There are only about 20 people who gave their lives for the benefit of world progress in the field of space exploration, and today we will tell you about them.
Their names are immortalized in the ashes of cosmic chronos, burned into the atmospheric memory of the universe forever, many of us would dream of remaining heroes for humanity, however, few would want to accept such a death as our cosmonaut heroes.
The 20th century was a breakthrough in mastering the path to the vastness of the Universe; in the second half of the 20th century, after much preparation, man was finally able to fly into space. However, there was a downside to such rapid progress - death of astronauts.
People died during pre-flight preparations, during the takeoff of the spacecraft, and during landing. Total during space launches, preparations for flights, including cosmonauts and technical personnel who died in the atmosphere More than 350 people died, about 170 astronauts alone.
Let us list the names of the cosmonauts who died during the operation of spacecraft (the USSR and the whole world, in particular America), and then we will briefly tell the story of their death.
Not a single cosmonaut died directly in Space; most of them all died in the Earth’s atmosphere, during the destruction or fire of the ship (the Apollo 1 astronauts died while preparing for the first manned flight).
Volkov, Vladislav Nikolaevich (“Soyuz-11”)
Dobrovolsky, Georgy Timofeevich (“Soyuz-11”)
Komarov, Vladimir Mikhailovich (“Soyuz-1”)
Patsaev, Viktor Ivanovich (“Soyuz-11”)
Anderson, Michael Phillip ("Columbia")
Brown, David McDowell (Columbia)
Grissom, Virgil Ivan (Apollo 1)
Jarvis, Gregory Bruce (Challenger)
Clark, Laurel Blair Salton ("Columbia")
McCool, William Cameron ("Columbia")
McNair, Ronald Erwin (Challenger)
McAuliffe, Christa ("Challenger")
Onizuka, Allison (Challenger)
Ramon, Ilan ("Columbia")
Resnick, Judith Arlen (Challenger)
Scobie, Francis Richard ("Challenger")
Smith, Michael John ("Challenger")
White, Edward Higgins (Apollo 1)
Husband, Rick Douglas ("Columbia")
Chawla, Kalpana (Columbia)
Chaffee, Roger (Apollo 1)
It is worth considering that we will never know the stories of the death of some astronauts, because this information is secret.
Soyuz-1 disaster
“Soyuz-1 is the first Soviet manned spacecraft (KK) of the Soyuz series. Launched into orbit on April 23, 1967. There was one cosmonaut on board Soyuz-1 - Hero of the Soviet Union, engineer-colonel V. M. Komarov, who died during the landing of the descent module. Komarov’s backup in preparation for this flight was Yu. A. Gagarin.”
Soyuz-1 was supposed to dock with Soyuz-2 to return the crew of the first ship, but due to problems, the launch of Soyuz-2 was canceled.
After entering orbit, problems began with the operation of the solar battery; after unsuccessful attempts to launch it, it was decided to lower the ship to Earth.
But during the descent, 7 km from the ground, the parachute system failed, the ship hit the ground at a speed of 50 km per hour, tanks with hydrogen peroxide exploded, the cosmonaut died instantly, Soyuz-1 almost completely burned out, the remains of the cosmonaut were severely burned so that it was impossible to identify even fragments of the body.
“This disaster was the first time a person died in flight in the history of manned astronautics.”
The causes of the tragedy have never been fully established.
Soyuz-11 disaster
Soyuz 11 is a spacecraft whose crew of three cosmonauts died in 1971. The cause of death was the depressurization of the descent module during the landing of the ship.
Just a couple of years after the death of Yu. A. Gagarin (the famous cosmonaut himself died in a plane crash in 1968), having already followed the seemingly well-trodden path of conquest of outer space, several more cosmonauts passed away.
Soyuz-11 was supposed to deliver the crew to the Salyut-1 orbital station, but the ship was unable to dock due to damage to the docking unit.
Crew composition:
Commander: Lieutenant Colonel Georgy Dobrovolsky
Flight engineer: Vladislav Volkov
Research engineer: Viktor Patsayev
They were between 35 and 43 years old. All of them were posthumously awarded awards, certificates, and orders.
It was never possible to establish what happened, why the spacecraft was depressurized, but most likely this information will not be given to us. But it’s a pity that at that time our cosmonauts were “guinea pigs” who were released into space without much security or security after the dogs. However, probably many of those who dreamed of becoming astronauts understood what a dangerous profession they were choosing.
