Children find Astronautics Day to be an enthralling subject that piques their curiosity about the cosmos and the marvels of space exploration. It’s an opportunity to share with them the thrill of exploring space and the accomplishments of astronauts.
You can tell your child tales of actual space missions, the fearless astronauts who dared to explore uncharted territory, and the amazing technology that makes space travel feasible when you talk to them about this momentous day. These tales have the power to encourage children to have big dreams and picture themselves participating in space exploration in the future.
You can also describe the fundamentals of space exploration, the reasons behind it, and how it advances our understanding of the earthly realm. Your child will remain interested and eager to learn more about the vast universe around us if you make the conversation interactive with questions and interesting facts.
| Topic | Explanation |
| History of Cosmonautics Day | Explain that Cosmonautics Day celebrates the first human spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961. It"s a day to honor the achievements in space exploration. |
| Importance of Space Exploration | Discuss how space exploration helps us learn about our universe, discover new technologies, and improve life on Earth. |
| Famous Astronauts and Cosmonauts | Talk about famous figures like Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, and Valentina Tereshkova, and their contributions to space exploration. |
| How Rockets Work | Explain in simple terms how rockets use fuel to launch into space, breaking free from Earth"s gravity. |
| Future of Space Travel | Discuss the future possibilities of space travel, like missions to Mars and the idea of humans living on other planets. |
Children can be encouraged to be curious about space, science, and exploration through the Astronautics Day celebration. Parents can ignite a child’s imagination and curiosity about the wonders of the universe by telling tales of astronauts, elucidating the importance of space missions, and talking about how space technology affects our day-to-day lives.
- About the first flight
- About Gagarin"s task
- About "Vostok"
- Problems of the first space flight
- Video on the topic
- ❗❓Science for children – All about space and stars. Collection | Smeshariki Pincode
- COSMONAUTICS DAY! – A BIG COLLECTION ABOUT SPACE – Professor Pochemushkin educational cartoons
- About Cosmonautics Day
About the first flight
Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, a cosmonaut pilot, launched the Vostok ship from the Baikonur cosmodrome on April 12, 1961, at 9:07 Moscow time. Gagarin’s call sign was "cedar."
Yuri Gagarin’s flight took 108 minutes to complete; at 10:55, the spacecraft made one full rotation around the earth. The ship was traveling at a maximum altitude of 327 kilometers per hour, or 28,260 km/h.
About Gagarin"s task
It was unknown what a human would do in space, and there were grave worries that the cosmonaut would go insane with terror once he left his home planet.
Gagarin’s tasks were therefore the simplest possible: he was to try eating and drinking in space, record his observations verbatim so that the on-board tape recorder would hear them, and make some pencil notes. A complicated system for switching the ship to manual control was envisioned because of these same worries about sudden insanity. The cosmonaut would need to open the envelope and manually enter the code that was left on the control panel.
About "Vostok"
The appearance of a rocket is what we are used to seeing; it is a massive, elongated, arrow-shaped structure, but all of these are detachable stages that "fell off" once the fuel ran out.
A cannonball-shaped capsule with a third engine stage was launched into orbit.
The spacecraft had a diameter of 2.43 meters, a length of 4.4 meters (without antennas), and a total mass of 4.73 tons. Together, the spacecraft and the final stage of the launch vehicle weighed 6.17 tons and measured 7.35 meters in length.
The Americans had reportedly planned to launch a manned spacecraft by the end of April, so the Soviet designers were under pressure to complete their project quickly. It should be acknowledged as a result that Vostok-1 was neither comfortable nor dependable.
They first turned their back on the emergency rescue system at the beginning of its development, and then they turned their back on the spacecraft’s soft landing system. The descent happened on a ballistic trajectory, giving the impression that the capsule’s "core" had been fired from a cannon. An enormous overload occurs during such a landing; Gagarin felt as though he weighed ten times more! The cosmonaut is affected by gravity that is eight to ten times greater than what we feel on Earth!
They gave up on the backup braking system at last. The latter choice was supported by the knowledge that, even if the ship was launched into a low orbit of 180–200 kilometers, natural braking against the upper layers of the atmosphere would eventually cause it to leave the orbit in 10 days and return to Earth. The life support systems were calculated for these ten days.
Problems of the first space flight
This data was just recently published, and it had been a while since the issues with the first spacecraft launch were reported.
