In All Its Glory

by johnnedwill

April 12 1961 - 0030UTC

The line of the terminator swept across the room, daylight replacing the nighttime darkness. Senior Lieutenant Gagarin stirred as the light touched his face, and raised his arm to shield his eyes. "Just a few minutes more," he mumbled.

His dozing was interrupted by a hammering at the bedroom's wooden door. "Comrade Lieutenant!" Gagarin tried to ignore it. "Comrade Lieutenant!" The voice was insistent, but polite.

Gagarin rolled out of his bed and sat up. "What?" he called out.

The door opened, revealing a young corporal. The soldier saluted smartly. "Comrade Lieutenant, it is it time to get up."

Gagarin nodded. "Thank you. I will be with you in a minute."

The corporal saluted again, then went back into the corridor and closed the door behind him.

It did not take Gagarin long to wash and dress. Still, when he emerged from his bedroom, Titov - his backup - was waiting for him. "Yuri Alekseyevich! Good morning!" He thumped Gagarin on the shoulder. "Did you sleep well?"

Gagarin stifled a yawn. "Good morning to you, Gherman Stepanovich. Very well, thank you."

The two set off down the brown, wood-panelled corridor to the mess hall, their escorts following close behind them. "A pity," Titov replied. "If you were tired, then maybe today I could be the pilot rather than the backup. But we shall see. Maybe there is still time for you to back out or for the medics to find you unfit for flight. Maybe then I could be the first man into space, eh?"

Gagarin smiled. "We shall see what the flight-surgeon says. But don't get your hopes up."

0300UTC

The bus was waiting to take the two cosmonauts to the launch pad. There were many launch pads scattered around the cosmodrome, linked together by a spider's web of silvery railway tracks and blacktop that ran across the dun-coloured desert. Like the others, launch pad 1-5 was a respectable distance from the barracks, assembly buildings and control rooms at the heart of the complex. Ordinary soldiers and technicians travelled in military trucks. Prospective heroes of the Soviet Union travelled by bus.

"Time to go," Titov remarked. it was the first time he had spoken to Gagarin since they had eaten breakfast together. Even then, the conversation had been awkward. The two men had been the centre of attention, everyone watching them as they ate. Titov, as usual, had tried to make light of the awkwardness of the situation, cracking jokes to relieve the tension. "The condemned men ate a hearty meal," he had said to the white-jacketed orderly who had brought them their food; but the orderly had just stared at them for a moment before hurrying away, embarrassed.

"No sense of humour," Titov muttered across the table.

After breakfast, the two men had been separated and sent to dressing rooms where they were given their final medical examinations and zipped into their pressure suits. They had met again at the vehicle park, where the bus was waiting to take them to Site 1-5 - the last place where one of them would touch the soil of Mother Russia before being hurled skywards atop a pillar of chemical flame.

"Time to go," Gagarin agreed.

The cosmonauts climbed the steps to board their transport. It was hard work. The suits they were wearing, the silver fabric concealed beneath orange coveralls, were bulky and unyielding. Every movement took an effort to overcome the resistance in the joints. It was with great relief that the two finally took their seats. The bus driver closed the door and pulled away. There was a commotion as a young man in a technician's uniform came out a building and ran after the bus. He caught up with it, and hammered on the door.n Gagarin recognised him as one of the men who had helped him into his suit. "Driver! Stop!" Gagarin ordered.

The driver slammed on the brakes, and the bus came to a juddering halt. The technician pulled open the door and clambered aboard the bus, his face red from his exertions. "Comrade Lieutenant," the technician began, and held out a white helmet towards Gagarin.

"Is there something wrong?" Gagarin asked.

"No, Comrade Lieutenant. It is just ... ." The technician held up the helmet. It was a twin of the one that Gagarin had on his lap, except that the letters 'CCCP' had been painted in red just above the visor. "We thought this would be appropriate - to let people know you are a citizen, not a Martian." The technician grinned. "Or worse - an American invader!"

Gagarin took the helmet and turned it around in his hands, inspecting it. "Thank you." He smiled at the technician.

"We had to make sure the paint was dry before giving this to you. We didn't want to foul the atmosphere in the capsule." The technician seemed to notice the other officials on the bus, staring at him with barely-concealed anger. "I apologise for the delay."

Gagarin looked at the others on the bus. "I am sure there will be no repercussions for your thoughtful and patriotic gesture." He stood up, shook the technician's hand and handed over his old helmet. The technician took a step backwards, saluted, then hurried off the bus.

Titov leaned across the aisle. "It's a pity there weren't any photographers here to record that. Imagine what it would have looked like on the front page of Pravda, eh?" he whispered, a sly smile on his face.

Gagarin shook his head. "Why would I want to cause him any more trouble? He's probably going to catch hell from his section leader for that."