Docking occurred on June 7, undocking on June 29, 1971. There was an unsuccessful attempt to dock with the Salyut-1 orbital station, the crew was able to board the Salyut-1, even stayed at the orbital station for several days, a TV connection was established, but already during the first approach to the station the cosmonauts stopped filming for some smoke. On the 11th day, a fire started, the crew decided to descend on the ground, but problems emerged that disrupted the undocking process. Spacesuits were not provided for the crew.
On June 29 at 21.25 the ship separated from the station, but a little more than 4 hours later contact with the crew was lost. The main parachute was deployed, the ship landed in a given area, and the soft landing engines fired. But the search team discovered at 02.16 (June 30, 1971) the lifeless bodies of the crew; resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful.
During the investigation, it was found that the cosmonauts tried to eliminate the leak until the last minute, but they mixed up the valves, fought for the wrong one, and meanwhile missed the opportunity for salvation. They died from decompression sickness - air bubbles were found during autopsy even in the heart valves.
The exact reasons for the depressurization of the ship have not been named, or rather, they have not been announced to the general public.
Subsequently, engineers and creators of spacecraft, crew commanders took into account many of the tragic mistakes of previous unsuccessful flights into space.
Challenger shuttle disaster
“The Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger, at the very beginning of mission STS-51L, was destroyed by the explosion of its external fuel tank 73 seconds into flight, resulting in the death of all 7 crew members. The crash occurred at 11:39 EST (16:39 UTC) over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of central Florida, USA."
In the photo, the ship's crew - from left to right: McAuliffe, Jarvis, Resnik, Scobie, McNair, Smith, Onizuka
All of America was waiting for this launch, millions of eyewitnesses and viewers watched the launch of the ship on TV, it was the culmination of the Western conquest of space. And so, when the grand launch of the ship took place, seconds later, a fire began, later an explosion, the shuttle cabin separated from the destroyed ship and fell at a speed of 330 km per hour on the surface of the water, seven days later the astronauts would be found in the broken cabin at the bottom of the ocean. Until the last moment, before hitting the water, some crew members were alive and tried to supply air to the cabin.
There is an excerpt in the video below the article live broadcast with the launch and death of the shuttle.
“The Challenger shuttle crew consisted of seven people. Its composition was as follows:
The crew commander is 46-year-old Francis “Dick” R. Scobee. US military pilot, US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, NASA astronaut.
The co-pilot is 40-year-old Michael J. Smith. Test pilot, US Navy captain, NASA astronaut.
The scientific specialist is 39-year-old Ellison S. Onizuka. Test pilot, Lieutenant Colonel of the US Air Force, NASA astronaut.
The scientific specialist is 36-year-old Judith A. Resnick. Engineer and NASA astronaut. Spent 6 days 00 hours 56 minutes in space.
The scientific specialist is 35-year-old Ronald E. McNair. Physicist, NASA astronaut.
The payload specialist is 41-year-old Gregory B. Jarvis. Engineer and NASA astronaut.
The payload specialist is 37-year-old Sharon Christa Corrigan McAuliffe. A teacher from Boston who won the competition. For her, this was her first flight into space as the first participant in the “Teacher in Space” project.”
Last photo of the crew
To establish the causes of the tragedy, various commissions were created, but most of the information was classified; according to assumptions, the reasons for the ship’s crash were poor interaction between organizational services, irregularities in the operation of the fuel system that were not detected in time (the explosion occurred at launch due to the burnout of the wall of the solid fuel accelerator), and even. .terrorist attack. Some said that the shuttle explosion was staged to harm America's prospects.
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
“The Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, shortly before the end of its 28th flight (mission STS-107). The final flight of the space shuttle Columbia began on January 16, 2003. On the morning of February 1, 2003, after a 16-day flight, the shuttle was returning to Earth.
NASA lost contact with the craft at approximately 14:00 GMT (09:00 EST), 16 minutes before its intended landing on Runway 33 at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which was scheduled to take place at 14:16 GMT. Eyewitnesses filmed burning debris from the shuttle flying at an altitude of about 63 kilometers at a speed of 5.6 km/s. All 7 crew members were killed."
Crew pictured - From top to bottom: Chawla, Husband, Anderson, Clark, Ramon, McCool, Brown
The Columbia shuttle was making its next 16-day flight, which was supposed to end with a landing on Earth, however, as the main version of the investigation says, the shuttle was damaged during the launch - a piece of torn off thermal insulating foam (the coating was intended to protect tanks with oxygen and hydrogen) as a result of the impact, damaged the wing coating, as a result of which, during the descent of the apparatus, when the heaviest loads on the body occur, the apparatus began to overheat and, subsequently, destruction.
