How to Drive a Vostok Spaceship

Yuri Gagarin was the first astronaut who ever went into space and there is a new type of museum which has been opened to feature various objects from the space program, one of them is the dashboard for the Vostok spacecraft in which Gagarin flew.  (RT:  Amazing HQ pics of iconic Soviet era space objects added to Russian-made ‘Wikipedia of things’)

Gagarin and other cosmonauts were able to see the light mark on the globe, showing its position relative to the Earth’s surface and the projected landing point given the cycle of descent at a given time.

- Thngs.co

Note:  this article is in three parts with a Then and a Now section and one more.  The start of the second and third sections is highlighted.

NASA astronauts were said to be furious about the 'spam in a can' approach to piloting the Mercury spacecraft which NASA first employed.  NASA gave the astronaut no particular control over the spacecraft and the astronaut was really just along for the ride.  The astronauts are said to have told them to change it or we're not going to fly.

It doesn't look like the Russian engineers gave their astronauts that option since there's only one knob on the entire thing.  Maybe it's to open and close the sunroof.  We don't know.

Here's the Vostok 3KA spacecraft, the one used by the Russians for the first six of their manned space flights.

Vostok "Sharik"

The Vostok 3KA was the spacecraft used for the first human spaceflights. They were launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome using Vostok 8K72K launch vehicles.  The first flight of a Vostok 3KA occurred on March 9, 1961.  The first flight with a crew -- Vostok 1 carrying Yuri Gagarin—took place on April 12, 1961.  The last flight -- Vostok 6 carrying the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova—took place on June 16, 1963.

A total of 8 Vostok 3KA spacecraft were flown, 6 of them with a human crew.

-  WIKI:  Vostok (spacecraft)

That orbiter looks extremely rough so presumably it is one which was never completed.  How did they ever get a man or a woman inside there.

Note:  the article has substantial detail about the entire Vostok program.

Back then the space race was a straight-up sprint by Russia and America to be the first to do anything and there was one exceptional thing after the other.  That was quite exciting to behold and it continued until America landed on the Moon.  After that the programs started differentiating from each other and America took a clear lead.

Now we have high level international dynamics in space and Russians seem to make the best heavy rocket boosters short of the giant used in NASA's current Orion program.  International heavies have sought those Russian boosters and Orbital ATK from America is one of them.  (WIKI:  Orbital ATK)

Orbital ATK launched a supply vessel to the International Space Station from Virginia about a month ago and it will perform another launch from Cape Canaveral in a few days.  Unknown which boosters they used for these launches since they use American-made Delta boosters as well but there's quite a bit of incestuous interplay between major defense contractors since Boeing and Lockheed Martin are part of it in some way and Russian boosters have been part of their launch services too.

Where this gets interesting is China is now also a customer.  (RT:  China wants to buy Russian rocket engines as BRICS boosts space cooperation)

Just as with America, China has a highly-credible space program of its own but still it seems they have substantial in Russian boosters to put their vehicles into space instead of using their own.

Russia has been performing global launch services for quite a few years in launching the heaviest orbiters but they have confined their development of orbiters to improvements on the Soyuz which is used to deliver astronauts to the ISS.  The demand for those heavy boosters has been consistent and now China seems to adopt the same strategy of using Russian boosters to orbit spacecraft of their own.

This article is not to compare relative aspects of supremacy and we saw that anyway with the original space race.  In this time, the interest is in specialization in which Russia seems to emerge as the Big Dawg for the heavy booster segment of the market.  Meanwhile, NASA is finalizing Orion, the next evolution in huge boosters but Russia is more focused toward long-term and highly-reliable launch services at a somewhat different level.  This is a different type of evolution and carries some intrigue as it develops for where will it go next.

You have just seen where this started with Vostok in 1961 so take a look at it now and there's evolution before your eyes.

Since that sounded so much like the Science Guy, 

... we need the intimate personal anecdote about the time.

Ed:  well, no.  We really don't need one.

Sure, we do, Agent 99.  Roll with it.

My ol' Dad would wake the entire family for every single one of the Mercury launches during the space race with the Russians.

This is making history and it's the future, damn it.  Enjoy it ... or not ... but you will get out of bed.

There was one tiny problem with the protocol since the launches took place at Cape Canaveral in Florida ... but we were in California, four hours behind.  To get up to watch the launch sequence from the first start of coverage meant getting up at four a.m. and you are going to get some bitching and moaning from the children over that.

More accurately, my ol' Mother would get the bitching and moaning to which she would give the perennial response:

You better get up since you don't want your father coming up here.

The sibs may contest the details and go for it if you like since I'm not all that sure but I believe attendance was mandatory.  We will all gather in the living room and we will watch history ... damn it.

And, damn it, we did.  For all the bitching fifty years ago, it's a treasured memory now although perhaps not with the sibs of whom Doc may have been the champion sleeper.

Watching those launches became so much a tradition that I didn't miss one until I was in the Army at about nineteen, maybe seven years later.

For all the bitching, those launches sometimes got us out of school and the 'rents also did things like taking a month off school so my ol' Dad could screw off around the country on a lecture tour which, coincidentally, also afforded the opportunity for quite a bit of kart racing.

Science doesn't make the big bucks but it's a whole lot more fun.