Like he literally orbited the planet in a missile and got back alive.

And some French guys reading the inside of the board game box being like, sorry, that technically for free parking, it's just a free spot. They had to change the rules. Otherwise they have to tell a guy who fought not seasons instead of go to fourth grade. And he didn't win their prize. Every French guy they found to make that call just surrendered on site instead. All right. Now, of course, this was a huge PR coup for the Soviet government.

There was a very clear race between them in the US to reach this milestone, and they won by a lot. They celebrated the accomplishment with the biggest parade the nation had seen since the end of the second world war. Yuri was an international celebrity as well, traveling to 30 countries in the year following his first flight. The list of countries by the way, very conspicuously does not include the US, where President John Afghani, Bard Gagarin, from visiting to us due to his overwhelming popularity.

All right. So by all accounts, the international celebrity and the touring schedule made something of a chubby drunk out of him. He's stories. He's still watching the international celebrity. That's right. That being said, he was still an integral part of the Soviet space program. He was ultimately named the backup for Soyuz-1. And given his unique experience in his relationship with the mission's pilot Vladimir Comorov, he was given the job of actually relaying information from ground control. Unfortunately for Comorov, most of what Gagarin had to relay was of the O-Fuck variety.

Comorov's capsules parachutes failed to open and it crashed landed and Kamarov was killed instantly. Well, I want to turn it my report does. Oh, I have 13 or 14 A's in. I'm not sure. Oh, so let me mention the Anvil in the ship. What was there? Anvil.

All right. So, but after that, the Soviet government barred Gagarin from having any involvement in any future space flight. Right. They recognized the PR disaster. It would be if the hero of the Soviet Union met a fate like Comarovs. So they gave him a nice cushy job and a desk with nice rounded corners. They wouldn't even let the motherfucker pilot aircraft anymore.

It actually didn't sit well with Yuri. He wanted to risk his life. He was that kind of fucking guy. He pushed hard against it. He understood there was nothing he was going to do to get back in space, but he figured he could at least still pilot aircraft. Eventually, he managed to talk the powers that be into reversing at least that decision, and he was reinstated to fly in February of 1968.

Barely a month later, well while on a routine training flight, Gagarin's plane went down in bad weather. He and the flight instructor accompanying him were both. From the way down he's like, yep, it's 14 A's. 14 A's in, ah. So now, Yuri's death was as mysterious as it was tragic and there have been conspiracy theories about it in Russia ever set. Interesting.

So there was a second plane involved somehow in the crash and even today the name of that plane's pilot has never been really shocking. Shocked. George Bush. Thank you. No. So a lot of people actually suspected Brezhnav of ordering the death after wearing the Gagarin was overshadowing him at public events.

And that would not actually be out of character for Brezhnav at all. Um, still the consensus to the extent that there is one is that it was a tragic accident that likely stemmed from the Soviet tendency to classify shit that did not need to be fucking classified so much so that two classified planes might have been crossing through the same place at the same time. So now Gagarin has been given basically every award to Soviet government and the Russian government that proceeded and had to offer.

And in death, he was memorialized or brown the world. And given that it was Yuri Gagarin, he's also been memorialized off the world. In 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin placed memorial medals commemorating Gagarin and Kamarov on the surface of the moon. Allegedly. But don't you know, there's a thing for you.

He's so proud of you. And if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be? Poyakali. Ha ha ha ha. Thank you all though. Are you What would it be? Poyakali. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. That's a big yellow. Are you ready for the quiz? Poyakali.

All right Noah. It's a little known fact that Yuri brought his favorite snack onto the shuttle with him. What is the name of that snack? A, just one am. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I'm so good snitchers. See, airhead. All right, all right, or D no longer Swedish fish. All right, just based solely on how proud you were of yourself going into it, I'm going

to have to go with a just one. Thank you. All right Noah, with the Soviets lacked in resources or expertise, they made up for in disdain for human life and sheer balls. So which of the below is a real Soviet era military project? Oh Jesus Christ. Hey, the combat mole, a combat land submarine that perished through the earth and mountains

instead of the sea. They made one, it worked and subsequently exploded. Nice. Yeah, B, the hovercraft tank, a tank that finally answered the question, what if tanks floated kind of? See, the Soviet laser pistol, which was less of a laser and more of a really bright flash ball that you pointed at your enemies while fighting them in space, or the T55 Prograv-T,

which was a tank with a jet engine on the face of it instead of a gun, a clear landmines by huffing and puffing and pulling them down. That's a clever. Oh, God, those are amazing. I should point out that the last person to die in the Russian space program, 1971. So slightly ever so slightly reject the premise, but all of these are amazing. So I'm going to go with secret answer. E they hated every. That is of course always they haven't had a death since 1971. Is that what you said?

That's the last the last death in the Russian space program. Man, we're kind of losing that part of that. Oh yeah. That's a lot of work. We're the ones keeping it at 3.2%. Yeah, no, but the reason is because the space shuttle was a stupid fucking idea and we killed a lot of people before we were willing to admit that. One more question for you Noah. What was five foot to Yuri Gagarin's nickname in flight school? A high chair force.

Pee. And. Fantastic. F 15. C. No. C. No. No. C.

Small timidr. Or D. Hey, sought-off top gun. That's a nice one. Sorry. All right, those are all phenomenal as I've come to expect, but I've got to like, I've got to throw my love towards B. F-15. Oh, I'm sorry, it's sought off Top Gun.

Sorry, now, you're close. You're close. Regardless, Cecil was gonna be the winner that I was fed next week. Yeah. All right, well Tom, you're doing it next week. I'm sorry. All right, what?

All right, well, for Tom Noah, Cecil and Eli, I'm Heath, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week, and by then, Tom will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can go Tom and Cecil on cognitive distance And you can hear Eli knowing myself on God off movies the skating atheist skeptic rat and D&D minus and if you'd like to Haggle yourself up from our price of zero Patreon.com slash citation pod and if you'd like to get in touch with us listen past episodes connect with the Sun social media or take a look at the show notes check out citation pod. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, listen to past episodes, connect with the Sun social media, or take a look at the show notes, check out citation me. Yes. Yes. Of course you fuck your ass I did.

You guys like that? That's my new thing. I told you it while I was in space. You fuck your ass I did. I'm gonna have shorts made I was thinking. Really glad you're alive. Yeah. Yeah, you fuck your ass I'm alive.