Even during the shuttle mission, engineers more than once turned to NASA management to assess the damage and visually inspect the shuttle body using orbital satellites, but NASA experts assured that there were no fears or risks and the shuttle would descend safely to Earth.
“The crew of the shuttle Columbia consisted of seven people. Its composition was as follows:
The crew commander is 45-year-old Richard “Rick” D. Husband. US military pilot, US Air Force colonel, NASA astronaut. Spent 25 days 17 hours 33 minutes in space. Before Columbia, he was commander of the shuttle STS-96 Discovery.
The co-pilot is 41-year-old William "Willie" C. McCool. Test pilot, NASA astronaut. Spent 15 days 22 hours 20 minutes in space.
The flight engineer is 40-year-old Kalpana Chawla. Researcher, NASA's first female astronaut of Indian origin. Spent 31 days, 14 hours and 54 minutes in space.
The payload specialist is 43-year-old Michael P. Anderson. Scientist, NASA astronaut. Spent 24 days 18 hours 8 minutes in space.
A zoology specialist is 41-year-old Laurel B. S. Clark. US Navy captain, NASA astronaut. Spent 15 days 22 hours 20 minutes in space.
Scientific specialist (doctor) - 46-year-old David McDowell Brown. Test pilot, NASA astronaut. Spent 15 days 22 hours 20 minutes in space.
The scientific specialist is 48-year-old Ilan Ramon (English Ilan Ramon, Hebrew.אילן רמון). NASA's first Israeli astronaut. Spent 15 days 22 hours 20 minutes in space.”
The shuttle's descent took place on February 1, 2003, and within an hour it was supposed to land on Earth.
“On February 1, 2003, at 08:15:30 (EST), the space shuttle Columbia began its descent to Earth. At 08:44 the shuttle began to enter the dense layers of the atmosphere." However, due to damage, the leading edge of the left wing began to overheat. From 08:50, the ship's hull suffered severe thermal loads; at 08:53, debris began to fall off the wing, but the crew was alive and there was still communication.
At 08:59:32 the commander sent the last message, which was interrupted mid-sentence. At 09:00, eyewitnesses had already filmed the explosion of the shuttle, the ship collapsed into many fragments. that is, the fate of the crew was predetermined due to NASA’s inaction, but the destruction itself and the loss of life occurred in a matter of seconds.
It is worth noting that the Columbia shuttle was used many times, at the time of its death the ship was 34 years old (in operation by NASA since 1979, the first manned flight in 1981), it flew into space 28 times, but this flight turned out to be fatal.
No one died in space itself, in dense layers atmosphere and in spaceships - about 18 people.
In addition to the disasters of 4 ships (two Russian - "Soyuz-1" and "Soyuz-11" and American - "Columbia" and "Challenger"), in which 18 people died, there were several more disasters due to an explosion, fire during pre-flight preparation , one of the most famous tragedies is a fire in an atmosphere of pure oxygen during preparation for the Apollo 1 flight, then three American astronauts died, and in a similar situation, a very young USSR cosmonaut, Valentin Bondarenko, died. The astronauts simply burned alive.
Another NASA astronaut, Michael Adams, died while testing the X-15 rocket plane.
Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin died in an unsuccessful flight on an airplane during a routine training session.
Probably, the goal of the people who stepped into space was grandiose, and it is not a fact that even knowing their fate, many would have renounced astronautics, but still we always need to remember at what cost the path to the stars was paved for us...
The photo shows the monument to the dead cosmonauts on the moon
There are only about 20 people who gave their lives for the benefit of world progress in the field of space exploration, and today we will tell you about them.
Their names are immortalized in the ashes of cosmic chronos, burned into the atmospheric memory of the universe forever, many of us would dream of remaining heroes for humanity, however, few would want to accept such a death as our cosmonaut heroes.
The 20th century was a breakthrough in mastering the path to the vastness of the Universe; in the second half of the 20th century, after much preparation, man was finally able to fly into space. However, there was a downside to such rapid progress - death of astronauts.
People died during pre-flight preparations, during the takeoff of the spacecraft, and during landing. Total during space launches, preparations for flights, including cosmonauts and technical personnel who died in the atmosphere More than 350 people died, about 170 astronauts alone.
