September 20: Gherman Titov

Gherman Stepanovich Titov

September 11, 1935 – September 20, 2000

Gherman Titov was a Soviet cosmonaut and the second man to orbit the Earth.

Titov went to school at the Stalingrad Military Aviation School. After graduating as an air force pilot, he was selected for cosmonaut training in 1960, and from there was chosen to fly the Vostok 2 mission launched in August 6, 1961. The mission lasted for 25.3 hours and accomplished 17 earth orbits. His call sign in this flight was Eagle. He landed close to the town of Krasny Kut in Saratov Oblast, Russia. A month short of 26 years old at launch, he remains the youngest person to fly in space.

His name refers to Saint Germanus and not to "a German".

In August 1961, he was the first person to suffer from "space sickness" (i.e. motion sickness in space) and was also the first human to sleep in space. He slept roughly for one orbit, and was surprised to awake with his arms floating in the air due to the absence of gravity. After securing his arms under a security belt, he went back to sleep, overslept and awoke 30 minutes later than predicted by the flight plan. He states (in the English version of his biography) that

"Once you have your arms and legs arranged properly, space sleep is fine ... I slept like a baby".

Following his space flight, Titov went on to assume various senior positions in the Soviet space programme until his retirement in 1992.

The crater Titov on the far side of the Moon is named in his honor.