Idaho Skies Transcript for April 11th and 12th

RACHEL
Welcome to Idaho Skies for April 11th and 12th. We’re your hosts, Rachel...

PAUL
...and Paul.

RACHEL
Hey! Do you remember who Yuri Gagarin was?

PAUL
Sure, he was the first human to travel into space.

RACHEL
That’s right. He spent 108 minutes on his mission and made one orbit of Earth.

PAUL
This was back on April 12th, 1961 and when the US was in a space race with the Soviet Union.

RACHEL
And at this time, the Soviets were making all kinds of firsts, like first satellite and first spaceflight to the moon.

PAUL
Yuri’s flight caught the US by surprise, partly because the Soviets kept their progress so secret.

RACHEL
He rode into space inside the two-piece Vostok 1 space capsule.

PAUL
Specifically, the top of Vostok 1, or its descent module.

RACHEL
Which was a sphere 7.5 feet in diameter.

PAUL
The bottom of the Vostok 1 was its descent module, which looked like two cones back to back.

RACHEL
After one orbit, Vostok 1 fired its retro rockets and the spherical descent module separated from the equipment module.

PAUL
In Yuri’s case, the equipment module didn’t cleanly separate because of cables connecting the two modules together.

RACHEL
This resulted in his capsule swinging and spinning around during reentry.

PAUL
Fortunately for Yuri, it didn’t take long for the forces of reentry to snap the cable.

RACHEL
It would be another year before the US was ready to orbit one of the Mercury astronauts.

PAUL
Meanwhile, two Mercury astronauts rode their Mercury capsules briefly into space on ballistic trajectories.

RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the 11th and 12th of April.

PAUL
Be sure to read our blog for additional information. It’s at idahoskies.blogspot.com.

For Idaho Skies this is Paul...

RACHEL
...and Rachel.

PAUL
Dark skies and bright stars.