The recklessness and bravado of the first seven Mercury astronauts are immortalized in the 1979 Tom Wolfe book (and 1983 film) The Right Stuff. You'd think the Soviet space program wouldn't have tolerated such misbehavior—early cosmonauts were supposed to represent the superiority of the Communist system, after all—but you'd be wrong. And this reality is best understood through the story of Gherman Stepanovich Titov, the Soviet Union's second man in space.
Decades before astronauts and cosmonauts made months-long jaunts to the International Space Station (ISS), Titov was the Soviets' first “long-haul” space traveler. To this day, he remains the youngest person to have flown in space. Just one month shy of his 26th birthday and nearly two years before Gordon Cooper's day-long Faith 7 flight, Titov spent more than a day in space. This milestone came during his August 1961 Vostok 2 mission (call sign: Oryel, or Eagle), covering a then-staggering 17-and-a-half orbits. He traversed more than 700,000 kilometers—430,000+ miles—which is nearly the round-trip distance from the Earth to the Moon and back. His achievement proved humans were able to survive this sort of travel in space.
But there's more to this cosmonaut than just long distances and world records. With his healthy supply of attitude, Gherman Titov embodied the youthful, rebellious spirit that drove both the early US and Soviet space programs. He didn't emerge unscathed from the vices of his youth, but he eventually matured into an elder statesman of space and is responsible for Cosmonautics Day, observed in Russia on April 12 to commemorate the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's historic first spaceflight.
The Soviet “Right Stuff”
Born on September 11, 1935 and raised in the spartan climes of western Siberia, the seeds of Gherman Titov's passion for flight were germinated in books. He devoured anything technical. He also indulged his poetic side with works by Alexander Pushkin; his love for pre-Soviet literary classics came from his teacher father. His literary side would later set him apart from other cosmonauts. Nikolai Kamanin, head of the cosmonaut corps from 1960 to 1971, frequently excoriated Titov for mingling with “riffraff” such as writers and artists. Titov's individuality would stick with him throughout his entire career as a cosmonaut.
“In all things athletic, I excelled among the cosmonauts,” he bragged.
Young Titov was impressed by a pilot uncle who flew during World War II, according to the 2007 book Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965, written by space historians Francis French and Colin Burgess. While the book details how Titov was enthralled by the stories of flying, he was also taken with his uncle's “air of sophistication,” which included an immaculate wardrobe and shiny shoes.
The book details a particularly grounded formative experience—at the age of 14, Titov broke his wrist in a bicycle accident. Having already applied to aviation school, he became terrified the injury would block his admission. After getting out of his plaster cast, he committed himself to an exhaustive gymnastic regimen to recover the wrist's strength. “The bone knit slowly, and I began to exercise my arm stubbornly," said Titov, describing his trademark persistence, according to the book. "Thus, I was drafted into gymnastics. Regular training began, and soon I was as keen on gymnastics as I was on riding my bicycle. I conditioned my arm... I was determined to fly!”
Titov's regimen paid off when the military medical board failed to detect his teenage injury, and he was admitted to a military flight school at the age of 18. Next came the Stalingrad Higher Air Force School, where Titov's attitude landed him in hot water more than once. According to Into That Silent Sea, a verbal altercation with a senior officer nearly ended Titov's flight training, and he was only saved when his flight instructor intervened on his behalf. This wouldn't be the last time Titov's impulsiveness got him into trouble.
After graduation, Titov was assigned as a combat pilot to a village called Siverskaya in the Leningrad District. During that time, a whirlwind courtship led to his marriage to Tamara Vasilyevna Cherkas, and interest in his candidacy as a cosmonaut grew. Despite a nasty cold, his excellent physical condition—French and Burgess compare him to the American astronaut Scott Carpenter, who was well-known for his athleticism—clinched his selection into the very first group of cosmonauts. The lower age limit for cosmonauts, set at 25, was waived for then 24-year-old Titov.
The 1962 book I Am Eagle!, based on interviews with Wilfred Burchett and Anthony Purdy and written with spaceflight writer Martin Caidin, also paints a vivid picture of the headstrong young Titov. Despite being one of the finest athletes in the cosmonaut program, he developed a strong, unexplainable aversion to running. “In all things athletic, I excelled among the cosmonauts,” he bragged, “that is, except for one. Running. I hated to run, I don't know why, but it was an idiosyncrasy I could not shake.
“I was determined to fly!”
“My instructors were frantic,” he went on according to Eagle!. “For on the drill field, I remained the butt of jeers and roaring gibes from our instructor—while in the gymnasium the instructors pointed me out as the outstanding gymnast.” Titov remembered a senior instructor drawing him aside and saying, “You'll get to like it, lieutenant, you'll get to like it fine!”
One can imagine the pint-sized trainee (5'4” in height) pouting, his tight dirty blond curls framing his reddened cheeks. Titov was not having it and described how he “snapped back” at the instructor: “You can't force me to like it.”
The instructor ended up winning that argument. By the end of training, Titov had develop an appreciation (although maybe not an all-encompassing love) for running.
By early 1961, his accelerated training meant that Titov was second in line for a space flight, behind colleague Yuri Gagarin. Why was Titov not first? Into That Silent Sea emphasizes how Titov's fiery temper held him back. “His temper was, in fact, very similar to Sergei Korolev's, the Vostok chief designer,” the book reports. It should be no surprise that the two men often clashed. Kamanin, the head of the cosmonaut corps, actually initially favored Titov for the first flight. Eventually, Kamanin instead felt the athletic young cosmonaut was better suited for the second, more complex “long-duration” flight. In Silent Sea, Titov himself discussed why he thought he was second:
It was Gagarin's character that mattered most. [Yuri] turned out to be the man that everyone loved. Me, they couldn't love... I'm not lovable. I have a very explosive character. I could easily say rude things, offend someone, and walk away. I wasn't a very convenient person for the leadership; I had my own opinion about things and knew how to insist on things. This did not always stir up warm feelings... but Yuri could talk freely to anyone— he could speak their language. The first man in space had to be a nice, attractive person... they were right to choose [Yuri].
Titov's journey to spaceflight was not without tragedy. He and Tamara had lost a newborn son, Igor, to a heart defect months earlier. (That story has a happier resolution, though: in 1963, he and Tamara welcomed a healthy daughter, Tatyana, the first child born to someone who had flown in space.)
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