CHENNAI: The first manned space flight, with Yuri Gagarin at the helm, took off from Earth on April 12, 1961. The Russian Centre of Science and Culture celebrated 50 years since that momentous occasion with veteran cosmonaut Viktor Petrovich Savinykh visiting the city to interact with students and selected invitees.Savinykh has been on three space flights; Soyuz T-4, Soyuz T-13 and Mir EP-2. He has clocked 252 days, 17 hours and 38 minutes in space. He was selected as a cosmonaut in 1978, after he had completed his training and had passed the rigorous medical tests.Savinykh shared with the invitees and participants the elation felt by the Russians as one of them was the first man to enter the cosmos. As he spoke, the Director of Russian Language Institute, Tatiana, interpreted, and the crowd listened in silence. He said, “Out of 300 candidates, 20 were selected. Out of this 20, six were shortlisted for intensive training. Only one was selected to man the flight, and Yuri Gagarin met the physical and technical requirements.”Savinykh spoke about the United States knowing the mission was on hand and he was not sure of the launch date. “To ensure that it was really safe for us to put a man in space, two launches were done from the same launch pad. But they both failed. Not losing hope, two more experimental launches were done, with dogs and mannequins as passengers. These were successful. A final test launch, with two dogs in the shuttle, was also successful and this was when they decided to go ahead,” he said.It took Gagarin 108 minutes to go around the Earth once. He conducted simple experiments like writing with a pen, to see how things worked in the cosmos. On asked what the most memorable thing about being in space was, Savinykh replied, “In space, we experience 16 sunrises and sunsets in a span of 24 hours. This was the most impressive thing to see. It is sad how we humans are destroying our planet; it is so beautiful to look at from the cosmos.”K Karunakaran, Vice Chancellor of Anna University of Technology, Coimbatore, gave a brief introduction on Savinykh. Director of the Russian Centre, Vladimir Mariy was also present at the event. A photo exhibition showing Yuri Gagarin’s life was on display.
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