Dual Success For SpaceX

It's been a weekend of amazing successes for SpaceX. The private space company delivered its eighth Dragon resupply capsule to the International Space Station and stuck an experimental landing of the spent Falcon 9 booster rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic. SpaceX has previously tried landing the first stage of a Falcon 9 used in missions. Both times, the rocket made it to its target on the drone ship, but failed to land upright, resulting in RUD events (rapid unscheduled disassembly).

This tweet from early Sunday morning, April 10, shows Dragon safely docked to the ISS Harmony module, next to an Orbital Sciences' Cygnus cargo craft and a Soyuz crew capsule on the lower right. In total, six spacecraft are currently docked to the International Space Station.

SpaceX Dragon cargo ship, Orbital ATK’s Cygnus, and Soyuz crew capsule in this view from ISS https://t.co/uuY7qzZ0Ls pic.twitter.com/9qzTOiATDG

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) April 10, 2016

But let's go back to launch day, Friday, April 8, and take a look at all that SpaceX accomplished this weekend:

Image credit: SpaceX

Falcon 9 with its Dragon payload on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral

Image credit: SpaceX

Mission patch for SpaceX's eighth commercial resupply mission (CRS-8) to the International Space Station

If you look closely, you'll find the patch full of interesting details. For example, the eight stars in the design represent the eight missions to the ISS that SpaceX has flown so far, with one star dimmed out to symbolize last June's failed launch.

Image credit: SpaceX

Close-up of Dragon capsule atop Falcon 9, which stands over 200 feet (60 m) tall

Image credit: Space X

Graphic illustrating the stages of launch, landing and mission completion (click to enlarge)

The drone ship name in the above graphic is Just Read The Instructions. The ship on which Falcon 9 stuck its historic landing is Of Course I Still Love You.

The following trio of still pictures captured by SpaceX's chaser plane near the drone ship shows the landing's most breath-taking moments. This is the first time that SpaceX has successfully landed a rocket used in a mission on a drone ship at sea. The private space company previously succeeded at landing a Falcon 9 first stage on-shore.

Image credit: SpaceX

Image credit: SpaceX

Image credit: SpaceX

Whether Falcon 9's first stage lands on a drone ship or on shore after delivering a payload depends on several factors. Elon Musk explained some of them on Twitter.

@arstechnica Reasons for ocean landing are technical, not economic. Orbit requires extreme horizontal velocity. Getting to space needs none.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2016

Following are two tweets from SpaceX with landing video clips that were posted to the company's twitter account within hours of the landing.

Onboard view of landing in high winds pic.twitter.com/FedRzjYYyQ

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 9, 2016

Landing from the chase plane pic.twitter.com/2Q5qCaPq9P

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 8, 2016

Here is SpaceX's 36-minute launch and landing live webcast. About 30 seconds in, a legend appears at the bottom that lists the consecutive events being covered. It is well worth the time to review the launch and what SpaceX labeled "experimental landing". While the landing is one of the most jaw-dropping and certainly the most historic aspect of the CRS-8 mission, a successful landing was not the primary mission objective. That was getting a Dragon resupply capsule, including its important science cargo, safely to the International Space Station. SpaceX succeeded on both counts, with several cherries on top.

The reactions from employees at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, CA after the successful launch and landing on Friday say it all. Elon Musk and the team at SpaceX have mastered another crucial step towards routine usage of reusable rockets, drastically lowering the cost of reaching targets in orbit and beyond and making space more accessible than ever before. SpaceX plans to re-fly a used rocket within a few months.

Video credit: SpaceX

Live webcast from SpaceX's headquarters during Friday's successful launch to the ISS and landing on one of the company's drone ship.

Below is the Storify of my live tweets and conversations during Friday's pre-launch, launch and landing events, with some additional remarks for this blog post.

@Astro_Terry's Goodbye Gift From Orbit

Tomorrow, June 11, NASA astronaut Terry W. Wirts (@Astro_Terry on twitter) is returning to Earth from an almost 200-day stay on the orbital outpost, along with this two crew mates, ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti (@Astro_Samantha) and Russian Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov (@AntonAstrey).

While aboard the station, Samantha Cristoforetti broke the record for most consecutive days spent in space by a woman (199 days), a record previously held by Sunita Williams (194 days).

