Vostok 1 - Crew

Crew

See also Selection and training of the Vostok programme

27-year-old Yuri Gagarin was the only crew member of Vostok 1. The Vostok spacecraft were designed to carry a single cosmonaut. The primary and secondary backup cosmonauts for the mission were Gherman Titov and Grigori Nelyubov. The assignments were formally made on April 8, four days before the mission, but Gagarin had been a favourite among the cosmonaut candidates for at least several months.

The final decision of who would fly the mission relied heavily on the opinion of Nikolai Kamanin. In an April 5 diary entry, Kamanin wrote that he was still undecided between Gagarin and Titov. He wrote: "The only thing that keeps me from picking is the need to have the stronger person for the one day flight." Kamanin was referring to the second mission, Vostok 2, which would last a full day, compared to the relatively short single-orbit mission of Vostok 1. When Gagarin and Titov were informed of the decision during a meeting on April 9, Gagarin was very happy, and Titov was disappointed. On April 10, this meeting was reenacted in front of television cameras, so there would be official footage of the event. This included an acceptance speech by Gagarin. As an indication of the level of secrecy involved, one of the other cosmonaut candidates, Alexey Leonov, later recalled that he didn't know who was chosen for the mission until after the spaceflight had begun.