Let us list the names of the cosmonauts who died during the operation of spacecraft (the USSR and the whole world, in particular America), and then we will briefly tell the story of their death.
Not a single cosmonaut died directly in Space; most of them all died in the Earth’s atmosphere, during the destruction or fire of the ship (the Apollo 1 astronauts died while preparing for the first manned flight).
Volkov, Vladislav Nikolaevich (“Soyuz-11”)
Dobrovolsky, Georgy Timofeevich (“Soyuz-11”)
Komarov, Vladimir Mikhailovich (“Soyuz-1”)
Patsaev, Viktor Ivanovich (“Soyuz-11”)
Anderson, Michael Phillip ("Columbia")
Brown, David McDowell (Columbia)
Grissom, Virgil Ivan (Apollo 1)
Jarvis, Gregory Bruce (Challenger)
Clark, Laurel Blair Salton ("Columbia")
McCool, William Cameron ("Columbia")
McNair, Ronald Erwin (Challenger)
McAuliffe, Christa ("Challenger")
Onizuka, Allison (Challenger)
Ramon, Ilan ("Columbia")
Resnick, Judith Arlen (Challenger)
Scobie, Francis Richard ("Challenger")
Smith, Michael John ("Challenger")
White, Edward Higgins (Apollo 1)
Husband, Rick Douglas ("Columbia")
Chawla, Kalpana (Columbia)
Chaffee, Roger (Apollo 1)
It is worth considering that we will never know the stories of the death of some astronauts, because this information is secret.
Soyuz-1 disaster
“Soyuz-1 is the first Soviet manned spacecraft (KK) of the Soyuz series. Launched into orbit on April 23, 1967. There was one cosmonaut on board Soyuz-1 - Hero of the Soviet Union, engineer-colonel V. M. Komarov, who died during the landing of the descent module. Komarov’s backup in preparation for this flight was Yu. A. Gagarin.”
Soyuz-1 was supposed to dock with Soyuz-2 to return the crew of the first ship, but due to problems, the launch of Soyuz-2 was canceled.
After entering orbit, problems began with the operation of the solar battery; after unsuccessful attempts to launch it, it was decided to lower the ship to Earth.
But during the descent, 7 km from the ground, the parachute system failed, the ship hit the ground at a speed of 50 km per hour, tanks with hydrogen peroxide exploded, the cosmonaut died instantly, Soyuz-1 almost completely burned out, the remains of the cosmonaut were severely burned so that it was impossible to identify even fragments of the body.
“This disaster was the first time a person died in flight in the history of manned astronautics.”
The causes of the tragedy have never been fully established.
Soyuz-11 disaster
Soyuz 11 is a spacecraft whose crew of three cosmonauts died in 1971. The cause of death was the depressurization of the descent module during the landing of the ship.
Just a couple of years after the death of Yu. A. Gagarin (the famous cosmonaut himself died in a plane crash in 1968), having already followed the seemingly well-trodden path of conquest of outer space, several more cosmonauts passed away.
Soyuz-11 was supposed to deliver the crew to the Salyut-1 orbital station, but the ship was unable to dock due to damage to the docking unit.
Crew composition:
Commander: Lieutenant Colonel Georgy Dobrovolsky
Flight engineer: Vladislav Volkov
Research engineer: Viktor Patsayev
They were between 35 and 43 years old. All of them were posthumously awarded awards, certificates, and orders.
It was never possible to establish what happened, why the spacecraft was depressurized, but most likely this information will not be given to us. But it’s a pity that at that time our cosmonauts were “guinea pigs” who were released into space without much security or security after the dogs. However, probably many of those who dreamed of becoming astronauts understood what a dangerous profession they were choosing.
Docking occurred on June 7, undocking on June 29, 1971. There was an unsuccessful attempt to dock with the Salyut-1 orbital station, the crew was able to board the Salyut-1, even stayed at the orbital station for several days, a TV connection was established, but already during the first approach to the station the cosmonauts stopped filming for some smoke. On the 11th day, a fire started, the crew decided to descend on the ground, but problems emerged that disrupted the undocking process. Spacesuits were not provided for the crew.
On June 29 at 21.25 the ship separated from the station, but a little more than 4 hours later contact with the crew was lost. The main parachute was deployed, the ship landed in a given area, and the soft landing engines fired. But the search team discovered at 02.16 (June 30, 1971) the lifeless bodies of the crew; resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful.
