Sometimes it is nice to reflect on the dangerous work involving space flight. This stamp honors the Gagarin center for twenty years of training. Next year it will be 60 years and the center is still training cosmonauts, now under the auspices of Roskosmos, Russia’s civilian space corporation. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
When I spotted this stamp, I assumed I would be learning about Russian science fiction from the Soviet era. This mistake is reflective of the stamps design intention to inspire interest in the space program from the young. I am no longer young, but consider me inspired.
Todays stamp is issue A2302, a 6 Kopek stamp issued by the Soviet Union on September 15th, 1980. It depicts flight training. The Soviets issued 7 stamps that day, both for the Gagarin Center anniversary and also training going on at the time of potential cosmonauts from Cuba. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused.
The Gagarin Cosmonaut Center was set up in secret near Moscow as military unit 26266. It contained 250 personnel under a military doctor with the purpose of training military pilots for space travel. In addition to flight training, the cosmonaut candidates had to be taught to handle g forces and to operate in a weightless environment. Equipment included simulators of the mission vessels, a centrifuge to spin the cosmonaut so his body would adjust to high g forces. There were also airplanes that could replicate weighlessness, nicknamed the vomit comet.
Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in 1961. He was made a hero of the Soviet Union and traveled the world promoting the Soviet achievement. He was young, friendly, and approachable and did much to further the Soviet Space program. President Kennedy banned Gagarin from the USA however. This snub did not extend to American Apollo astronauts who were happy to meet with him at the 1965 Paris Air Show. In 1967, Gagarin was the backup pilot for the Soyuz 1 mission. That mission was ill fated and when the rocket crashed on reentry when the parachute failed to deploy, Gagarin’s cosmonaut future was reconsidered. He was banned from future missions to space but unfortunately still allowed to fly. 4 weeks later, Gagarin was killed in a training flight of a Mig 15UTI trainer when it got in a fatal spin in bad weather.
There have been many remembrances of Gagarin after his death. American astronaut Neil Armstrong left a satchel on the moon surface containing some of Gagarin’s medals. In 2011, on the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s space orbit, the Russian, Italian, and American crew of the International Space Station wore T shirt’s with Gagarin’s image in honor of “Yuri’s Night”. A recently put up statue of Gagarin was taken down in Belgrade, Serbia when the carver gave him a head that was insultingly small. We just don’t do good statues anymore. Gagarin’s cremated remains are forever interred in the walls of the Kremlin.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Yuri Gagarin and all his fellow Cosmonauts that have come through Gagarin’s Space Center. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.