The first of these appeared even prior to launch: during the tightness check, the hatch sensor that Gagarin used to enter the capsule failed to signal that it was tight. Such a malfunction could cause the launch to be postponed because there was very little time left before the launch.
Then, Oleg Ivanovsky, the chief designer of "Vostok-1," and his team displayed extraordinary talents that made the mechanics of "Formula-1" of today jealous. Within minutes, thirty nuts removed themselves, examined and fine-tuned the sensor, and once more closed the hatch in a layout. This time, the launch occurred at the scheduled time and the leak test was successful.
The radio control system, which was meant to shut off the third stage engines, malfunctioned during the last phase of the launch. The ship had already ascended into orbit, with an apogee that was 100 km higher than predicted, when the backup mechanism (timer) was activated, causing the engine to shut off only after that.
According to different estimates, it could have taken anywhere from 20 to 50 days to descend from such an orbit using "aerodynamic braking" in the event that the same, backup braking unit had failed, rather than the 10 days that the life support system was intended to last.
Nonetheless, the Mission Control Center was ready for this kind of situation: Gagarin was "tracked" in a matter of seconds since all air defense systems in the nation were alerted about the flight (without providing any information about the cosmonaut’s whereabouts). In addition, a request was made in advance to all people on the planet to look for the first Soviet cosmonaut in the event that the landing took place overseas. Generally speaking, three such messages were prepared: one about Gagarin’s successful flight, the other about his tragic death, and the third that was published.
The braking propulsion system performed flawlessly during landing, but it lacked impulse, causing the automation to forbid the normal compartment separation. Consequently, the entire ship, including the third stage, entered the stratosphere rather than a spherical capsule.
The ship tumbled erratically at a speed of one revolution per second for ten minutes prior to entering the atmosphere because of its irregular geometric shape. In order to avoid frightening the flight managers—Korolev in particular—Gagarin reported an unusual situation aboard the ship.
The descent vehicle finally separated from the instrument-engine compartment when the ship entered the denser layers of the atmosphere, causing the connecting cables to burn out and the thermal sensors to issue the command to separate the compartments.
If the trained Gagarin (do you still recall the Flight Training Center footage with the centrifuge?) could tolerate overloads of eight to ten times! was ready, but the sight of the ship’s burning skin as it entered the dense layers of the atmosphere—where the outside temperature can drop to three to five thousand degrees—was not. Liquid metal streamed through two portholes—one on the entrance hatch, directly over the cosmonaut’s head, and the other, on the floor at his feet and fitted with a special orientation system—and the cabin itself started to crackle.
The Vostok spacecraft’s descent module at the RSC Energia museum. The cover, which broke apart at a height of seven kilometers, descended to Earth on its own and without a parachute.
The descent module carrying Gagarin landed in the Saratov region, close to the city of Engels in the vicinity of the village of Smelovka, rather than the intended location of 110 km from Stalingrad, as a result of a minor malfunction in the braking system.
At 1,500 meters in the air, Gagarin emerged from the ship’s capsule. Simultaneously, he was almost immediately propelled into the frigid Volga; only his immense expertise and poise enabled him to manage the parachute lines and safely land on dry land.
Following the flight, the cosmonaut was first seen by her six-year-old granddaughter Rita and the wife of a local forester, Anna Takhtarova. The military and the community’s collective farmers showed up shortly after. Under guard, one group of soldiers brought the descent module, while another carried Gagarin to the unit’s location. "Please tell the Air Force Commander-in-Chief: I have completed the task, landed in the designated area, I feel well, and there are no bruises or breakages," Gagarin reported over the phone to the commander of the air defense division from that location. Gagarin".
For approximately three years, the international community was kept in the dark about two facts by the USSR leadership: first, despite Gagarin’s ability to control the spacecraft (by using the code to open the envelope), the entire flight was accomplished automatically. The second is the actuality of Gagarin’s ejection, as the International Aeronautical Federation refused to acknowledge his flight as the first manned space flight because he landed apart from the spacecraft.
By discussing Astronautics Day with your kids, you can pique their interest in the cosmos and the amazing feats of space travel. It’s an opportunity to encourage them to have big dreams and consider the seemingly endless possibilities that exist outside of our planet.
Making space exploration interesting and relatable can be achieved by telling tales of astronauts and their adventures. This day presents an opportunity to foster their curiosity about science and technology, which may influence their future interests and professional choices.
Keep the dialogue lively and entertaining while letting your child’s imagination run wild. Who knows? Perhaps you are speaking with a future astronaut!