Undocking of the Soyuz from the ISS is currently scheduled for 3:20 a.m. PDT June 11, with touchdown on the Kazakh steppe projected for 6:43 am PDT. NASA and ESA will have live feeds. On the US West Coast, you'll have to get up early to watch.

This morning on twitter, prior to his departure from the orbital outpost, @Astro_Terry left us with an incredible image of some of the most recognizable and ancient human-built structures on Earth. Ponder the geometry and remember - construction on these pyramids started 4.5 millennia ago.

Can you name the three main Pyramids of Giza without looking it up?

Historic ISS 1-Year Mission Begins Today

CREWED LAUNCH ALERT: 

Expedition ISS 42S will launch Scott Kelly, Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko to the International Space Station today from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.

When: March 27, 2015, 
12:42 pm PDT 
3:42 pm EDT
20:42 CET

Live coverage is available on http://www.ustream.tv/NASAHDTV and Spaceflight Now, which is already blogging up-to-the-minute pre-launch coverage.

 Photo credit: NASA/ Bill Ingalls

Above: The veteran astronauts that will blast off to the ISS today. Scott Kelly (left) and Mikhail Kornienko (right) will remain on the orbital outpost for a whole year, while Gennady Padalka (middle) will stay on the ISS for the usual 160 days.

Fellow veteran astronaut Mark Kelly - Scott's twin brother - will remain on Earth as a control subject to compare the effects of long-term exposure to space experienced by his twin brother on-orbit. Mikahil Kornienko was chosen for the 1-year mission to match Mark Kelly on a number of variables, such as age, experience, number of missions, and number of hours spent in space. All of this makes scientific sense, especially since the purpose of the ISS 1-year study is to find out more about the health effects of long-term exposure to space, and how humans generally adapt to microgravity, with an eye towards medium- and long-term missions, such as journeys to Mars.

For the record, I absolutely think that one of the astronauts chosen for the 1-year mission should have been a woman. ISS astronauts corps have plenty of women to choose from. I completely understand why choosing one twin on-orbit while the other remains on Earth makes scientific sense, as does a matched control subject for Scott Kelly on the ISS. My question is: Why were women excluded entirely from a 1-year ISS study? What little we know about adaptation to space seems to indicate non-trivial gender differences. What if it turns out women are better suited to long-term missions than men? Why do we not even bother to ask or study that question, now that we have a 1-year mission in the works? Even if you think the current ISS 1-year mission is perfect as planned, why did it not include a woman as a second control subject on-board the ISS? Why not send a mixed-gender trio for one year? The data derived from cross-gender comparisons would be so much more valuable than comparing men only. That's not even mentioning the fact that the current mission to study long-term effects on humans in space excludes half the human race it claims to study. 

To my knowledge, NASA has no plans to conduct a similar 1-year study with women astronauts only (please, please tell me I'm wrong about this!). Plus, with the current ISS lifespan cycle funded for about another 9 years, and many other male astronauts on the manifest for 160-day stays on the ISS, how likely is it that a female-only 1-year study is going to happen?

From where I'm sitting, excluding women astronauts from the ISS 1-year study looks like nothing so much as stacking the deck in favor of choosing male astronauts (all astronauts corps on Earth are male-dominated) for future long-term mission, e.g., to Mars. The reasoning will go something like this: Well, we have limited slots to Mars, and we already know what happens to men during long-term exposure to space, but with women astronauts... you know, we just cannot risk it, because we don't know - and never bothered to find out.

Photo Credit: NASA Aubrey Gemignani 

The Soyuz rocket that will carry Scott Kelly, Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka to the ISS in less than two hours.

Falcon 9 Delivers Dragon, Just Misses Landing

On Saturday, January 10, SpaceX's Falcon 9 flagship rocket launched a supply capsule to the International Space Station for the fifth time under a commercial resupply contract with NASA. The night launch out of Cape Canaveral was flawless in its beauty. Capture (aka catch the dragon with a robotic arm on the ISS) and docking of the capsule went as planned. 

 Image credit: SpaceX / NASA

SpaceX's Dragon CRS-5 being grappled and docked by astronauts aboard the International Space Station, with a little help from Houston Mission Control.