"I suppose so." Titov sat back in his seat and turned his attention towards the flat landscape rolling past the window. Gagarin did likewise, but he was focussed on the silver needs of the 8K72K booster, its flanks gleaming in the light of the columnar sun.

0400UTC

"Last chance to say no, Yuri Alekseyevich." Titov was standing beside the open hatch of the Vostok-3KA, his gloved hand resting on the streamlined fairing that enshrouded the capsule.

Gagarin shook his head. "Not on your life. Now, give me a hand."

Titov helped his fellow cosmonaut slide into the seat that dominated the centre of the sphere. He waited while Gagarin strapped himself into place, then tugged at the man's harness. "Safe and secure. Just like when we were on the parachute training."

"Check your comrade's gear!" Gagarin reached up and back, cupping his hand over the crotch of Titov's suit.

"Hey!" Titov slapped Gagarin's hand away. "That's for my girlfriend - and only her!"

Gagarin blushed. "Sorry." He glanced around the cabin, taking in his surroundings. The instruments on the control panels were warming up, the mission controllers putting them through

their paces and testing their functions over the remote link. "You don't have to stay. It may be some time before -." The cosmonaut made a fluttering gesture with his left hand.

"I'll stay until they seal you into this coffin," Titov replied. "That way mine will be last face you see before they send you off." He paused, then leaned into the capsule so his face was scant centimetres from Gagarin. "What did Korolev give you?" Titov whispered. "I saw him hand you something."

Gagarin opened his right hand, to reveal a crumpled piece of paper. "Codes." He glanced up towards one of the control panels above him. "To unlock the systems. Just in case."

"And what will you do after that? We both took the same ballistics course. Once the rockets are expended, there is nothing you can do to change course. After that, it's all just the mathematics."

"I know." Gagarin shrugged. "But it seemed to make Korolev feel better. He was looking nervous."

"Of course he was! If his rocket works, then you are going to go higher than any man - ever! You'll go above the atmosphere, then come plummeting back down like a meteor. But there are so many things to go wrong."

"Perhaps." Gagarin reached out for the checklist that hung by a cord next to his seat. "Do you remember that exercise we did - the one where we had to calculate the escape velocity for different celestial bodies? You remember the theoretical part? 'Calculate the escape velocity for a spherical body.'"

Titov nodded. "I do. It was an interesting problem."

"You remember the solution the instructor showed us? The one where a projectile could stay in the same orbit forever?" Gagarin's eyes lit up in excitement.

Titov chuckled and slapped Gagarin's shoulder. "Yuri Alekseyevich! That is pure science- fiction, like in those American books. You are going to be the first Russian - Hell! the first man! - to go into space. Now that is science fact!"

Gagarin settled back into his seat. "I know. But a man can dream about what might have been, eh?"

"If you get back," Titan's tone was half-serious, half-joking, "I will get Leonov to lend you some good, Russian literature rather than that decadent Western trash."

"When." Gagarin turned on the capsule radio. Technical chatter came out of the speaker. "Now make yourself useful and help me with this checklist."

0605UTC

The capsule had been sealed, and Gagarin was now isolated inside it. Beneath him was the long, tapered cylinder of the 8K72K booster, its tanks filled with thousands of kilos of RP-1 and liquid oxygen. The radio on the console crackled at Gagarin. "Control to Pine. we are starting the pumps."

Gagarin felt the vibrations coming from somewhere below him, then looked at the lights on the control panel to confirm what the mission controller had told him. "Pine here. I have lights on for the pumps."

"Ignition - now!"

The whine of the pumps was replaced by a rumble that grew louder and louder.

"Pine here. I confirm ignition."

"Clamps released. Preliminary stage! Intermediate! Main! Lift off!"

The arms of the launch tower fell away, and an insistent pressure pushed down on Gagarin's chest. His training took over and he exhaled, shouting out loud: "Let's go!"

0610UTC

The aerodynamic shroud surrounding the capsule fell away. For the first time since the hatch had been closed, daylight poured into the capsule. Gagarin tried to lift his head, to see through the Vzor porthole that lay at his feet; but the pressure of the acceleration was too great.

0613UTC

Only the final stage of the booster remained, its fires sending the capsule and Gagarin ever higher. Now he had sufficient strength to position himself to see outside.

"Control to Pine - how is it?" Korolev's voice was hopeful, eager for news.

"Pine," Gagarin replied. "The flight is continuing well. I can see the Earth. Visibility is good. I can see almost everything. There is cloud cover. I continue the flight. Everything is good."

0617UTC

Its job done, the final stage of the 8K72K shut down and fell away. As a parting gift, it imparted a slow spin to the capsule. Through the Vzor porthole, Gagarin first saw the black sky of space; then the brilliant, white column of the sun blinded him. His sight recovered just in time for him to see the disk of the Earth spread out beneath him - from the hubward deserts to the ice walls at the rim.