During the investigation, it was found that the cosmonauts tried to eliminate the leak until the last minute, but they mixed up the valves, fought for the wrong one, and meanwhile missed the opportunity for salvation. They died from decompression sickness - air bubbles were found during autopsy even in the heart valves.
The exact reasons for the depressurization of the ship have not been named, or rather, they have not been announced to the general public.
Subsequently, engineers and creators of spacecraft, crew commanders took into account many of the tragic mistakes of previous unsuccessful flights into space.
Challenger shuttle disaster
“The Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger, at the very beginning of mission STS-51L, was destroyed by the explosion of its external fuel tank 73 seconds into flight, resulting in the death of all 7 crew members. The crash occurred at 11:39 EST (16:39 UTC) over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of central Florida, USA."
In the photo, the ship's crew - from left to right: McAuliffe, Jarvis, Resnik, Scobie, McNair, Smith, Onizuka
All of America was waiting for this launch, millions of eyewitnesses and viewers watched the launch of the ship on TV, it was the culmination of the Western conquest of space. And so, when the grand launch of the ship took place, seconds later, a fire began, later an explosion, the shuttle cabin separated from the destroyed ship and fell at a speed of 330 km per hour on the surface of the water, seven days later the astronauts would be found in the broken cabin at the bottom of the ocean. Until the last moment, before hitting the water, some crew members were alive and tried to supply air to the cabin.
In the video below the article there is an excerpt of a live broadcast of the launch and death of the shuttle.
“The Challenger shuttle crew consisted of seven people. Its composition was as follows:
The crew commander is 46-year-old Francis “Dick” R. Scobee. US military pilot, US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, NASA astronaut.
The co-pilot is 40-year-old Michael J. Smith. Test pilot, US Navy captain, NASA astronaut.
The scientific specialist is 39-year-old Ellison S. Onizuka. Test pilot, Lieutenant Colonel of the US Air Force, NASA astronaut.
The scientific specialist is 36-year-old Judith A. Resnick. Engineer and NASA astronaut. Spent 6 days 00 hours 56 minutes in space.
The scientific specialist is 35-year-old Ronald E. McNair. Physicist, NASA astronaut.
The payload specialist is 41-year-old Gregory B. Jarvis. Engineer and NASA astronaut.
The payload specialist is 37-year-old Sharon Christa Corrigan McAuliffe. A teacher from Boston who won the competition. For her, this was her first flight into space as the first participant in the “Teacher in Space” project.”
Last photo of the crew
To establish the causes of the tragedy, various commissions were created, but most of the information was classified; according to assumptions, the reasons for the ship’s crash were poor interaction between organizational services, irregularities in the operation of the fuel system that were not detected in time (the explosion occurred at launch due to the burnout of the wall of the solid fuel accelerator), and even. .terrorist attack. Some said that the shuttle explosion was staged to harm America's prospects.
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
“The Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, shortly before the end of its 28th flight (mission STS-107). The final flight of the space shuttle Columbia began on January 16, 2003. On the morning of February 1, 2003, after a 16-day flight, the shuttle was returning to Earth.
NASA lost contact with the craft at approximately 14:00 GMT (09:00 EST), 16 minutes before its intended landing on Runway 33 at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which was scheduled to take place at 14:16 GMT. Eyewitnesses filmed burning debris from the shuttle flying at an altitude of about 63 kilometers at a speed of 5.6 km/s. All 7 crew members were killed."
Crew pictured - From top to bottom: Chawla, Husband, Anderson, Clark, Ramon, McCool, Brown
The Columbia shuttle was making its next 16-day flight, which was supposed to end with a landing on Earth, however, as the main version of the investigation says, the shuttle was damaged during the launch - a piece of torn off thermal insulating foam (the coating was intended to protect tanks with oxygen and hydrogen) as a result of the impact, damaged the wing coating, as a result of which, during the descent of the apparatus, when the heaviest loads on the body occur, the apparatus began to overheat and, subsequently, destruction.
Even during the shuttle mission, engineers more than once turned to NASA management to assess the damage and visually inspect the shuttle body using orbital satellites, but NASA experts assured that there were no fears or risks and the shuttle would descend safely to Earth.
“The crew of the shuttle Columbia consisted of seven people. Its composition was as follows:
The crew commander is 45-year-old Richard “Rick” D. Husband. US military pilot, US Air Force colonel, NASA astronaut. Spent 25 days 17 hours 33 minutes in space. Before Columbia, he was commander of the shuttle STS-96 Discovery.
