Second human to orbit Earth and builder of Soviet military space systems
"Once you have your arms and legs arranged properly, space sleep is fine... I slept like a baby." — the first human to sleep in orbit, Vostok 2, August 1961.
Soviet cosmonaut and military space commander. On 6 August 1961, aboard Vostok 2, he became the second human to orbit Earth; his 17-orbit, 25-hour flight, the first long-duration mission, proved humans could eat, sleep, and work in space. At 25, he remains the youngest orbital pilot in history. He was the first to manually pilot a spacecraft, the first to film Earth from orbit, and the first to experience space sickness. After his flight he led cosmonaut training for the Spiral orbital spaceplane, and from 1979 to 1991 served as First Deputy Chief of GUKOS/UNKS, the USSR Ministry of Defence space directorate, overseeing military space systems including the Marshal Nedelin-class tracking ships. Elected to the Russian State Duma as a CPRF member (1993–2000).
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1957Graduated Stalingrad Military Aviation School; fighter pilot, Leningrad Military District
- 1960Selected in first cosmonaut group
- 1961.04Backup pilot for Vostok 1 (Yuri Gagarin)
- 1961.08Vostok 2 — 17 orbits, 25 hr 18 min; second human to orbit Earth
- 1965–1968Head of cosmonaut training group for Spiral orbital spaceplane
- 1968Graduated Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy
- 1972Graduated General Staff Military Academy; Deputy Chief of Space Command and Control
- 1973–1979Deputy Chief of GUKOS for research and development
- 1979–1991First Deputy Chief of UNKS, USSR MoD; Lt. Gen. → Col. Gen.
- 1993–2000Deputy, Russian State Duma (CPRF)
Related historical events
Space sickness and the medical legacy of Vostok 2
Vostok 2's stated mission goals were to study how weightlessness affects the human body, to test the feasibility of manual control and attitude orientation, and to observe and photograph the Earth from orbit. The length of the flight was contested. Nikolai Kamanin, head of cosmonaut training, and space medicine chief Vladimir Yazdovsky argued for a three-orbit flight, partly because two dogs on an earlier satellite mission had suffered convulsions on their sixth orbit. But between the 8th and 13th orbits a returning capsule would come down in the Pacific, and after that in remote Siberia, so a landing in southern Russia would not be possible again until a full 24 hours after launch. Korolev pressed for the day-long flight; the State Commission planned for 24 hours but reserved the final decision until Titov's condition after three orbits was known.
In orbit, Titov effectively skipped lunch on the third orbit, taking only a tube of blackcurrant juice. By the sixth orbit, eight hours into the flight, he still had no appetite; after forcing down a tube of pate his nausea worsened, and before sleeping he used a hygiene bag for vomit, stowing it in a locker. On 8 August, the day after landing, he gave designers a candid report of nausea, vomiting, depression, loss of orientation, and pain when he turned his head or moved his eyes. The condition later named space adaptation syndrome, or space sickness, affects between a third and a half of people in space and normally resolves after three to six days of adaptation. Unknown at the time, it was read as an individual reaction, and Titov was subsequently not considered a candidate for further spaceflights.
Kamanin recorded that in the first years after the flight Titov's behaviour deteriorated, with problems of discipline and alcohol. Late on 26 June 1964, driving drunk at high speed, he struck an obstacle on the roadway; his passenger, a chance fellow traveller, died of her injuries. The military prosecutor's investigation found no criminal element and classed the incident as an accident, but Titov received a severe Party reprimand and was demoted. In a diary entry of 31 July 1970, Kamanin noted more than ten serious disciplinary violations over nine years of service at the training centre. After Gagarin's death in a training crash in 1968, the Soviet government decided it could not risk losing its second cosmonaut, ending Titov's career as a test pilot. His flight data nonetheless led to substantial revisions of the cosmonaut training programme.