Apr 12, 2003 - Sale 1967

Sale 1967 - Lot 384

Unsold
Estimate: $ 80,000 - $ 120,000
THE RUSSIANS ANNOUNCE THE SUCCESS OF THE WORLD'S FIRST MANNED SPACE FLIGHT USSR CENTRAL AEROCLUB " V.P.CHKALOV". Records File of the First Space Flight by USSR Citizen Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin, Made on April 12, 1961, on Spaceship-Sputnik "Vostok". 16 leaves (11x7 inches), typescript in Russian, title-page in Russian and English with corrections in typescript and holograph, on the rectos only of A4 laid paper, disbound with stabholes from binding; being the scientific and technical data submitted by USSR Central Aeroclub "V.P. Chkalov" to the Federation Aeronautique Internationale to document the Soviet claim to have launched the first manned space flight. Signed by Russian FAI members Plaxin and Borisenko and Vostok designer Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov (as Konstantinov). The original typescript for the submitted scientific report supporting Gagarin's account of being the first man in space. Moscow, 15 April 1961
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Additional Details



"At 10:55 Moscow time in the area of the village Smelovka... landed Vostok with cosmonaut Gagarin..."
The scientific report is the summary of general technical information about Vostok 1; five Aeroclub documents describing its weight, take-off, landing, and flight-duration and altitude; two papers from the Moscow-Kosmos Coordinating and Computing Center on the orbital computations; and an account of the working principles of Vostok 1 and some of the scientific equipment on board.
The pages are signed by the requisite official who was responsible for their part of the whole report. Signed by designer of Vostok 1: Konstantin Feoktistov under pseudonym Konstantinov.
Prepared by the Soviets for the Federation Aeronatique Internationale and submitted to document with that official international governing body their claims to have successfully completed the world's first manned Space flight.
The technical data submitted herein was rushed to the FAI, along with Gagarin's first hand account of the flight (see Christie's East sale of 9 May 2001, lot 227, $150,000). This lot is the first pages of that account and contains the scientifc report of the takeoff, landing, duration of flight and supporting engineering data crucial to having the historic achievement of Vostok 1 recognized internationally. A quick validation of Gagarin's mission was needed by the Soviets as the return of the capsule to Earth circumvented the rules set forth for the first manned flight (a detail the Russians denied for years).
In actuality, while Gagarin was certainly the first man in space, his return to Earth after his orbit ended in was by parachuting from the capsule rather than remaining with the craft as called for in the FAI guidelines.
To effect a swift confirmation of the Soviet claims, they issued the supporting scientific report and Gagarin's account not as a printed document, but in the form of a typescript of which probably no more than 4 carbon copies were issued for review, of which one resides within the FAI archives and another carbon is in private hands.