 
The historic aspect of this mission - landing Falcon 9's upper stage on a barge using technology developed by SpaceX - fell just short of its goal. The rocket reached the drone ship in the Atlantic, but didn't land on point. It crashed and damaged structures on the ship. Still, considering the difficulty of precision-landing a used rocket on a ship in the ocean, it was a bold attempt, a first in the history of rocketry. SpaceX is optimistic they will stick the landing next time.

The technological leap that comes with reliable reusability technology is significant. Capsules that return to Earth have historically landed inside vast target zones, such as the ocean (Apollo) or the Russian tundra (Soyuz), using parachutes and braking rockets. The precise landing spot is uncertain and ground support teams must locate the capsule once it has splashed or touched down. Since the Space Shuttle retirement, these imprecise landings are the only option we have to return astronauts to Earth. Compare that to the precision inherent in landing on a 300-by-170 foot (90-by-50 m) barge, and eventually a pad on land. Yes, a rocket isn't reusable if it reaches a specific spot and crashes on it, but I'm certain SpaceX is on its way to getting it right.

Elon Musk, SpaceX's CEO, posted this series of tweets, with his characteristic understatement and humor:

Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015

Ship itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced...
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015

Didn't get good landing/impact video. Pitch dark and foggy. Will piece it together from telemetry and ... actual pieces.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015

Grid fins worked extremely well from hypersonic velocity to subsonic, but ran out of hydraulic fluid right before landing.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015

Upcoming flight already has 50% more hydraulic fluid, so should have plenty of margin for landing attempt next month.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015

Am super proud of my crew for making huge strides towards reusability on this mission. You guys rock!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015

Yesterday's mission to the Space Station lights up the cloudy night sky of Cape Canaveral pic.twitter.com/DFB742HaQt
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 12, 2015

Update January 16, 2015: 

Late last night, Elon Musk released drone footage pictures of the almost-landing and its aftermath on twitter. These tweets appeared as @ replies to another user, so they are not as visible as his regular tweets and got somewhat less attention than usual. In addition, these images were released the same day as the announcement of the Hyperloop test track construction in Texas, which dominated yesterday's coverage of Elon Musk. Well played, Elon!

@ID_AA_Carmack Before impact, fins lose power and go hardover. Engines fights to restore, but … pic.twitter.com/94VDi7IEHS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2015

@ID_AA_Carmack Rocket hits hard at ~45 deg angle, smashing legs and engine section pic.twitter.com/PnzHHluJfG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2015

@ID_AA_Carmack Residual fuel and oxygen combine pic.twitter.com/5k07SP8M9n
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2015

@ID_AA_Carmack Full RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) event. Ship is fine minor repairs. Exciting day! pic.twitter.com/tIEctHFKHG
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2015

I would have called it "involuntary full conversion of an asset" but RUD is good, too! Of course this wouldn't be Elon Musk tweeting without this next tweet. Unlike the others above, it appears in his main tweet stream (not tweets & replies) so it got a lot more attention in terms of FVs and RTs:

Next rocket landing on drone ship in 2 to 3 weeks w way more hydraulic fluid. At least it shd explode for a diff reason.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2015

A few hours ago, a video of the (crash) landing appeared in SpaceX's main tweet stream:

Close, but no cigar. This time. https://t.co/JowUE6a1D7
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 16, 2015

As someone who has previously critiqued media coverage of SpaceX and its CEO, I noted a change in the tone used by space and science writers to cover the rocket company and its CEO over the past year, and especially today. Gone are the diminutive references and labels of SpaceX as a "scrappy startup". In its place are grudging acknowledgments that SpaceX is, in fact, a major player in the industry, evidenced by descriptors of Elon Musk as, for example, "space boss". I predict this will become "industry leader" within a year.

Welcome Home, Soyuz Expedition 36!

Three humans returned safely from the International Space Station after a well practiced, yet fiery plunge through Earth's atmosphere, landing in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2013 (the evening of Tuesday, September 10 in the US).

 Photo credit: NASA

Flight Engineer Chris Cassidy (NASA), left, Commander Pavel Vinogradov (Roscosmos), center, and, Flight Engineer Alexander Misurkin (Roscosmos) just minutes after being helped out of the Soyuz TMA-08M capsule. The trio launched to the ISS on March 29 and spent five and a half months in space.

