8 Photos That Tell The History of Humans In Space

WIRED

ESA Astronaut Tim Peake visits WIRED to have a look back at pivotal moments in the history of human space flight, captured in 8 unforgettable photographs.

Transcript

00:00 I'm British astronaut Tim Peake and I'm going to be talking about some of the most

00:02 iconic moments in the history of human spaceflight for WIRED.

00:06 Behind each of these photos is a different story about humans in space.

00:10 Missions being just seconds away from failure, secret codes, and taking crazy risks.

00:17 Well, just because we can.

00:22 I guess we should start at the beginning.

00:24 The first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, strapped into his Vostok 1 capsule there.

00:31 Inside that spacecraft, there is a code that is secret, even to Yuri himself.

00:37 Yuri didn't have any control over the spacecraft at all.

00:39 It was fully automated by a computer system and mission control.

00:43 Code 125 would allow manual controls, but only in case of an emergency.

00:47 There was so much fear in the Soviet Union about defection that the code was hidden from

00:52 the cosmonauts themselves and they were only going to be told about it in the event of

00:57 an emergency.

00:58 But actually, several people did tell Yuri the code secretly before he flew, so he knew

01:01 what it would be.

01:04 What you may not realise is that on the front of his helmet there, he's got the letters

01:09 CCCP to represent the Soviet Union.

01:12 It was painted on at the very last moment.

01:14 The Soviets realised this iconic moment.

01:17 There was nothing to identify him as a Soviet cosmonaut.

01:20 So one of the engineers grabbed his helmet and painted those letters on.

01:25 That paint is still wet right there in his capsule.

01:34 The launch didn't actually go completely according to plan.

01:36 Yuri went into a higher orbit than was expected.

01:39 They didn't bother telling him about it.

01:41 There really wasn't much he could do about it anyway.

01:43 And he didn't land in his spacecraft either.

01:45 The Vostok ejected the cosmonauts out and they actually parachuted back down to Earth.

01:52 And upon landing, Yuri was greeted by a very shocked farmer, who he asked to call Moscow.

01:59 Valentina Tereshkova, first female to fly into space.

02:03 Actually, this was part of the space race.

02:06 The Soviets had got wind of a woman in space programme over in the United States, trying

02:11 to see if any of the physiological differences between women and men would create an advantage

02:17 for flying female astronauts into space.

02:19 No surprise, they didn't just pass it, they actually performed in about the top 2% of

02:23 their male counterparts.

02:25 When the Soviets got wind of this programme, they thought, well, we're not going to get

02:28 pipped at the post.

02:29 And so they went for their own selection process and subsequently flew Valentina Tereshkova

02:33 as the first female in space.

02:36 And the woman in space programme?

02:38 It was just a study.

02:39 In fact, it was over 20 years until the first American woman flew to space.

02:46 We've got Ed White here, the first American to do a spacewalk.

02:50 The United States had wanted to be the first nation, but 10 weeks earlier, Alexei Leonov

02:55 had gone outside of his spacecraft and done the first ever spacewalk.

03:00 And it wasn't without risk.

03:02 Leonov's spacesuit expanded so much in the vacuum of space, he had to depressurise his

03:05 own suit to get back in.

03:07 The United States realised that their first spacewalk better be something a little bit

03:11 more impressive than just opening the hatch and poking your head out.

03:14 Beautiful.

03:15 I feel like a million dollars.

03:18 Also you may not know that on his spacewalk, he lost a glove with the hatch open to the

03:23 capsule.

03:24 Looks like a thermal glove, Jim.

03:25 It is, Ed.

03:26 Wow.

03:27 This has happened several times since.

03:31 Like when this $100,000 toolbox floated away from this NASA astronaut in 2008.

03:36 Oh great.

03:39 The toolbag circled Earth over eight months before burning into a fireball and destroying

03:43 itself over the Pacific Ocean.

03:45 The other thing both of them realised is that there are no handrails at all on the outside

03:50 of these capsules.

