Author
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Topic: Did Yuri Gagarin ever meet a U.S. astronaut?
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mensax Member Posts: 861 From: Virginia Registered: Apr 2002
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posted 06-06-2006 05:03 AM
Did Yuri Gagarin ever meet a U.S. astronaut? I don't recall ever seeing a photo of Gagarin with a US astronaut... Gagarin and Shepard perhaps? |
Steve Procter Member Posts: 1031 From: Leeds, Yorkshire, UK Registered: Oct 2000
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posted 06-06-2006 05:30 AM
I've done some brief reading and can't find any record. Did a US astronaut attend Komarov's funeral (Borman)? If so did Gagarin attend - I assume he would have. |
KSCartist Member Posts: 2896 From: Titusville, FL USA Registered: Feb 2005
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posted 06-06-2006 07:06 AM
I think Tom Stafford mentioned this in his book, "We Have Capture" (Komarov's funeral). Of course I don't have it handy while I'm typing this. |
Michael Cassutt Member Posts: 358 From: Studio City CA USA Registered: Mar 2005
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posted 06-06-2006 09:21 AM
Stafford attended the funeral of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts in 1971. No American astronauts were invited to the Komarov funeral four years earlier... the Soviets insisted it was an "internal" matter.Titov met an American astronaut or two on his world tours, but I don't have any memory of Gagarin meeting one. |
Steve Procter Member Posts: 1031 From: Leeds, Yorkshire, UK Registered: Oct 2000
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posted 06-06-2006 09:36 AM
Did Gagarin actually visit the USA? According to one piece I read there was a possibility of him coming to New York in March 1962 (to the UN). It appears in the end only Titov came, Gagarin instead visiting Austria and Japan.In October 1963 along with Kamanin it seems he travelled to Cuba (to join Tereshkova who was already there)and then according to the list of countries - Mexico, USA, Canada,UK and East Germany. |
Robert Pearlman Editor Posts: 42988 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 06-06-2006 10:29 AM
NASA photo 65-H-1123 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin shakes hand with NASA's Gemini 4 astronauts, Edward H. White II and James A. McDivitt at the Paris International Air Show in June 1965. This first meeting between Gagarin and the Gemini 4 astronauts occurred shortly after the completion of the Gemini 4 mission, where White performed the first American EVA. Yuri Gagarin achieved fame as the first human to fly in space, as well as orbit Earth. Also shown in the picture (seated) are Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and (standing) French Premier Georges Pompidou. |
gliderpilotuk Member Posts: 3398 From: London, UK Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 06-06-2006 02:26 PM
I've long wondered what this occasion was: Armstrong in Red Square with Beregovoy (Soyuz 3). No idea of the date, i.e. before or after Armstrong and Beregovoy flew, or whether this was just a courtesy visit some time after '69. |
Robert Pearlman Editor Posts: 42988 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 06-06-2006 02:50 PM
James Hansen's First Man provides the answer on pages 582-84: In May 1970, Armstrong traveled to the Soviet Union, as only the second American astronaut to make an official visit... Serving as his hosts were Georgy T. Beregovoy and Konstantin P. Feoktistov, the cosmonauts whose goodwill visit to America came two months after Apollo 11. |
mensax Member Posts: 861 From: Virginia Registered: Apr 2002
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posted 06-06-2006 04:03 PM
So, I guess we can assume that the first Russian into space never met the first American? It would seem that they would each have wanted such a meeting. |
Robert Pearlman Editor Posts: 42988 From: Houston, TX Registered: Nov 1999
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posted 06-06-2006 04:14 PM
While the individual space explorers may have enjoyed the meeting, their nations were more reserved. From NASA SP-4209 The Partnership: A History of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: In the dozen years that had followed Yuri Gagarin's flight, the astronauts and cosmonauts had met a number of times. But these first meetings had been shadowed by the cold war. John Glenn and Gherman Titov had been the first rival spacemen to meet and exchange views, at the May 1962 COSPAR gathering in Washington. After the two men and their wives toured the capital and made a social call on President Kennedy at the White House, the space travelers held a news conference. Titov was circumspect in answering questions about his Vostok craft and would discuss space cooperation only in the context of disarmament.Three years passed before the next meeting. In June 1965, a very cool handshake was exchanged by three Americans - Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, astronauts James A. McDivitt, and Edward H. White - and Yuri Gagarin. This encounter at a Paris Air Show luncheon took place after a formal meeting between these men had failed to materialize. In September of the same year, Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad had a much warmer conversation with Leonov and Belyayev at an international meeting in Athens. As they exchanged lapel pins, the men agreed that they would have to meet again and compare notes about space flight. As the years passed, the cosmonauts and astronauts began to socialize more freely... |
Ken Havekotte Member Posts: 2915 From: Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard Registered: Mar 2001
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posted 06-06-2006 05:30 PM
Most of the Gemini flyers, along with some Mercury guys, did meet with Russian cosmonauts throughout the the mid-1960s, as Grissom reported in 1966. Many of these astronauts did meet with their counterparts in space that included Gagarin, Belyayev, Leonov and a few others. Grissom said those meetings were always friendly, and during a visit to the 16th International Astronautical Congress in Athens, Greece, Cooper and Belyayev traded the wrist-watches they'd worn on their first space trips (but from Cooper's second flight). |
Duke Of URL Member Posts: 1316 From: Syracuse, NY Registered: Jan 2005
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posted 06-21-2006 03:38 PM
I read a story someplace about John Glenn nearly setting his garage on fire trying to start a barbeque for Titov. Titov found this enormously amusing, and he might have fit in with a few American astronauts quite well because he was something of a Wild Man.It seems to me that some other astronauts would have been around. Maybe Scott Carpenter? |
FFrench Member Posts: 3161 From: San Diego Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 06-21-2006 04:11 PM
It was a very spur-of-the-moment event, as Titov asked Glenn off the cuff, meaning a huge protocol scramble to get it all together in time. Glenn and Paul Haney were there, and Al Shepard had a hand in bringing Titov over, Glenn has said, and stayed for the event, but I haven't heard of others mentioned that I can recall. |
KC Stoever Member Posts: 1012 From: Denver, CO USA Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 06-27-2006 10:16 AM
Carpenter never had a chance to meet Gagarin. But he visited the Soviet Union, and later Russia, on a number of occasions, the first time in 1972 or 1973, with detente in first bloom, under President Nixon, traveling George Nissen's U.S. trampoline team as goodwill ambassador. |
cosmos-walter Member Posts: 691 From: Salzburg, Austria Registered: Jun 2003
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posted 01-26-2016 08:24 AM
Did Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin ever meet each other?Editor's note: Threads merged. |
Tykeanaut Member Posts: 2212 From: Worcestershire, England, UK. Registered: Apr 2008
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posted 01-26-2016 08:41 AM
He met Mrs. Gagarin and Mrs. Komarov following the Apollo 11 mission. My reference books don't indicate that he ever met Yuri Gagarin though. |