Photo credit: NASA

Fiery landing: Soyuz TMA-08M with its human passengers under the main parachute just as the soft landing engines fire to soften the capsule's impact. 

More images from a rare Soyuz night landing last November: http://lotsinspace.blogspot.com/2012/11/soyuz-expedition-33-returns-to-earth.html

Grasshopper and SpaceX Showcase the Future

Multiple successful launches and exciting announcements in recent days have made for an eventful week: Mars One, a private company based in The Netherlands, announced its astronaut selection process for one-way trips to Mars to establish a permanent colony, starting in 2023. Virginia-based private space company Orbital Sciences successfully completed the maiden flight of its Antares rocket. A Russian Soyuz launched a resupply capsule to the ISS. A second Soyuz delivered a menagerie of animals into orbit to conduct research on the long-term effects of microgravity.

Still, I must present the week's Award for Most Jaw-Dropping Launch (and Landing!) Footage to SpaceX. The private company's Grasshopper vehicle underwent it's fifth test last week:

The Grasshopper rocket is a remarkable piece of engineering: A Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle designed to test the technologies involved in returning rockets to Earth intact instead of having them burn up in the atmosphere. Rapid re-usability means cost reduction - an important objective for the private company. Essentially, SpaceX is designing rocket technology that includes a return trip to the launch pad for a vertical landing. The rocket is 106 ft (32 m) tall, with a tank height of 85 ft (26 m).  

SpaceX has been testing the Grasshopper at its McGregor, TX rocket development facility since 2012 with a series of test flights that have achieved substantial successive increases in altitude:    

Sep 2012: 8 ft (2.5 m)    
Nov 2012: 18 ft (5.5 m)    
Dec 2012: 131 ft (40 m)    
Mar 2013: 263 ft (80 m)    
Apr 2013: 820 ft (250 m) - the leap shown in the video above.    

Grasshopper's components are a Falcon 9 rocket first stage tank with a Merlin 1C engine that generates a maximum thrust of 122,000 pounds. The rocket sits on four steel and aluminum landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure. Nitrogen- or helium-filled carbon overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs) are attached to the support structure. Propellants used in the Grasshopper VTVL vehicle include a refined kerosene fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. Grasshopper uses closed loop thrust vector and throttle control for landings.    

One of the most amazing moments in the above launch and landing video comes when Grasshopper hovers at its maximum altitude, buffeted by winds strong enough to bend the rocket flames at a significant angle while Grasshopper itself holds steady against the wind, except for one slight wobble. During a week that also showcased ambitious plans for establishing the first Mars colony I can only conclude: The future really is HERE!!  

 

e Grasshopper RLV consists of a Falcon 9 Stage 1 tank, a Merlin-1D engine, four steel landing legs, and a steel support structure. Carbon overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs), which are filled with either nitrogen or helium, are attached to the support structure. The Merlin-1D engine has a maximum thrust of 122,000 pounds. The overall height of the Grasshopper RLV is 106 feet, and the tank height is 85 feet. The propellants used in the Grasshopper RLV include a highly refined kerosene fuel, called RP-1, and liquid oxygen (LOX) as the oxidizer. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-11-spacex-story-reuseable-grasshopper-rocket.html#jCp

The Grasshopper RLV consists of a Falcon 9 Stage 1 tank, a Merlin-1D engine, four steel landing legs, and a steel support structure. Carbon overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs), which are filled with either nitrogen or helium, are attached to the support structure. The Merlin-1D engine has a maximum thrust of 122,000 pounds. The overall height of the Grasshopper RLV is 106 feet, and the tank height is 85 feet. The propellants used in the Grasshopper RLV include a highly refined kerosene fuel, called RP-1, and liquid oxygen (LOX) as the oxidizer. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-11-spacex-story-reuseable-grasshopper-rocket.html#

Soyuz Expedition 33 Returns to Earth

On Monday morning, November 19, 2012, Soyuz Expedition 33 landed near Arkalyk, Kazakhstan. The capsule carried three astronauts returning from a 127-day stay on the International Space Station: Akihiko Hoshide (@aki_hoshide) of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Russian Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA astronaut Sunita Williams (@astro_suni), who became the second woman to command the ISS. 

