In 1959, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the USSR Council of Ministers published two important decrees: on the selection of cosmonaut candidates and on the preparation for a manned space mission. In accordance with these decrees, Air Force units started looking for their candidates.
This task was assigned to a group of experts from the Central Military Scientific Aviation Hospital (TsVNIAG). Prospective cosmonauts were selected by the best medical and technical specialists, including the major general of the medical corps Yevgeny Karpov, the engineer of the special design bureau Valery Yazdovsky, the expert in extraterrestrial biology Nikolay Gurovsky, the famous Soviet physiologist Oleg Gazenko, the professor Abram Genin, and others.
Cosmonauts were selected from among fighter pilots at the age of up to 35 years old, with a maximum height of 175 cm and weight of 75 kg. In total, the information on almost 3,500 candidates was analyzed. By February 1960, twenty cosmonaut candidates were selected after the medical screening to prepare for a space flight.
In October 1960, the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Air Force ordered the Cosmonaut Training Center to establish a group of potential candidates. Its members were invited to undergo an accelerated course of training to prepare for the first space flight.
The group included four captains (Valery Bykovsky, Anatoly Kartashov, Andriyan Nikolayev, and Pavel Popovich) and three senior lieutenants (Yuri Gagarin, Gherman Titov, and Grigory Nelyubov).
The training procedures imitated the conditions similar to those that cosmonauts would face outside the Earth’s atmosphere. This process included training in thermal, decompression, and isolation chambers (in complete silence), parachute training, ejection escape, training flights, checks of the vestibular system, exercise, and psychological stress. Every method available was used to test the strength of potential cosmonauts. They also attended courses in astronomy, geophysics, filming and photography, and studied the design of various equipment.
The cosmonauts trained at one of the branches of the Flight Research Institute which housed the Vostok 3A spacecraft model. The process was organized by Mark Gallay, a famous test pilot and a Hero of the Soviet Union. On January 17, 1961, the team successfully passed the test for being admitted to a Vostok space mission.
This task was assigned to a group of experts from the Central Military Scientific Aviation Hospital (TsVNIAG). Prospective cosmonauts were selected by the best medical and technical specialists, including the major general of the medical corps Yevgeny Karpov, the engineer of the special design bureau Valery Yazdovsky, the expert in extraterrestrial biology Nikolay Gurovsky, the famous Soviet physiologist Oleg Gazenko, the professor Abram Genin, and others.
Cosmonauts were selected from among fighter pilots at the age of up to 35 years old, with a maximum height of 175 cm and weight of 75 kg. In total, the information on almost 3,500 candidates was analyzed. By February 1960, twenty cosmonaut candidates were selected after the medical screening to prepare for a space flight.
In October 1960, the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Air Force ordered the Cosmonaut Training Center to establish a group of potential candidates. Its members were invited to undergo an accelerated course of training to prepare for the first space flight.
The group included four captains (Valery Bykovsky, Anatoly Kartashov, Andriyan Nikolayev, and Pavel Popovich) and three senior lieutenants (Yuri Gagarin, Gherman Titov, and Grigory Nelyubov).
The training procedures imitated the conditions similar to those that cosmonauts would face outside the Earth’s atmosphere. This process included training in thermal, decompression, and isolation chambers (in complete silence), parachute training, ejection escape, training flights, checks of the vestibular system, exercise, and psychological stress. Every method available was used to test the strength of potential cosmonauts. They also attended courses in astronomy, geophysics, filming and photography, and studied the design of various equipment.
The cosmonauts trained at one of the branches of the Flight Research Institute which housed the Vostok 3A spacecraft model. The process was organized by Mark Gallay, a famous test pilot and a Hero of the Soviet Union. On January 17, 1961, the team successfully passed the test for being admitted to a Vostok space mission.
