The Tragic Story of a Russian Cosmonaut Who Was Sent into Space Knowing He Would Die (graphic pic)

[n2doc]

Casey Chan — Vladimir Komarov, a cosmonaut, knew he was going to die when he left Earth for space on the Soyuz 1. His friend Yuri Gagarin, the first human to reach outer space, knew Komarov would too. But Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union, wanted to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Communist Revolution with a spectacle. So Komarov boarded the Soyuz 1, and just like he predicted, ended up dying. The picture above is Komarov's remains.

The book Starman by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony examines the story of Gagarin and Komarov and how they couldn't stop the USSR from going forward with the mission. The NPR says:

Gagarin and some senior technicians had inspected the Soyuz 1 and had found 203 structural problems - serious problems that would make this machine dangerous to navigate in space. The mission, Gagarin suggested, should be postponed.

Gagarin wrote a 10-page memo and gave it to his best friend in the KGB, Venyamin Russayev, but nobody dared send it up the chain of command. Everyone who saw that memo, including Russayev, was demoted, fired or sent to diplomatic Siberia.

Komarov couldn't refuse the mission because the backup cosmonaut would have been Gagarin, his friend. So he went along with it and when things predictably failed—antennas didn't open, power was compromised, navigation was difficult—US intelligence picked up Komarov's cries of rage "cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship."


http://gizmodo.com/#!5783825/the-sad-tragedy-of-a-russian-cosmonaut-who-was-sent-into-space-knowing-he-would-die

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/03/18/134597833/cosmonaut-crashed-into-earth-crying-in-rage?ft=1&f=1026

[Dennis Donovan]

1. Can you put *GRAPHIC* in your subject line?

:puke:

[roguevalley]

11. there is no greater love than to lay down your life for another.

may brezniev and the rest (spelled his name wrong, I know) be shoveling coal in hell (which I don't believe in)

Sad story. He deserves to be remembered.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Wow. Talk about going above and beyond the call of duty.

He was a true hero.

May he rest in peace...

[mopinko]

3. ya gotta wonder if gagarin's plane crash was an accident.

i suspect that if he really did throw that drink we know the answer.

[xxqqqzme]

5. or even if it was a plane crash.

There is a story and twisted metal. 1968 USSR, who knows what really happened.

[Jim Lane]

6. That's been suspected

I don't understand your reference to "throw that drink" -- there are various explanations for the crash but this doesn't fit any of them. Would you please elaborate? It sounds interesting.

[n2doc]

8. at the end pf the npr link

As the book describes it:

Gagarin met Russayev at his family apartment but refused to speak in any of the rooms because he was worried about bugs. The lifts and lobby areas were not safe, either, so the two men trudged up and down the apartment block's echoing stairwells.

The Gagarin of 1967 was very different from the carefree young man of 1961. Komarov's death had placed an enormous burden of guilt on his shoulders. At one point Gagarin said, "I must go to see the main man personally." He was profoundly depressed that he hadn't been able to persuade Brezhnev to cancel Komarov's launch.

Shortly before Gagarin left, the intensity of his anger became obvious. "I'll get through to him somehow, and if I ever find out he knew about the situation and still let everything happen, then I know exactly what I'm going to do." Russayev goes on, "I don't know exactly what Yuri had in mind. Maybe a good punch in the face." Russayev warned Gagarin to be cautious as far as Brezhnev was concerned. "I told him, 'Talk to me first before you do anything. I warn you, be very careful.' "

The authors then mention a rumor, never proven (and to my mind, most unlikely), that one day Gagarin did have a moment with Brezhnev and he threw a drink in Brezhnev's face.

[Jim Lane]

10. Thanks! I should've read the whole linked article. (n/t)

[Indydem]

4. What an amazingly sad story.

I read the summary on Gizmodo yesterday, but just read the entire NPR piece.

So much good could have been accomplished for ALL mankind if the Russians and the US had worked together in search of knowledge instead of taking dangerous risks in a dick-measuring contest.

[RufusTFirefly]

7. And speaking of rumors

There are similar ones in our own country about the race to launch a certain space craft for propaganda purposes despite strong evidence suggesting that doing so would be unsafe.

[Wilms]

9. The White House refused to provide phone logs for that cold day one January.

State of the Union address with, perhaps, a live teleconference with the shuttle was, perhaps, too great an opportunity for the stage-managed presidency to pass up.

[Johonny]

12. comments on the link are fun

[mva92]

13. :O

That just makes me glad that I'm not Russian

[LongTomH]

14. Tributes left on the moon!

Colonel Komarov is commemorated by 2 plaques left on the moon by Apollo astronauts: One left at the Tranquility Base landing site of Apollo 11 and the Fallen Astronaut plaque left by the Apollo 11 crew at Hadley Rille. The plaque commemorates eight American astronauts and six Soviet cosmonauts who had died by that time (Most of the American astronauts had perished in various accidents unrelated to spaceflight.). The plaque was accompanied by a tiny, 8.5 cm (3.3 in.) aluminum sculpture of an spacesuited astronaut.