Gherman Titov


Gherman Stepanovich Titov was a Soviet cosmonaut who, on 6 August 1961, became the second human to orbit the Earth, aboard Vostok 2, preceded by Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1. He was the fourth person in space, counting suborbital voyages of US astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom.
Titov's flight finally proved that humans could live and work in space. He was the first person to orbit the Earth multiple times, the first to pilot a spaceship and to spend more than a day in space. He was also the first to sleep in orbit and to suffer from space sickness.
Titov made the first manual photographs from orbit, thus setting a record for modern space photography. He also was the first person to film the Earth using a professional quality Konvas-Avtomat movie camera, which he used for ten minutes. A month short of 26 years old at launch, he remains the youngest person to fly in space.
In his subsequent life Titov continued to work for the Soviet space program, and played a major role in the Spiral project where he trained to become the first pilot of an orbital spaceplane. However, after the death of Yuri Gagarin in a military aircraft accident in 1968, the Soviet government decided it could not afford to lose its second cosmonaut, and so Titov's career as test pilot ended.
Titov served in the Soviet Air Force, attaining the rank of colonel-general. In his final years in post-Soviet Russia he became a Communist politician. Despite having been chosen second, after Gagarin, to fly into space, it was Titov who later proposed the Soviet Government regularly celebrate Cosmonautics Day on April 12, the day of Gagarin's flight.

Biography

Titov was born in the village of Verkhneye Zhilino in the Altai Krai and went to school at the Stalingrad Military Aviation School. After graduating as an air force pilot, he was selected for cosmonaut training in 1960.
He flew the Vostok 2 mission launched on 6 August 1961. It lasted for 25.3 hours and he performed 17 orbits of the Earth. His call sign was Eagle. He landed close to the town of Krasny Kut in Saratov Oblast, Russia. A month short of 26 years old at launch, he remains the youngest person to fly in space. Titov was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as were almost all the Soviet cosmonauts.
Titov was a fine sportsman, and keen on gymnastics:
He was the first person to suffer from space sickness and was also the first person to sleep in space. He slept for roughly one orbit and was surprised to wake with his arms floating in the air due to the absence of normal gravity. He returned to sleep after putting his arms under a security belt, then slept 30 minutes more than predicted by the flight plan. He stated that "Once you have your arms and legs arranged properly, space sleep is fine... I slept like a baby".
and American astronaut John Glenn, 1962
Though he had been suffering from space sickness during his orbit, Titov celebrated upon landing. His celebration is described as "a fit of euphoria" after landing, and on his return flight to Kubishev for debriefing, he alarmed the medical staff by opening and downing a beer in complete violation of the rules.
After landing, Titov landed and was sent to hospital for further testing to ensure that he was not sick. After his mission, he reportedly engaged in behaviours that could be considered unacceptable for someone working within the space programme. He is reported to have been enthralled in his love of women, excessive drinking, and fast cars which caused some to theorize that his behavior had potentially been another side effect of the space sickness he experienced from zero gravity. Further testing revealed that this was not the case.
During a widely publicized 1962 visit to Seattle to tour the Century 21 World's Fair, Titov was asked by reporters how his space flight affected his philosophy of life. He replied: "Sometimes people are saying that God is out there. I was looking around attentively all day but I didn’t find anybody there. I saw neither angels nor God." The utterance was famously used in Soviet anti-religion propaganda, but it was misattributed to Yuri Gagarin.
Following his space flight, Titov assumed various senior positions in the Soviet space programme until his retirement in 1992. In 1995, he was elected to the State Duma as a member of the Communist Party. He died of cardiac arrest in his sauna at the age of 65 in Moscow. He was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Awards and legacy

Gherman Titov was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, two Orders of Lenin, and numerous medals and foreign orders. He was bestowed the title of the Hero of Socialist Labor of Bulgaria, Hero of Labour of Vietnam, and Hero of Mongolia. Titov crater on the far side of the Moon and an island in Halong Bay are named after him, Ti Tốp Island.
On 6 August 2011, the 50th anniversary of Titov's flight, the reconstructed and expanded Gherman Titov Museum was opened in his native village of Polkovnikovo, Altai Krai.

Cultural references

In Arthur C. Clarke's 1982 book, , the opening scene features a conversation between Dimitri Moisevitch of the Soviet Space Council and Dr. Heywood Floyd. When Moisevitch informs Floyd that the Soviets will be travelling to Jupiter on their new spaceship, the Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, Floyd is initially puzzled, claiming that he thought the ship was to be named after Gherman Titov. In the book, Moisevitch just mentioned that it had been changed to Leonov; in the film, he replies that Titov has fallen out of favour, though he does not elaborate.
BBC Radio 4's Afternoon Play on 12 April 2011, Titanium, features Titov as narrator during the training and flight of Yuri Gagarin. It was part of a week to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight.

Honours and awards

;Russia and the USSR
n stamp
;Foreign awards