Expedition 33 made a rare night landing on the Kazakh steppe at 7:56 a.m. local time, before local sunrise. The temperature was well below freezing and the capsule landed on its side in the snow - but not before leaving a spectacular scorch and drag mark. As much as I love the space shuttle, you just don't see that sort of thing on the Cape ~

All three astronauts were recovered from the Expedition 33 capsule in good spirits. 

Oh, and am I the only one who thinks that the Soyuz capsules should be *named*?

The Soyuz capsule carved a trench in the snow upon landing, parachutes are visible in upper left

Another aerial view of the landing site and recovery team; capsule is on its side

Capsule upright prior to hatch opening

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, who returned from a stay as Commander of the ISS

Photo credits: NASA

Welcome to Los Angeles, Endeavour!

Space Shuttle Endeavour arrived safely and to a huge welcome at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, September 21, 2012.

Since it's easy to get caught up in the excitement of seeing a space shuttle soar overhead on top of a modified 747 (aka SCA = shuttle carrier aircraft) let's take a look at a rare photograph first. Below is Endeavour in her full splendor docked to the completed International Space Station during her last mission to space. Italian Astronaut Paulo Nespoli snapped this picture on May 23, 2011 from a Soyuz capsule. While there are a number of photos showing parts of shuttles photographed from inside the ISS, this is the only picture showing all of Endeavour docked to the completed ISS. This picture shows her doing what she was made for: Spaceflight. Building and servicing the International Space Station. An amazing machine that gave us the ability to construct a human outpost in orbit. Endeavour may be ready for retirement now and I can't wait to visit her at her new home at the California Science Center. I'm sure she will be breathtaking. 

But to me she was never more magnificent than doing what she did best - In Space.

Photo credit: Paulo Nespoli / NASA

Around 9 a.m. on Sept. 21, I started making my way to LAX a few miles away. I took the bus and train to avoid the predicted traffic chaos and shortage of parking at the location I had in mind: The East Side of Aviation Blvd, at the end of LAX's south runway. If you know the area, this stretch of road is located north of the Proud Bird restaurant. The runway starts on the other side of the street. It's a great spot for watching incoming planes fly low before touchdown. 

I arrived at the location at 10:30 a.m, as planned, for a shuttle landing time of 11 a.m., just as I learned that landing time had been postponed to 12:45 p.m. Aviation Blvd. is not one of those quaint, picturesque L.A. streets. It's a major four-lane airport access road and the ambiance is razor wire fence-industrial. The "sidewalk" is a narrow strip of gravel.  (Note: If you ever find yourself stranded on a narrow strip of gravel for a long wait, do so with a Southwest flight attendant who has a carry-on. They have everything you need in that bag for hot, dusty, historic space events!)

When I arrived, the crowd was still relatively thin. I settled in for a 2+ hour wait. Twitter dropped in and out of being accessible during that time so my #spottheshuttle tweets from the location are a bit... spotty. 

As I have found to be the case at all space events, nothing is easier than striking up a conversation with strangers. I met two flight attendants from Southwest Air, one who had come from Minneapolis, the other Las Vegas. I met an engineer who had worked on Endeavour's SSMEs. A mother who had brought her kid to see the shuttle; they had been waiting since 6 a.m. Two film students with professional equipment who planned to get footage of the landing and use it in their film project this semester, and many more. As a bonus, I got a ferocious sunburn despite SPF50. No matter.

By noon, the crowd had grown considerably and was now clustered along Aviation Blvd. in both directions as far as anyone could see. The cops amused us trying to contain everybody on the gravel strip, keeping them out of the bike path and street. This was a doomed effort. The bike path was ours. During the shuttle's final landing approach, the cops caved in, stopped traffic and let us take the street. That is when the long, dusty, brutally hot wait paid off. This is what we saw - no zoom, no filters, a glorious moment:

Photo credit: Tanya Ehret

The aircraft in the upper right is an F-19 fighter aircraft, one of two that accompany the shuttle carrier aircraft (SCA), a converted 747, flying space shuttles across the country. While the shuttle program was active, NASA maintained two SCAs to return shuttles from California. Shuttle landings were diverted to land at Edwards Air Force Base in California on a number of occasions.

