Ivan Ivanovich Cleared the Way for Yuri Gagarin's Spaceflight

Ivan Ivanovich's face obscured by the sign proclaiming him a dummy. via Astronautix The countryside near Perm in the Soviet Union was rocketed by what sounded like an explosion in the afternoon of March 25, 1961. A capsule was falling from the sky, and before it hit the ground an ejection seat shot out, sending a passenger to a soft landing not far away. When recovery crews and volunteer helpers finally reached the landing site they rushed to the lifeless figure lying on the snowy ground, eyes wide open staring at nothing in the distance. One man punched the body in the face. It wasn’t a man at all. It was a humanoid dummy named Ivan Ivanovich. The first months of 1961 were arguably the closest point in the space race, as the Americans and the Soviets took incredible strides to send the first man into space. In the United ...