Gherman Titov’s Day-Long Flight Proved Humans Can Live in Space

By Bob Granath

Soviet Air Force Major Gherman Titov became the second person in orbit, spending an entire day circling the Earth in 1961. Since he was able to sleep in space, it proved humans could not only work in the weightless environment, but live there too. However, in doing so, Titov also became the first to oversleep in space.

Following the success of Yuri Gagarin’s single orbit flight and 15-minute sub-orbital trips into space by American astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom, Soviet space officials had to determine what larger step they should take next.

Read more about the first human spaceflight.

When those leading cosmonaut training narrowed down the candidates for the first spaceflight to Gagarin or Titov, it was believed the latter was the stronger of the two. Titov was best suited for the second flight – Vostok 2 — planned for a much longer time in space.

That was the easy decision.

Russian rocket and spacecraft control systems designer Boris Chertok explained there was not universal agreement on the length of the follow-on mission. Chief Designer Sergei Korolev, the guiding genius behind the Soviet space program, wanted an extended flight. Soviet Air Force Gen. Nikolai Kamanin, head of cosmonaut training, argued for a shorter mission.

One of the founding fathers of Soviet and Russian spaceflight, Chertok wrote of the conflict in his 1999 memoir, Rockets and People: Hot Days of the Cold War, re-published in 2009 by the NASA History Division.

“Flight duration was the problem that caused a heated argument between Korolev and the Air Force brass,” he said. “After consulting with the medical professionals, Korolev insisted that the flight last at least 24 hours. Relying on the authority of those same medical professionals, Kamanin exercised caution and proposed no more than three orbits (about five hours).”

The final decision to go for a 17-orbit flight, totaling a full day in space, was the eventual choice based on the practical aspects of where the spacecraft would land.

If the mission flew three orbits, the capsule would come down in the wide-open steppes of southern Russia. The landing site moved farther west with each revolution around the Earth. Orbits eight through 13 would bring the spacecraft down in the Pacific Ocean, progressing in succeeding orbits to remote areas of Siberia. It turned out a full 24 hours in space was required to make it possible to land in the desired recovery area of Russia.

Gherman Titov

Titov was born Sept. 11, 1935 in the village of Verkhneye Zhilino near Kazakhstan. In 1953, he was accepted to the Stalingrad Flying Academy for aviation cadet training, graduating in 1957 as a jet fighter pilot.

Titov was selected as a cosmonaut in 1960. During a training course for spaceflight, he received the Order of Lenin medal for an engineering proposal.

As options were considered for Titov’s tasks during the fight, mission planners did not want the cosmonaut to be just a “guinea pig.” He was given a substantial workload.

“Titov was supposed to test manual control of the spacecraft twice, perform visual observations through the windows and note what he saw,” said Chertok. He also would “conduct VHF communications sessions during each pass over the USSR, shortwave sessions two times per hour, perform calisthenics; eat lunch and dinner and finally, sleep.”

Russian experts believed that sleep was one of the most important experiments.

“If a person could sleep in space in a spacesuit in weightlessness without a comforter and pillows,” Chertok said, “that meant he could live and work.”

‘I Am Eagle!’

Titov and his backup, cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev, were awakened early on Aug. 6, 1961. They donned their spacesuits and were transported to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Liftoff took place at 11:00 a.m. local time with the launch vehicle’s performance termed as “almost flawless.”

“I am Eagle!,” Titov announced during his assent to space, noting his radio call sign.

The Vostok 2 spacecraft was placed in a 114 by 152-mile orbit around the Earth.

Numerous modifications were made to Vostok 2 spacecraft based on the experiences of Gagarin’s flight. The upgrades allowed it to remain in space for at least a week if necessary. The changes increased the reliability and operational ease of radio communications. Telemetry system was supplemented by a signal system. The short-wave radio served as the spacecraft’s direction finder and provided backup transmission of the vital data about Titov’s health.

As planned, Titov took manual control of the capsule’s attitude for a time as he passed over Africa on his first orbit and would again at the end of the seventh orbit. He reported that the controls functioned well.

Titov also exchanged greetings with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as Vostok 2 passed over Russia at the end of his first orbit.

“We installed a more ‘respectable’ television system,” Chertok said. “Frankly, we were all somewhat embarrassed about the television broadcasts of Gagarin’s flight.”

The TV camera transmitted pictures of a smiling Titov’ as he passed over the Soviet Union during the fifth orbit. His reports indicated all was going as hoped.

“I’m withstanding weightlessness very well,” Titov said.

“He was putting up a brave front,” Chertok said. “Later he confessed that he was slightly nauseated and had motion sickness.”

