MOSCOW, August 6 (Itar-Tass) —— Half a century ago, on August 6, 1961, the Earth’s the second cosmonaut German Titov, started off on ship Vostok-2. He did not become the first earthling who rose above the atmosphere, but has been in history as the first man, who not only was in space but who also worked there for more than a day.
They say, the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin after his triumph uttered at some banquet: “I still do not understand who I am – the first person /in space/ or the last dog.” This cannot be said about Titov – having made 17 rounds about the planet, he tried food from tubes, slept a little /even missed a communication session with the command station!/ and made a number of operations, including first photograph of the Earth from space. Over 25 hours and 11 minutes which he spent in flight, Titov made an invaluable contribution to the study of the effects of weightlessness, which has helped scientists to develop effective methods to combat the negative factors, and subsequently make life easier for dozens of space explorers.
“German was the first to talk about some of autonomic disorders in the body during weightlessness, after which doctors started to prepare next cosmonauts on another program, with rising pressures on those systems that failed in space. And as a result, those who followed, Andrian Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich returned to Earth after several days of flight in excellent condition “- leading researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Problems of Russia’s Academy of Sciences Irina Ponomareva, who participated in training of first cosmonauts told Itar-Tass.
Titov made another achievement – in flight, he laid the foundation of a photo chronicle of conquering the universe. With a Konvas camera he made the first filming of the Earth. These colour images of our planet taken from space by man, initiated development of space technologies in photography. The baton was picked up by Titov’s followers, and now mankind has a unique collection of photographs of different parts of the Earth, which is replenished after each manned flight. On the anniversary of Titov’s flight an exhibition opened in Moscow. It is called 50 Years of Space Photography. It features over 80 photographs illustrating main stages in development of manned space exploration /three of them were made by Titov/.
Nowadays, working with video and photo equipment for taking images of the earth’s surface is a usual thing for cosmonauts and astronauts working aboard the ISS. And for some of them cosmic pictures or video are not only part of the work, but also hobbies, creativity and arts.
German Titov, who remains the youngest Earthling who made a flight into space /at the time of the start he was under 26 years old/, was not able to see the Earth from space for a second time, although he continued to work in the industry for several more decades. But the name of the second cosmonaut, as well as his achievements, will forever be inscribed in golden letters in the history of the world space.