Shooting for the Stars with Yuri and Deke

A magnificent Monument to the Conquerors of Space,
opened on April 10, 1981 to celebrate the 20th.
anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's feat as first man in space

Today, Thursday May 17, started slowly as we weren't scheduled to leave for our day until 2:30 p.m. with a visit, first, to the Cosmonaut Museum.   I remember being fascinated as a kid with the space race, and vividly remember my late brother, Dave (who was 6 years older than me), bringing his classmates over to our house to watch the Mercury launches on our little black and white television.   Mom made cookies and about 20 kids crowded around our living room to cheer on our astronauts as they reached for space. But, the US wasn't the first as this visit so clearly brought home.  

On the bus ride over to the Cosmonaut Museum, our guide, Tatianya, explained that the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki frightened the bejeesus out of the Russians who were certain that they were a warm up for the Russian homeland.   Consequently, they poured billions of rubles into their space program and getting the most out of the German rocket scientists (and their own) that they snatched from Berlin and Germany at the end of World War II.    (Perhaps in a case of crying over spilled milk, Tatiana claimed "The US got 2/3 and we got 1/3 of the scientists".)


Sputnik 1 struck fear in American hearts and
precipitated the space race, eventually won by the US



And, their work was productive.  Without benefit of having it in front of me, my favorite author, Stephen King, describes in Danse Macabre's "October 4, 1957, and an Invitation to Dance" that Americans were simply stunned when the Russians announced the launch of Sputnik. 

As the first artificial satellite, it launched into a low orbit and was visible all around the earth and its radio pulses readily detectable.  Its surprise success was labeled the “Sputnik Crisis” because two earlier attempts by the US (Vanguard) resulted in flaming disasters.  It brought home the continual threat the United States perceived from the Soviet Union since the Cold War began after World War II.  

Following a number of successful (and unsuccessful) flights to and from orbit with dogs, the Soviets scored another triumph ahead of the US - the first man in space as accomplished by Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet/Russian hero to this day.  Other firsts included two spacecraft docking (Soyuz 4 and 5), and the Mir space station.   Of course, the US beat them to the moon but only money problems presented the Russians from achieving it as a full-scale model of their lunar landing craft was on display.   And, again when Gorbachev checked their raging budget, he cut their space shuttle program whose vehicle looked remarkably like ours.

One of my favorite moments was near the end of the museum.  A large color portrait was shown of one of the first international flights between the US and Russia.  Front row, left, sat Deke Slayton who may be a footnote to most Americans, but to me he exemplified our stick-to-it-iveness.  

He was in the first group of astronauts (with Allan Sheppard, John Glenn, etc.) but missed his Mercury flight (the second) with a heart murmur.   Every mission after that would have the commentators remarking about the sad case of Deke Slayton who had never been in space because of missing his chance, and they'd show him seated in Mission Control, helping out.  But, he was not to be denied. 

In 1972, he was granted medical clearance to fly, and was assigned as the docking module pilot of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test project, becoming the oldest person to fly in space at age 51. His record was surpassed in 1983 by 53 year old John Young and in 1998 by his fellow Mercury astronaut John Glenn who at the age of 77 flew on the space shuttle. Hats off to American astronaut Deke Slayton!

I normally post about all a given day's events in one posting, but am breaking my own rule, and will write a second posting about our activities of the evening - "Moscow at Night" - as it deserves a few words and pictures of its own. . .  .coming next.