The co-pilot is 41-year-old William "Willie" C. McCool. Test pilot, NASA astronaut. Spent 15 days 22 hours 20 minutes in space.
The flight engineer is 40-year-old Kalpana Chawla. Scientist, first female NASA astronaut of Indian origin. Spent 31 days, 14 hours and 54 minutes in space.
The payload specialist is 43-year-old Michael P. Anderson. Scientist, NASA astronaut. Spent 24 days 18 hours 8 minutes in space.
A zoology specialist is 41-year-old Laurel B. S. Clark. US Navy captain, NASA astronaut. Spent 15 days 22 hours 20 minutes in space.
Scientific specialist (doctor) - 46-year-old David McDowell Brown. Test pilot, NASA astronaut. Spent 15 days 22 hours 20 minutes in space.
The scientific specialist is 48-year-old Ilan Ramon (English Ilan Ramon, Hebrew.אילן רמון). NASA's first Israeli astronaut. Spent 15 days 22 hours 20 minutes in space.”
The shuttle's descent took place on February 1, 2003, and within an hour it was supposed to land on Earth.
“On February 1, 2003, at 08:15:30 (EST), the space shuttle Columbia began its descent to Earth. At 08:44 the shuttle began to enter the dense layers of the atmosphere." However, due to damage, the leading edge of the left wing began to overheat. From 08:50, the ship's hull suffered severe thermal loads; at 08:53, debris began to fall off the wing, but the crew was alive and there was still communication.
At 08:59:32 the commander sent the last message, which was interrupted mid-sentence. At 09:00, eyewitnesses had already filmed the explosion of the shuttle, the ship collapsed into many fragments. that is, the fate of the crew was predetermined due to NASA’s inaction, but the destruction itself and the loss of life occurred in a matter of seconds.
It is worth noting that the Columbia shuttle was used many times, at the time of its death the ship was 34 years old (in operation by NASA since 1979, the first manned flight in 1981), it flew into space 28 times, but this flight turned out to be fatal.
No one died in space itself; about 18 people died in the dense layers of the atmosphere and in spaceships.
In addition to the disasters of 4 ships (two Russian - "Soyuz-1" and "Soyuz-11" and American - "Columbia" and "Challenger"), in which 18 people died, there were several more disasters due to an explosion, fire during pre-flight preparation , one of the most famous tragedies is a fire in an atmosphere of pure oxygen during preparation for the Apollo 1 flight, then three American astronauts died, and in a similar situation, a very young USSR cosmonaut, Valentin Bondarenko, died. The astronauts simply burned alive.
Another NASA astronaut, Michael Adams, died while testing the X-15 rocket plane.
Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin died in an unsuccessful flight on an airplane during a routine training session.
Probably, the goal of the people who stepped into space was grandiose, and it is not a fact that even knowing their fate, many would have renounced astronautics, but still we always need to remember at what cost the path to the stars was paved for us...
In the photo there is a monument to the fallen astronauts on the Moon
In the space thriller "" viewers are faced with the terrifying prospect of an astronaut flying in airless space. The film started October with a record-breaking $55.6 million weekend gross. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts find themselves suspended in nowhere after space debris (which is in orbit) crashes their craft. .
"Gravity"'s spectacular depiction of cosmic disaster may be fictional, but the potential for death and destruction in space is far from being fully realized, says Allan J. McDonald, a NASA engineer.
"It's an extremely dangerous activity," MacDonald says.
Before you are the largest real disasters in the history of space exploration. Including ones similar to the one in “Gravity”. Everything as you like: with sacrifices, with crumbling metal and tears of loved ones. Just not the Hollywood version.
Valentina Nikolaeva (left) - cosmonaut at will- joins the crowd on Red Square and greets three new people with applause Russian cosmonauts October 19, 1964. From left to right: Boris Egorov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Vladimir Komarov.
The first fatal accident in space occurred with the Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov: the Soyuz-1 capsule fell onto Russian soil in 1967. KGB sources (Starman, 2011, Walker & Co.) say that Komarov and others knew the capsule would crash, but the Soviet leadership ignored their warnings.
Various points of view agree that the cause of the accident was a faulty parachute. Audio recordings of the astronaut's final conversations with ground control indicate that the astronaut was "furiously yelling" at engineers whom he blamed for the malfunction of the spacecraft.
