Cold War Conversations

This week it's the 60th anniversary of the flight of Gherman Titov on Vostok 2. The forgotten 2nd cosmonaut overshadowed by the exploits of his friend Yuri Gagarin. Titov’s 25.3 hours and 17 orbits flight was much more ambitious than Gagarin’s and more dangerous. It was also a very political flight, intending to distract the world from the building of the Berlin Wall a number of days later.  However, there’s more to Titov than his flight, he was different character to most of the Soviet cosmonauts with a love of pre-Soviet literary classics and enjoying his own company. He was also one of the most colourful characters of the Soviet space program leading a wild life back on Earth with various car crashes and scrapes.  I’m sure regular listeners will be pleased to hear we have Stephen Walker back, the author of Beyond: The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space. Do check out our previous episode on Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space here https://coldwarconversations