108 Minutes

Gagarin lay strapped down^* in his seat in a tunnel of instruments, each one humming, clicking, buzzing, flashing. It was zero plus 100 sec­onds, and the pressure^** was getting less. To his left, without moving his head, which felt as though it was bursting, he read the altimeter: 7,000 metres. Another five seconds ticked by. Now he was higher than any birds had ever flown, speeding upwards faster than any man had travelled.

9.11 Moscow time. Gagarin had left the Earth's atmosphere. The second stage had separated and fallen away. Temperature and speed drop­ped sharply. He was in orbit.

Gagarin pulled his body towards the cabin window and the light beyond. "I can see the Earth in a haze.^*** Feeling fine." He added, after a second look, "How beautiful..."

Now he was able to move for the first time, and he loosened his straps. At once his body rose from the seat and he was floating.^**** Already he had been in a state of zero gravity, in flight,^***** longer than any man had experienced. To him it meant nothing; there was no unpleasantness, nothing unexpected.

Outside Vostok there was complete silence, absolute silence, as the ship, now a satellite, fell around the Earth like a stone dropping down a bottomless well.^******

10.15. He reported: "Over Africa." At 10.16 a red light went on to let him know that he would be going down in ten minutes. Quickly he checked his instruments again, reported once more that all was well.

Even firmly strapped in, Gagarin felt the atmosphere around him in the cabin change. Overload^******* was greater than on the way up; the pressure was painful in the extreme. Instruments began to swim in front of his eyes, but through it all the clock was seen ... 10.27. There were twenty-eight minutes to go. Then he was warned by orange lights and radio to prepare for landing. Gagarin felt a powerful push on the chest as the parachutes opened up high above the capsule.

Two women working in the fields were staring at the sky. The dot^******** grew larger, changing from black to white. Frightened but determined, they ran towards the object as it floated over the trees and hit the earth in the middle of a field. As they ran a door opened and a head appeared, followed by a body in a sky-blue suit. Gagarin smiled and called:"Hallo, give me a hand." At the realization of what they had seen one of the wom­en burst into giggling, while the other almost collapsed with shock. A man arrived and shook Gagarin's hand. The little party was still stand­ing, looking at each other with delight, when the first car came speeding up ...

Ex. 44. Use the following words and phrases in situations.

1. Making the Atom Serve the Needs of Man

to establish a research centre; leadings-scientists; to take part (in); to carry out research work; to make experiments; to study the possibi­lities of using the atom for scientific and industrial purposes; to aim (at); the peaceful uses of atomic power; to develop in two directions; power (nuclear power stations and motors) and non-power (the use of radioactive substances and their radiation in industry and science); to build the world's first industrial nuclear power station (in 1954); a gramme of uranium 235; to produce during fission as much energy as 2.5 tons of the best coal; the daily amount used; to be equal to 30 gram­mes; a cheap way of producing electrical energy; to design bigger nuclear power stations; to use