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Text B. Yuri Gagarin, the First Cosmonaut in the World
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Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. Imagine leaving Earth before anyone had done it before! Nobody could tell what would happen to him; nobody really knew how the brain would function in weightlessness, or how the body would adapt.
On March 9, 1934, a boy was born in the country-side west of Moscow. His name was Yuri Gagarin. He grew up on a collective farm, where his father worked as a carpenter. When Yuri was seven years old, the German armies invaded Russia. Yuris father joined the army, while his mother took him and his
older brother and sister away from the fighting.
In high-school, Yuri decided to train as a technician, and attended a technical school on the outskirts of Moscow. He left school in 1951 as a trained metalworker and enrolled at an industrial college. While he was a student he became interested in aircraft and took lessons at a local flying school. Pretty soon, it became obvious that young Yuri had a natural talent for flying, and when he graduated from college in 1955, he joined the Soviet Airforce. It became evident that Gagarins abilities as a pilot were beyond normal, and he was taken of normal duties to work as a test-pilot, flying new and experimental aircraft.
Soon Yuri went to his officers and volunteered to become a cosmonaut. His officers were stunned, since no-one had ever before volunteered for such a mission, and consequently there were no procedures for this. However, Gagarin’s name was passed on to the people in charge of the top-secret Soviet space-project, and after a while he was contacted by some representatives who wanted to test him.
Yuri Gagarin was selected among a special group of the Soviet Union’s 20 best test-pilots. Later, due to economical restrictions, this group was limited to six pilots. These went on to further training, while the others returned to test-flying. During the very tough and difficult training-period, Yuri obtained top grades from the instructors.
Among other things Gagarin withstood 13 Gs in the centrifuge, and, as a part of the psychological training, sat in a soundless, lightless room for 24 hours. The instructors described him as a man who "...submits useful suggestions at meetings. Always sure of his resources... very difficult, if not impossible to upset... Stands out among his colleagues thanks to his great scope of active attention, bright mind and quick reaction".
The official announcement of Gagarin as pilot was made on April 11, but he was privately informed on April 9.
In 1961, at the age of 27, Gagarin left the earth. It was April the 12th, 9.07 Moscow time (launch-site, Baikonur). 108 minutes later, he was back. The period of orbital revolution was 89:34 minutes (this figure was "calculated by electronic computers"). The mission’s maximum flight altitude was 327 000 meters. The maximum speed reached was 28 260 kilometers per hour.
"On the 12th of April, 1961, the Soviet spaceship-sputnik was put in orbit around the Earth with me on board" "...there was a good view of the Earth which had a very distinct and pretty blue halo. It had a smooth transition from pale blue, blue, dark blue, violet and absolutely black. It was a magnificent picture."
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The vessel used was the Soviet spaceship/satellite Vostok 1, which was a small one-manned spherical descent module with a diameter of 2.3 meters. The module was mounted on top of an instrument module containing the engine system. Together these weighed less than five tonnes. The cosmonaut was strapped into an ejection seat, from which he would exit the descent module upon re-entry.
The Vostok 1 was mounted on a SL-3 variant of the SS-6 Sapwood rocket, which was 38.36 meters long and weighed 287.03 tonnes at launch. It had three stages, the first stage being four breakaway boosters, strapped on to the second and third stages. The first stage used RD-107 engines, which provided 102,000 kg of thrust.
Basically, Gagarin was sitting in a tin-can on top of a bomb.
During the flight of Vostok 1, Gagarin was not given control of his craft. This was because of the above mentioned insecurity regarding reactions of the mind and physics in weightlessness. The Russians didn't want to risk the cosmonaut losing control over himself while in space, and thus endangering the mission.
There was a key available in a sealed envelope which enabled the cosmonaut to take control over the vessel in case of an emergency. The Vostok also contained a supply of food and water for ten days in case of retrorocket failure. Due to the orbit chosen, the ship was expected to return naturally during this period. However, Gagarin did not encounter any problems. "The spaceship put in orbit, and the carrier-rocket separated, weightlessness set in. At first the sensation was to some extent unusual, but I soon adapted myself" "I maintained continuous communication with Earth on different channels by telephone and telegraph".
Upon return, the Vostok capsule itself landed too heavily, with an impact making it impossible for humans to remain inside during landing. Gagarin ejected at an altitude of approximately 7 kilometers, and landed safely.
(At 7000 meters above the surface of Earth, the temperature is approximately -30 degrees Celsius. Gagarin was wearing a space-suit, and didn't suffer from the cold, but one might guess that he enjoyed quite a free fall before releasing his parachute.)
In the official Soviet documents, there is no mention of the parachute ejection system included for Gagarin. However trivial a lie, this was due to the international rules for aviation records, which stated that "The pilot remains in his craft from launch to landing". This rule, if applied, would have "disqualified" Gagarin’s space-flight.
Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space was headline news all over the world, and he was awarded the medal and official title Hero of the Soviet union.
He died seven years later, on March 7, 1968 (sometimes stated as the 27th).He died in an airplane accident, flying the MIG-15 as a test-pilot. By then he was 34 years old.
Text C. Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton is famous for his discoveries about gravitation, but this work was only one of his many brilliant researches. The great astronomer was born in 1642. He did not show any signs of cleverness in his early schooldays. When he grew older his mother wanted him to help her on the farm, for his father was dead. But the boy did not like this; he was now fascinated by mathematics, and in 1661 he went to Cambridge University, where he took his first degree four years later. Then came the Great Plague. The university was closed, and Newton went back to his native town. It was during the next few months that he carried out his first important researches into the nature of light.
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The fact is that telescopes had been known for more than half a century, but they had never been satisfactory, because they collected their light by means of glass lenses which produced false colour. Newton saw no way to overcome this, so he followed up an idea suggested by the Scottish mathematician Gregory, and finally produced a telescope based on an entirely different principle. It collected its light by means of a curved mirror, so that it became known as a reflector. Newton's original reflector, completed about 1671 had a mirror two and a half centimetres across; the largest telescope in the world today has a mirror over 500 centimetres across!
Of course, he went back to Cambridge as soon as the Plague danger was over. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society, the leading scientific society in Britain, and came into contact with many other brilliant men. Among them there were the astronomers Christopher Wren, better known as an architect, and Edmund Halley, head of Greenwich Observatory.
Britain had always been a seafaring nation, and it had been difficult for sailors to find out their position after weeks out of sight of land. The only way to solve the problem was by making observations of the positions of the celestial bodies, and this needed a very accurate star-catalogue. The best catalogue available at that time was not good enough, and so it was decided to compile a better one.
Meanwhile, at Greenwich Observatory, Wren and Halley had been discussing the movements of the planets round the Sun. There were certain questions that they could not answer, but they knew that Newton was a better mathematician than any of them. So at last Halley went down to Cambridge and asked Newton for advice. To his surprise, he found that Newton had solved the problems several years earlier, but had not published his discoveries.
It has been said that Newton was sitting in his garden when he saw an apple fall off a tree. This started a chain of thoughts in his mind, and he realized that the force pulling on the apple was the same as the force which keeps the Moon in its path round the Earth. From this he was led to draw up the laws of gravitation, according to which every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force which becomes weaker with increasing distance. There is strong evidence that this story – unlike most of its kind! – is true. At any rate, Halley persuaded Newton to rework the calculations and publish them in a book. The result was the great volume which was completed in 1687, and which laid the foundation of astronomy.
For many years Newton served as President of the Royal Society. When he died in 1727, he was buried in Westminster Abbey.
2. Comprehension check.
Work in pairs. Ask and answer as many questions as you can on the Text.
3. Retell the Text.
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