Video credit: Tanya Ehret

 

The landing approach was Endeavour's third pass above us. We first glimpsed the plane carrying Endeavour as a speck in the northwest, from the direction of Santa Barbara, heading inland over Santa Monica, beginning its flyby of L.A. landmarks, including Griffith Observatory and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The SCA then headed south, where it flew over Disneyland, Boeing and the U.S.S. Iowa. It then returned to LAX and gave us two approaches: The first one much higher than the above pic; even though it looked like it might land. At the last moment, the 747 pulled up and completed one last long loop to the southeast toward its final landing approach.    Welcome to Los Angeles, Endeavour! We are proud to have you. I will see you again during the parade to the CA Science Center on October 12. Below is a collection of some of my favorite photos.  


 

Endeavour began her journey to Southern California with flyovers of Sacramento and San Francisco 

Endeavour over Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

The two photos above were taken by a photographer for the L.A. Times from a skyscraper rooftop in nearby downtown Los Angeles

 A sight that was never before seen over downtown Los Angeles - 

and never will be again

 Endeavour soars over NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena 

 Touchdown at LAX

 You don't see this every day: Angelenos stop and get out of their cars along a busy airport access road to get a better look at History in the Making. 

By Saturday afternoon, Endeavour had been de-mated from the SCA. This marks the first time Endevour was seen nose-to-nose with a NASA shuttle carrier aircraft

Yuri's Night 2012

April 12 is International Space Day and a special day for all space geeks.

51 years ago today, Yuri Gagarin became humanity's first astronaut, blasting off into space atop a Soyuz rocket and safely returned to Earth 108 minutes later

31 years ago today, STS-1 Space Shuttle Columbia launched on its maiden flight and circled the Earth 37 times in 54 hours. Columbia's successful landing gave the U.S. its first reusable spaceship.

And finally, today, April 12, 2012, I found a video that I have never seen before - Yuri Gagarin's launch video (presumably from Baikonur Cosmodrome, which in this video still looks only partially completed) with a lot of bonus material on how the Russians handled and reacted to the flight and Yuri's safe return to Earth. One thing's for sure: I have never seen so many Russians so happily exuberant at the same time. 

 

I have become fascinated with this video. The more I watch it and listen to it the more Russian phrases I understand. At least I suspect I understand them. Which is pretty cool.

It also struck me how blissfully, peacefully happy Yuri Gagarin looked right after he returned to Earth. Go to about 3:07 and you'll see what I mean. It is a look of contentment, wonder and awe that all astronauts experience when they see Earth from space with their own eyes. 

This reminded me of a conspiracy theory I came across regarding Yuri Gagarin's untimely death. He was 34 when he died in an accidental plane crash. Officially. Unofficially, the story goes like this: After his historic space flight, Yuri became reluctant to embrace communism and wary of being portrayed as a Socialist hero by the Soviet propaganda machine. He opposed isolationism and escalation of the Cold War. And, of course, people listened to him. So the KGB arranged for a convenient accident, because Gagarin as a dead Soviet hero was much less trouble than a man revered by the Russian people who spoke out against the human rights violations and oppression of a Soviet Union whose government ruled by fear, intimidation and violence. In other words - Don't send a man to space and expect him not to broaden his consciousness and horizons beyond the confines of national borders and ideologies. 

Or, in the words of Arthur C. Clarke: "There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.

Or, in the words of astronaut Don Pettit @astro_pettit, currently living and working on the International Space Station, who wrote this poem from space:

   

And why the Sun comes up each morn, and why the Earth goes ’round?
I wonder what the Sun on Mars, would bring at dusk and dawn?
 I wonder what two moons would say, from Earth lit sky when Sun is gone  
I wonder if Mars mountain crags would be a sight to hold?
 I wonder if I’d dare to climb, how could I be so bold!  
I wonder when Man’s mind will grow, 
and cease to be so small  
I wonder when we’ll venture forth, I hope before we fall  
I wonder if we’ll never dare, to reach up through the sky 
Forever doomed to live on Earth, and this, I wonder why?

Don Pettit, Node 2, Deck 5, ISS, LEO (International Space Station, Low Earth Orbit)