Ivan Ivanovich (mannequin)

The mannequin, as far as possible, repeated the biological and anthropological data of a real person: for example, growth, the presence of hair and eyelashes, doctors tried to provide him with all kinds of sensors. Ivan Ivanovich was dressed in the space suit of the astronaut SK-1 and made a depressing impression with his appearance because of the effect that later became known as the “ sinister valley ”.

In contrast to them, the mannequin, as an inanimate being (which, for example, was unable to overeat with something), it would seem, could not cause any discussion problems. It should not have ... However, it only seemed so. As it soon became clear, one of the eternal common problems of modeling - about the optimal measure of approximation of the model to nature - showed itself here.

In one of the rooms of the annex to the assembly and test building, there were “rescuers” —the representatives of the design bureau that created the ejection chair and the astronaut's spacesuit. A few days before the launch of the satellite ship — it was, if I’m not mistaken, just on the day of my first arrival at the cosmodrome — they presented to Korolev and several "persons accompanying him" all of their equipment in assembled form: a chair and a safety belt attached to it belts clothed in a bright orange spacesuit mannequin.

The manufacturers of the mannequin tried to ensure that everything - at least everything accessible to the public - was “like a human being” in it. And therefore, they made him a completely humanlike face: with a mouth, nose, eyes, eyebrows, even eyelashes ... I could not resist the cue that, supposedly, having seen such a figure somewhere in the field or in the forest, I probably would have accepted it at the first moment for the dead man.

And indeed, there was something deadly unpleasant in the mannequin sitting in front of us. Probably, after all, it is impossible for a person to be too much like a person.

- M. L. Gallay . With a man on board. - M .: Owls. writer, 1985

So that anyone who could find him as a result of the trials did not decide that he was a dead person, a sign with the inscription “MAKET” ( Mayukul ) was placed for the suit, ^[1] . Shortly before the flight of Yuri Gagarin, Ivan Ivanovich and the dog Zvezdochka visited the capsule of the Vostok 3KA-2 spacecraft.

The launch of the ship with the mannequin took place on March 25, 1961 . His main task was to develop designs and systems designed to ensure human life when flying in outer space and returning to Earth. The weight of the ship was 4695 kg. In addition to a mannequin and a dog, he was carrying other experimental biological objects. After almost two hours of flight, the ship was taken out of orbit, during the descent, the chair of the future astronaut with a mannequin separated (catapulted). The container with the dog was in the descent vehicle, which also landed safely in a given area in the Perm region .

Thus, the launch of Vostok 3KA-2 with a mannequin on board was the final test of the Soviet spacecraft before the human flight, which took place on April 12, 1961.

In 1993, the mannequin was sold at the Sotheby 's auction to the Ross Perot Foundation for $ 189,500. In 1997, he was lent to the National Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics (USA), where he, still dressed in his spacesuit, is now on display.

In April 2011, a space auction was held in New York to mark the 50th anniversary of the first space flight, with a single lot valued at between $ 2 and $ 10 million. It was a space capsule in which the mannequin Ivan Ivanovich and the dog Zvezdochka were sent to Earth’s orbit ^[2] .

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