Titov was the first person to suffer from space adaptation syndrome or space sickness. It is a condition experienced by as many as half of all space travelers during their first hours in weightlessness.

“Particularly unpleasant sensations occurred when he moved his head abruptly,” Chertok said. “His assignments to shoot film footage and observe Earth through the windows required movement. Titov learned to ward off dizziness by adopting a calm, deliberate posture.”

‘I’m going to sleep.’

During the seventh orbit, Titov settled down to rest.

“You can do whatever you want. I’m going to sleep,” he said.

“Once you have your arms and legs arranged properly, space sleep is fine,” Titov said in his 1962 autobiography, I Am Eagle. “I slept like a baby.”

During the next five orbits, lasting several hours, Vostok 2 did not pass over a Russian tracking station.

Chertok also took time off from his mission control console, returning on what was early Aug. 7.

“A slight panic had begun,” he said. “Titov did not respond to calls.”

The lack of reports from the Kamchatka and Ussuriysk tracking stations in eastern Russia had Korolev believing the absence of communications with the cosmonaut had to be someone’s fault.

“Your soldiers and officers have fallen asleep,” he complained to the duty officer for the military unit in charge of the Soviet ground communications.

“Everything turned out to be simple,” Chertok said. “It wasn’t the soldiers and officers who fell asleep, it was the cosmonaut. It became clear that not only can one sleep in space, but also one can oversleep.”

Titov awakened 37 minutes after the scheduled end of his sleep period.

“Right then and there, I was assigned to develop design specifications for the clock-making industry to produce a space alarm clock,” Chertok said.

The next “nerve-racking” experience for those in the Russian mission control center came during the firing of the retro rocket and landing.

There was a repeat of the off-nominal situation that occurred during re-entry of Gagrin’s Vostok. When the descent module, with Titov aboard, separated from the equipment module, a thick bundle of cables did not disconnect. The two sections briefly gyrated until aerodynamic heating seared through the cables.

“In the dense atmospheric layers, the cable burned up, and then everything proceeded normally,” Chertok said.

As was the case for Gagarin and all subsequent Vostok cosmonauts, Titov ejected from the capsule as planned and parachuted separately to land at 10:18 a.m. Moscow Time on Aug. 7, 1961, near the town of Krasny Kut, Russia, 612 miles southeast of Moscow.

“Everything ended well, but during the two-parachute descent, cosmonaut number two landed just 10 meters or so from a railroad on which a train was traveling at that time,” Chertok said. “It was proposed that a Ministry of Railways representative be included on the State Commission to coordinate the railroad schedules with (future) launch programs.”

Local residents soon drove Titov to the nearest regional office of the Communist Party. He telephoned Moscow and reported that the mission had been accomplished. The Vostok 2 mission completed 17 orbits and lasted 25 hours and 18 minutes.

As was the case following Gagarin’s flight, a triumphal parade and rally was held two days later in Moscow’s Red Square.

Cosmonautics Day

Even though he was chosen to fly second, Titov was so impressed by the festivities following Gagarin’s flight that he proposed the Soviet government annually commemorate Cosmonautics Day on April 12. It is observed today in Russia as one of the nation’s official Commemorative Dates. In 2011, the United Nations established the date as the International Day of Human Space Flight.

“The historical significance became clear only on April 14, 1961, when we were invited onto Red Square and I saw an ocean of people screaming, smiling, all happy and singing songs,” Titov said in a 1999 interview.

Following Vostok 2, Titov continued to work for the Soviet space program and was a test pilot flying aircraft such as the MiG-21, 23 and 27. He also played a major role in developing the Spiral Project in which he trained to become the first pilot of an orbital spaceplane.

After the death of Gagarin in an aircraft accident in 1968, government leaders determined the nation could not afford to lose another cosmonaut hero, thus ending his career as a test pilot.

Titov remained in the Soviet Air Force, reaching the rank of colonel-general. He also served in senior positions in the Russian space program until his retirement in 1992.

Following the fall of the Soviet Union, Titov was elected in 1995 to the State Duma as a member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. The Duma is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia,

Titov died in Moscow on Sept. 20, 2000, at the age of 65.

Looking back on the historical significance of Vostok 2, Boris Chertok put it in perspective.

“Despite the many subsequent successful and impressive piloted flights, I feel that Gherman Titov was the first to prove that it was possible to live and work in space,” he said. “Gagarin’s single-orbit flight was a historic breakthrough. This (Vostok 2) flight convinced us engineers that a well-trained cosmonaut could be trusted a great deal more than we had assumed. Titov’s 25-hour flight blazed the trail into space for mankind, not just for fighter pilots.”

© 2021 SpaceAgeChronicle.com All Rights Reserved