Photo: Emmanuel Dunand / AFP / Getty Images
The space race was an extraordinary event between the Soviet Union and the United States, as both fought to keep the achievement of sending the first man off Earth e Ivan Ivanovich marked his place in history.
For the Soviets, the Vostok capsule with the Ivan doll showed that were ready for such a feat.
The United States marked its breakthrough released on 31 January 1961 to Ham, the chimpanzee, on NASA Mercury-Redstone Flight 2 MR-2 on a Redstone rocket to 80 miles, everything was successful and the chimpanzee survived.
The Soviet Union was determined not to be left behind and Sergei Korolev set himself a tentative release date for the first Vostok manned flight in early April.
Engineers and high-ranking officers of the Soviet strategic missile forces traveled from Moscow to the city of Leninsk, to launch two unmanned missions designed to test man on the nominal Vostok 3A spacecraft.
Despite not being manned, these flights had significant biological loads. The first one carried a small dog named Chernushka, 31 black mice, 40 white mice, guinea pigs, reptiles, seeds of various plants, human blood samples, human cancer cells, bacteria, microorganisms and fermentation samples. The human doll, Ivan Ivanovich, was also traveling.
In addition to having the mission of testing vital flight systems , were to measure the communications systems between the engineers in control and the cosmonaut in orbit.
Ivanovich had a recording that was played automatically from the capsule and received in Moscow.
At issue was what the recording was going to contain, Soviet officials thought a countdown might give the wrong message to the West. A song was also rejected, the idea of a choir was approved, because no one would think that they had released a capsule with various singers.
Ivanovich, dressed in a fully functional Sokol spacesuit and singing as a choir, launched into the Korabl -Sputnik 4 together with the animals on March 9 1961.
The mission It was a resounding success even on landing. Ivanovich was expelled from the capsule like a true cosmonaut, just before landing and descended on a personal parachute.
This fact caused terror in the people who they saw the event of seeing the body fall on the ground apparently lifeless. The Soviets anticipated this and placed a panel in front of Ivanovich’s face inside his helmet, identifying him as a Maket or dummy.
Chernushka landed separately a little apart from Ivanovich and also survived.
Korabl-Sputnik 5 was launched on 25 March and was another success. Both missions helped the Soviets meet the pre-orbital flight schedule by Yuri Gagarin on 12 April 1961, and Ivan Ivanovich was his unsung hero.
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