Deaths in space
Soyuz 11 cosmonauts Viktor Patsaev, Georgy Dobrovolsky and Vladislav Volkov are being tested in a flight simulator. NASA
The Soviet space program was the first (and so far only) to encounter death in space in 1971, when cosmonauts Georgy Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov died during their return to Earth from space station"Salyut-1". Their Soyuz 11 spacecraft made a textbook-perfect landing in 1971. Therefore, the rescue team was surprised to find three people dead, sitting on couches, with dark blue marks on their faces, and blood dripping from their noses and ears.
An investigation showed that a ventilation valve burst and the astronauts suffocated. The collapse in pressure doomed the crew to death from the vacuum of space - and they became the only human creatures ever to face such a fate. The people died within seconds of the valve rupture, which occurred at an altitude of 168 kilometers, and became the first and so far the last astronauts to die in space. Since the capsule was moving according to an automatic landing program, the ship was able to land without living pilots.
Challenger disaster
Challenger crew members: astronauts Michael J. Smith, Francis R. Scobee and Ronald E. McNair, Allison S. Onizuka, loading specialists Sharon Crystal McAuliffe and Gregory Jarvis, and Judith A. Resnick
NASA ended the Apollo era without any fatal accidents during space missions. The streak of success came to an abrupt end on January 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded in front of numerous television viewers shortly after liftoff. The launch attracted a lot of attention because it was the first time a teacher had gone into orbit. By promising to teach lessons from space, Christa McAuliffe attracted an audience of millions of schoolchildren.
The disaster traumatized the nation, said James Hansen, a space historian at Ober University.
"That's what makes Challenger unique," he said. - “We saw it. We saw that this would continue to happen.”
A noisy investigation revealed that the O-ring had deteriorated due to low temperatures on launch day. NASA knew this could happen. The accident led to technical and cultural changes at the agency and stalled the shuttle program until 1988.
Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy
Shuttle Columbia re-entered the atmosphere and disintegrated
Seventeen years after the Challenger tragedy, the shuttle program faced another loss when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry on February 1, 2003, at the end of mission STS-107.
The investigation showed that the cause of the destruction of the shuttle was a piece of thermal insulation of the oxygen tank, which damaged the thermal insulation of the wing during launch. The seven crew members may have survived the shuttle's initial damage, but they quickly lost consciousness and died as the shuttle continued to crash around them. The Columbia shuttle disaster, according to MacDonald, unfortunately repeats the mistakes of the Challenger era, and some little thing remains unaddressed.
The following year, President George W. Bush announced the end of the shuttle program.
Apollo 1 fire
Astronauts (from left) Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee pose in front of Launch Complex 34
Although no astronauts were lost in space during the Apollo mission, two fatal incidents occurred during flight preparations. Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White II and Roger Chaffee died during a "non-hazardous" ground test of the command module on January 27, 1967. A fire broke out in the cabin and three astronauts suffocated before their bodies were engulfed in flames.
The investigation found several errors were made, including the use of pure oxygen in the cabin, flammable Velcro and an inward-opening hatch that left the crew trapped. Before the test, the astronauts showed concern about the cabin and posed in front of the apparatus.
As a result of the accident, Congress conducted investigations that could have canceled the Apollo program but ultimately led to design and procedural changes that benefited future missions, Hansen said.
"If the fire hadn't happened, many people say we wouldn't have reached the moon," he says.
Apollo 13: "Houston, we have a problem"
Astronaut John L. Swigert Jr., the Apollo 13 command module pilot, holds the jerry-rigged tool that the Apollo 13 astronauts built to use lithium hydroxide canisters in the command module to rid the lunar module of carbon dioxide. gas
The Apollo program owes its success in part to savvy actions that prevented disasters. In 1966, the agency successfully docked spacecraft Gemini 8 towards the target transport, but Gemini entered an uncontrolled rotation. A rotation rate of one revolution per second could have caused astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott to lose consciousness. Fortunately, Armstrong corrected the situation by shutting down the faulty main engine and taking control of the engines to enter the dense atmosphere.
In 1995, a film called “Apollo 13” was released, which was based on a real incident on the spaceship of the same name, which could have left the astronauts in airless space. An oxygen tank exploded, damaging the service module and making it impossible to land on the Moon. To get home, the astronauts used the slingshot principle, accelerating the ship using the gravity of the Moon and sending it towards Earth. After the explosion, astronaut Jack Swigert radioed mission control with the phrase, “Houston, we had a problem.” In film catchphrase goes to Jim Lowell, played by Tom Hanks, and sounds in a slightly modified version: “Houston, we have a problem.”