03:51 They're floating around on umbilicals here, out in space.

03:54 At one point, Ed was wiping himself over the windshield of the capsule and his crewmate

04:00 inside was kind of saying, 'Hey, you know, get yourself off my spacecraft.'

04:04 Possibly one of the most iconic photographs in the history of human spaceflight.

04:10 If you zoom in, then you'll actually see Neil taking that photograph reflected in the

04:16 gold visor of Buzz Aldrin.

04:18 It nearly didn't happen, of course.

04:19 Neil nearly ran out of fuel coming down to the surface.

04:25 The fuel got lower than it had ever become in any of the simulations, in any of the training

04:29 scenarios.

04:31 Bringing the lander module down to the surface, it was kicking up all this lunar dust.

04:36 And he wasn't able to even see his landing site.

04:41 Was the lunar landing module just going to sink several feet into lunar dust?

04:45 Were the astronauts going to sink up into their knees and not be able to actually walk

04:50 anywhere at all?

04:51 Neil had the cool presence of mind to just continue on, not worry about the fuel.

04:56 So when the landing module touched down, the only way they realised they were on the surface

05:01 is when the contact light came on.

05:04 And the engines were cut.

05:05 'Okay, engine stop.

05:06 Tranquility base here.

05:07 The Eagle has landed.'

05:08 'You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue.

05:09 We're breathing again.

05:10 Thanks a lot.'

05:11 And you think, wow, to have had such an incredible technical achievement, but actually still

05:21 to have had so many unknowns.

05:23 At some point, you have to do it.

05:25 You have to be the first.

05:26 And these were the first people to experience that.

05:32 This photograph actually became known just as the poster.

05:35 It adorned many bedroom walls of teenage kids and younger who would just stick it up and

05:42 look at that iconic image of a human floating out there, untethered.

05:47 The feeling of exposure and vulnerability in that suit.

05:51 The risk was palpable.

05:53 Even if one of those thrusters had just got stuck in the on position as he was manoeuvring

05:59 around, that would be it.

06:00 Game over.

06:01 Bruce would be off, lost forever into the cosmos.

06:03 And you could arguably say, well, what was the point of that?

06:05 What was the higher purpose?

06:07 Perhaps there wasn't one.

06:08 This was just like the jet ski of the spacewalking world, just because we can do it.

06:13 Let's go out there and do it and have fun.

06:15 Another thing you may not realise in this photograph is he was shivering and freezing

06:19 cold.

06:20 Although the poster looks like the most serene, the most tranquil event ever for Bruce at

06:25 the time, it was pretty hard work.

06:29 Peggy Whitson, June 5th, 2002.

06:32 This spacewalk really just shows how far we've come.

06:36 Now being able to perform eight hour, very complex missions outside the space station.

06:43 Space went from being a very competitive race between two nations to a very collaborative

06:48 period in low Earth orbit.

06:50 And so having been working apart during the space race, let's build a space station together

06:55 called the International Space Station as we know it today.

07:02 This next photograph is Frank Rubio.

07:04 One of the best things about space is playing with your food and water, frankly.

07:07 And when you get a bubble of water in front of you, it just makes you realise how different

07:12 the weightless environment is.

07:14 We've gone beyond the days of just building a space station.

07:17 We're spending huge amounts of time now in space.

07:20 We're using it as a microgravity laboratory and science that's becoming more and more

07:24 valuable by the day as we realise what you can do in weightlessness.

07:33 So fast forward to today and looking to the future with Artemis 2, not far away now.

07:39 The first crew to return to lunar orbit for over 50 years.

07:43 It's a little bit of a space race starting again though because Russia isn't part of

07:47 that partnership, neither is China.

07:49 Other nations such as India having a very dynamic space programme, landing a rover on

07:54 the south pole of the moon.

07:56 This new era of space exploration as we move outside of low Earth orbit once more, it's

08:02 going to be a very exciting five to ten years ahead.

08:04 (upbeat music)

08:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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