With just 11 days left for the 50th anniversary of the first manned space flight---April 12,2011---by Yuri Gagarin, one can expect a lot of sensational material about the world's first spaceman, many of which can portray him in an unfavourable way.
Those behind these so called spicy disclosures perhaps depend on sources who have been not been favourably disposed towards Gagarin's flight in the first place, for a variety of reasons. This reflects a pro-American tilt because the US lost the space race in the first round. Even after 50 years there could still be a sense of bitterness even among a small section of pro-US Russian scientists that Russia defeated its arch political rival---the US--in the space race.
There is every possibility that organisations like the CIA will use those friendly towards the US in Russia to discredit Gagarin's achievement.
What is the result? Books like ``108 Minutes That Changed The World,'' will fill bookstores which claim to reveal hitherto unknown aspects of Gagarin's flight.
This book claims that Soviet scientists had miscalculated the area where Gagarin would land. How far this is true we do not know. A huge book ``Beyond Moon and Mars (BMM) is currently reading, ``Our Gagarin,'' which contains contributions by those who were involved with the flight says just the opposite--it says that every arrangement had been made in different places to receive the spacecraft.
Which of the statements is true we really will not know. Agreed?
That is not all. This book claims that the Soviets had even lied about the manner in which he landed. It says that they had given misinformation that Gagarin had landed in the space capsule, when he actually touched down in a parachute.
BMM which has been keenly following the mission is aware that the final phase of the landing was done in a parachute which would have disqualified the mission from being registered with the Federation Aeronautique Internationale---the international body set up in 1905 which records world aerospace achievements.
Russian space officials negotiated with the organisation which did not take time to acknowledge that Gagarin's flight had broken a world record. Can it ignore the achievement of a man who has risked his life to become the first to escape the earth's gravity? No certainly not. So, to say that the Soviets had ``lied'' about the manner in which Gagarin had landed is anything but the truth.
Who cannot forget stories which are still taking their rounds that the moon landing by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin was a big hoax. It is possible that such false propoganda perhaps could have been the handiwork of the KGB, the powerful Russian intelligence body.
But one thing needs to be remembered---the Soviets (former) had at one point given up the idea of embarking on a human moon mission because of a series of problems with their rockets. Considering this, therefore, there was no race in the real sense between the US and the USSR to land a man on the moon.
As a part of the various programmes to commemorate the 50th anniv , a flight to the International Space Station which lifts off from the Baikonaur cosmodrome with three crew members on Monday is being dedicated to Yuri Gagarin. The Soyuz spacecraft which will dock with the ISS has been christened Gagarin and the call sign of this flight is Yuri Gagarin.
Incidentally, April 12 is important for another reason too---the day marked the first flight of the space shuttle in 1981.
We spacebuffs are waiting for April 12.
