Soon after the belated separation of the two modules of the spaceship, the whirlwind rotation of the capsule lessens as the air outside thickens. He can hear a whistling, rushing sound. The capsule ball, too, recovers its alignment.
As the vessel slows down in the plunge through denser air, he can see clearly again. Outside the porthole, the pale blue sky seems almost normal, ready to welcome him back to Earth. He no longer believes he’ll black out.
“Ten thousand metres… Nine thousand… Eight…. Seven…”
Vostok 1 is directly above the Black Sea. Soon afterwards, Gagarin notices the Volga River shining in the daylight. It’s reassuring to see the landmark. He’s getting close to home. He even spots some of the fields and roads in the area where he’d first learnt to fly as a teenager.
Even though he’s plunging to Earth in a spaceship inside a column of fire that roars and hisses so loudly he can hardly hear himself think, he’s elated.
But Vostok 1 is still in grave danger.
CHAPTER TWENTY
AS THE ATMOSPHERE gets denser in the descent, it slows down the fall. The heat of re-entry begins to dissipate. Now, Gagarin braces himself for the shock ahead of the capsule hatch breaking open.
In those split seconds, the kaleidoscope of his memory seems to turn, replaying his life’s key events in rapid succession: an idyllic early childhood in the countryside brought to an abrupt and violent halt by the Nazi invasion of Russia, leaving home to become an apprentice in Moscow, his rise from amateur aviator to professional pilot, meeting and falling in love with his wife, the birth of his two children, his successes in the Soviet Air Force, the secret cosmonautical program… his selection as Cosmonaut One…
Then, at seven kilometres above the ground, the spaceship’s hatch explodes open. This is followed by a swirling rush of air into the cockpit which seems to be sucking him out.
Was that me? Did I just eject? he wonders.
Far below, a tractor driver, Yakov Lysenko, hears a crack in the sky and looks up. He heard a faint echo of the explosive bolts snapping the hatch open.
The small rockets under Gagarin’s chair ignite to fire him out into the turbulence, turning him into a human missile catapulted into the sky kilometres above the ground.
Wham, bang, that’s a beautiful feeling and an even more beautiful sight, the cosmonaut thinks.
Soon after ejection, the parachute, attached to the pilot’s seat, opens. The chair itself is jettisoned. After an initial jerk, Gagarin drifts gently downwards. He catches his breath and even manages a smile inside his airtight helmet. After the scare of the re-entry malfunction, he feels freer and happier than ever before in his life.
Just after his ejection, the ball which had carried him into space, and which had reached an altitude of four kilometres, blows open its parachute from a hatch, its canopy blooming like a giant orange mushroom cloud.
From time to time, the parachutist estimates the distance below him to Earth’s surface.
He’s literally and figuratively on top of the world.
He’s now floating into the view of humans going about their daily business in a world he knows well. He can see he’s descending towards a village called Smelkovka and its surrounding farmland. In fact, it’s not far from where he’d first learnt to fly the old Yak-18 fighter planes at the air club at Saratov, the place where he’d first fallen in love with aviation.
Gagarin’s life is coming full circle.
Two schoolgirls, Tamara Kuchalayeva and Tatiana Makaricheva, are walking through a nearby meadow, near the banks of the river, when they see a huge metal ball fall out of the sky. The strange object hits the ground so hard that it bounces back up into the air before returning to the surface again, where it rolls over onto its final resting position. Other children in the meadow witness the event and most of them run towards the space capsule.
Gagarin continues floating down for several more minutes, giving him time to collect his thoughts. He thinks ahead to the defence force’s retrieval operation. He envisages his reunion with the world. He wonders how his mission will be viewed in Russia and by humanity. And what will his family and friends say?
Then, for a time, he worries that the prevailing breeze might blow him into the Volga River below.
Meanwhile, the tractor driver, Lysenko, who was the first to spot the appearance of the descending Vostok 1 when it was still at high altitude, goes to the nearest village to report the incident.
Both the abandoned spacecraft and Gagarin land about 26 kilometres south west of a port town called Engels. They are 280 kilometres west of the planned landing site near Baikonur, where the lift-off had taken place earlier that morning.
A local forest warden’s wife, Anna Takhtarova, and her granddaughter, Rita, from the Leninsky Put collective farm, are weeding potatoes in a small piece of cultivated land. They are astounded to observe a man in a bright orange spacesuit and large white helmet landing near them onto a freshly ploughed field. Then, as he walks towards them, his parachute dragging behind him, they back away in fear. He becomes nervous, thinking they might mistake him for a spy.
It is 10.55 a.m., Moscow time. One hundred and eight minutes after launching, the mission commander is back on home soil. For the spaceman, it feels good.
“Don’t be afraid,” the apparition reassures them, removing his helmet, and smiling in intense happiness. “I’m a Russian, comrades. I’ve come from space.”
They can hardly believe their eyes and ears.
“Have you really come from outer space?” Anna asks.
“Just imagine it! Yes, I certainly have,” Gagarin answers.
Farm workers and machine operators from a nearby field come running towards the curious scene.
“It’s Yuri Gagarin!” they cry.
Overcome by the fellow-feeling emanating from the farm folk, he embraces and kisses them.
Soon afterwards, some soldiers and their commanding officer arrive in trucks. They, too, embrace and shake hands with the spaceman.
It has been a strong spring day in Russia. The blueness of the open sky around him is vivid and welcoming.
Then they all walk over to inspect the spaceship in a nearby ploughed field. Gagarin notices it has just missed crashing into a nearby ravine. He can hear the gushing water of an underground spring bubbling over the rocks.
The two girls, Tamara and Tatiana, have run over to see what it is. Other children, who’ve reached the scene before them, have taken tubes of cosmonaut’s food still left in the cabin and are eating this curious foodstuff, some fortunate enough to get some chocolate. Others are not so lucky, getting only dehydrated mash potato, which they promptly spit out. Other items from the cabin have already gone missing, from the survival kit and even the inflatable life-raft.
More farm workers arrive. Animals, by contrast, graze in the fields, incurious about the Space Age commotion.
Then the soldiers cordon off the spaceship as its pilot inspects it. He’s astounded to see that it is good enough shape to use again. Above all, he’s happy about the leap of technology made by Vostok 1 on this day.
Later, a small press conference is arranged, during which Yuri is peppered by the same kind of questions the farm workers and soldiers asked him.
“The day side of Earth was clearly visible – the coasts of continents, islands, big rivers, large surfaces of water,” he explains with all the patience of a teacher. “I saw a whole Earth, it’s spherical shape. The view of the planet’s edge was unique and pretty. And you can see the thin dividing line, like a spectrum, from the planet’s colours to the horizon and then a bluish film surrounding Earth. Then you get black space. The transition is very gradual and lovely.”