Talk:Vostok 1/Archive 1

Soviet FAI rules cheating claims
There's a discussion going at Talk:Boundary_to_space that's partly Gagarin's parachuting out of the capsule for landing.Ropers 19:56, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

facts
is is stated on http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19630043160_1963043160.pdf that the perigee was 188 km, and the agogee was 302 km. this is not the same as in the article. --80.63.213.182 14:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Altitude or attitude?
In a number of places this article mentions the spacecraft's 'altitude' when I am sure what was intended was 'attitude'. I will edit the article accordingly. Chris Jefferies 13:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Countdown I think it's slightly misleading to use the term 'countdown'. That implies something like "ten, nine, eight" (or even "desyat, devyat, vosem"). Russian/Soviet space launches don't feature one. The phrase in the original Russian is "minutnaya gotovnost" -something like "a minute's preparation time". This minute was in fact several minutes before the actual launch (see . And Gagarin's call sign, strictly speaking, is "Siberian pine", not "Cedar" (see .) 62.181.46.66 13:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC) Al
 * At the risk of beating a dead (not to mention stupid) horse, Gagarin's call sign was, strictly speaking, "Cedar".--172.190.24.7 (talk) 08:09, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Reentry details
I believe the reentry module did not "automatically settle into proper attitude" after having being released from the spacecraft, so I will remove this statement. In fact, Gagarin later reported that gyrations continued for a while and then changed to 90 degree oscillations. Apparently this did not matter much since the capsule was spherical, so before the parachutes were deployed the attitude did not matter and after that the parachutes probably stopped the rotation.

Did Vostok 1 complete a full orbit?
If the launch point for the Vostok 1 mission was at Baikonur Cosmodrome which is located at 45 °N 63 °E and the landing point for the Vostok 1 mission was near 51° N, 46° E this would indicate that the Vostok 1 mission only covered 343 degrees of Longitude. However from a reference point of Latitude, Vostok 1 completed 366 degrees.

In order to qualify for a full orbit, does a spacecraft have to pass both through the Latitude and Longitude references or is one sufficient? If one is sufficient, then what is the differentiating point between sub-orbital and orbital flights?

While the flight profile clearly is in excess of what is commonly referenced to as “suborbital”, is it accurate to say that Gagarin was the first man to orbit the earth?

If not, then cosmonaut Gherman Titov onboard Vostok 2 would be the first man to orbit the earth. Gagarin completed a fractal orbital flight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.221.224.5 (talk) 20:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


 * You forget, that orbital period is calculated relative to the stars, not to the Earth. During his spaceflight the Earth rotated per 360/24*108/60=27 degrees in the same direction as he flew (i.e. "ran away from him"). But difference in longitudes is some 17 degrees. So, relative to the stars, he completed even 10 degrees more than one orbit.86.100.231.115 21:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for clearing that up —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.62.169.83 (talk) 00:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I would like to add that it is certainly not necessary to cross both all meridians and all parallels (I guess that's what you mean by "passing both tests") in order to justify the conclusion that one has "orbited the earth". Suppose a plane flies directly eastwards along one parallel, until it reaches its starting point. It will have crossed every meridian, but not a single parallel (since it stayed on the same parallel all the time). Similarly, imagine a plane that flies directly northwards along a given merdian, across the north pole, then flies southwards along the opposite meridian, across the south pole, and again northwards back to its tarting point. This plane will not have crossed a single meridian (but all parallels). Yet, in both cases one would surely say that the plane has gone all the way around the earth. This logic applies irrespective to the IP's clarification relating to the stars as a frame of reference. SchnitteUK (talk) 12:50, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Capsule communication transcript source is missing
The article gives a reference to a Russian-language transcript of capsule communications. I don't know much Russian, but I clicked anyway, to find that the page was gone. The site itself,, (called, if my reading ability has not deserted me, "Epizody kosmonavtniki", "Cosmonaut episodes") is still present, but they have probably reorganized their archives. Can an editor who knows Russian try to repair the link? This is an important source. ACW (talk) 23:03, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Tried any Web archives? --Elvey (talk) 19:15, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. 194.44.31.194 (talk) 19:04, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

No circumnavigation
Perhaps somebody could spell this out, but looking at the map and the coordinates of the launch and landing sites, this flight only covered about 345 degrees of longitude (from 63.342°E﻿to 45.977°E) and wasn't a complete circumnavigation or one complete orbit.ospalh (talk) 22:56, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This has already been discussed under "Did Vostok 1 complete a full orbit?" above. 194.44.31.194 (talk) 19:16, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Article reorganization
I think the "Mission highlights" section and the "Mission timeline" section could be merged into a single section, consisting mostly of prose. Currently there is some duplication of information, and I think it would be easier for the reader to navigate if we had a single section, with a few key subsections.. so more in the style of Siddiqi, p.270-280. Thoughts anyone? Mlm42 (talk) 02:23, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd been thinking the same thing and hope you continue your work. There is no reason to have two sections that are basically the same thing. YLee (talk) 02:42, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Great; actually I've just noticed that the German version of this article is rated a Good article, and the structure of it looks great. Maybe I'll try to mimic that. Mlm42 (talk) 03:18, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

First Known
Was there human spaceflight before Vostok 1??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.153.172.40 (talk) 12:57, 12 April 2011 (UTC) The idea is that there may have been spaceflights before Vostok 1 which were, for whatever reason, classified. More than likely, it would have been due to the mission failing to return safely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.183.104.96 (talk) 13:44, 12 April 2011 (UTC)


 * What the above users are talking about is basically the Lost Cosmonauts conspiracy theory, and as best we know, that's all that is. 31.18.248.254 (talk) 02:31, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I mean, it's certainly possible that there were attempts at manned spaceflight prior to Vostok 1 (whether by Russia, Germany, or a precursor civilization)... and I'm generally in favor of saying that something has been called the first time, first use, first event, whatever, where the mainstream sources themselves aren't absolutely clear. But the mainstream sources are clear here. Virtually everyone says that Vostok 1 was the first manned spaceflight. Those who say otherwise are clearly fringe sources. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 15:44, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Style
I would suggest that the line that describes the USSR as 'the soviets' be changed as the tone is very Anglo (american) centric — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.20.221.249 (talk) 20:31, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I was just going to mention the very same thing. This occurs in the section called "Background" in the first half of line 11. If this where an article about the Mercury or any other American space flight programm, one would never write "the americans launched..." instead it would go something like: "the United States (of America) launched..." This is an encyclopedia not a pamphlet on the cold war. I suggest "the soviets" be replaced by the Soviet Union or the USSR at the very least if not the full "United Socialist Soviet Republics. It is one of the major historic events of the 20th century after all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.143.176.58 (talk) 16:11, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Problems with first photo choice
I replaced the black-and-white photo recently added, with a color one which we already had available. I see possibly two problems with the first one:
 * The web page it was taken from (National Geographic) identifies it as if it were the actual Vostok 1; this is impossible because the Soviet government never publicly displayed its spacecraft before the fact, and the actual craft was obviously consumed in the flight (only the charred re-entry capsule, missing some hatches, would be left.)
 * Even though the person who uploaded the photo to WikiCommons claims it is free, there is no indication this is true, and the image isn't copyrighted by National Geographic (or at least runs afoul of our rules for using copyrighted images.) This should be checked into.

Models or unflown versions of the spacecraft were put on display by the Soviets, after 1965. JustinTime55 (talk) 02:45, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Confusing map
I've been looking at the map for a while (right) and it's finally twigged for me what's wrong with it. The northernmost point appears to be around the northern coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, or about 62°N. Allowing for a bit of vagueness in the lines, that seems okay for an orbital inclination of ~65°. The southernmost point, however, is not shown as going much past Cape Horn, which would put it at about 56°S. It should be much further south. Is there a subtlety of the ground track I'm missing here, or is this an error? Andrew Gray (talk) 21:11, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Probably just because the map image doesn't extend that far south. It looks like it was drafted for illustration purposes rather than accuracy. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 22:08, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090726044621/http://records.fai.org/pilot.asp?from=astronautics&id=4791 to http://records.fai.org/pilot.asp?from=astronautics&id=4791
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120122162838/http://www.tattooarchive.com/tattoo_history/vostok.html to http://www.tattooarchive.com/tattoo_history/vostok.html

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Revoked World Record?
I tried to look through talk archives, but nothing seems to explain this one way or another. The article says "The Soviet Union did not admit until 1971 that Gagarin had ejected and landed separately from the Vostok descent module." But I can't find any information about the consequences of that admission. Did the FAI retroactively revoke the world record? Or did they keep it in the books despite the admission? — 76.14.119.50 (talk) 05:30, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Restored reference link to Encyclopedia Astronautica
The reference link to Encyclopedia Astronautica (deleted by @Ilenart626 in May 2023 as "unreliable", see diff) was restored because the RfC for the reliability of Encyclopedia Astronautica concluded that "there appears to be a consensus that this is a valuable resource". So far no specific errors was addressed for the item linked to this article. SchmiAlf (talk) 10:34, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
 * @SchmiAlf has misrepresented the rfc, which concluded “There appears to be a consensus that this is a valuable resource, but which lacks editorial oversight, contains errors and is no longer updated…caution needs to taken in using the source .” The rfc found that no consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply on the reliability of the site, which includes “It may be necessary to evaluate each use of the source on a case-by-case basis while accounting for specific factors unique to the source in question.” Given the issues with this source I am reverting SchmiAlf's change pending consensus for inclusion.Ilenart626 (talk) 12:01, 20 November 2023 (UTC)