Lightning and Wolves
The bright sun shines over the Apollo 12 base on the surface of the Moon. One of the astronauts walks away from the Intrepid lunar module
Both NASA and the USSR/Russian space programs have encountered several interesting, although not catastrophic, events. In 1969, lightning struck the same spacecraft twice, at 36 and 52 seconds after Apollo 12's launch. The mission went smoothly.
Due to a 46-second delay caused by the cramped cabin, cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyaev on Voskhod 2 slightly missed their re-entry point. The device crashed into the forests of the Upper Kama region, replete with wolves and bears. Leonov and Belyaev spent the night almost freezing, clutching a pistol in case of an attack (which did not happen).
"What if?". Nixon's speech on Apollo 11
Collage photo of President Richard M. Nixon and astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin after their legendary moon landing on July 20, 1969
Perhaps the most stunning cosmic disasters have never happened - except in the minds of people carefully planning them. History remembers the potential disaster thanks to a speech written for President Richard Nixon in case Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong got stuck on the Moon during the first manned landing on Earth's satellite.
The text reads: “It is destined by fate that the men who set out peacefully to explore the Moon will rest in peace on the Moon.”
If that happened, the future of spaceflight and public perception could be very different from what it is today, Hansen says.
“If we on Earth thought about dead bodies on the surface of the moon... the specter of it would haunt us. Who knows, maybe this led to the closure of the space program."
Well, it’s hard to say at what cost NASA would have paid for missions to Venus and Mars.
Warm June day in 1971. The Soyuz 11 descent module made its planned landing. At mission control, everyone applauded, eagerly awaiting the crew's appearance on the air. At that moment, no one yet suspected that the Soviet cosmonautics would soon be shaken by the biggest tragedy in its entire history.
Long preparation for the flight
Between 1957 and 1975, there was intense competition between the USSR and the United States in the field of space exploration. After three unsuccessful launches of the N-1 rocket, it became clear: Soviet Union lost to the Americans in the lunar race. Work in this direction was quietly closed down, concentrating on the construction of orbital stations.
The first Salyut spacecraft was successfully launched into orbit in the winter of 1971. The next goal was divided into four stages: prepare the crew, send them to the station, successfully dock with it and then conduct a series of studies in outer space for several weeks.
The docking of the first Soyuz 10 spacecraft was unsuccessful due to malfunctions in the docking unit. Nevertheless, the astronauts managed to return to Earth, and their task fell on the shoulders of the next crew.
Its commander, Alexey Leonov, visited the design bureau every day and looked forward to the launch. However, fate decreed otherwise. Three days before the flight, flight engineer Valery Kubasov’s doctors discovered a strange spot on an X-ray of his lungs. There was no time left to clarify the diagnosis, and it was necessary to urgently look for a replacement.
The question of who will now fly into space was being decided in power circles. The State Commission made its choice at the very last moment, only 11 hours before the launch. Her decision was extremely unexpected: the crew was completely changed, and now Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev were going into space.
Life on Salyut 1: what awaited the cosmonauts at the Salyut OKS
The launch of Soyuz 11 took place on June 6, 1971 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. At that time, pilots went into space in ordinary flight suits, because the design of the ship did not allow for the use of spacesuits. If there was any oxygen leak, the crew was doomed.
The next day after the launch, the difficult docking stage began. On the morning of June 7, the remote control activated the program responsible for rendezvous with the Salyut station. When no more than 100 meters remained to it, the crew switched to manual control of the ship and an hour later successfully docked with the OKS.
"The crew of Soyuz-11.
After that it started new stage space exploration - now there was a full-fledged scientific station in orbit. Dobrovolsky transmitted news of the successful docking to Earth, and his team began re-opening the premises.
The astronauts' schedule was detailed. Every day they conducted research and biomedical experiments. Television reports from the Earth were regularly carried out directly from the station.
On June 26 (i.e. exactly 20 days later), the crew of Soyuz 11 became a new record holder for flight range and duration of stay in space. There are 4 days left until the end of their mission. Communication with the Control Center was stable, and there were no signs of trouble.
The way home and the tragic death of the crew
On June 29, the order to complete the mission came. The crew transferred all research records aboard Soyuz 11 and took their places. The undocking was successful, which Dobrovolsky reported to the Control Center. Everyone was in high spirits. Vladislav Volkov even joked on air: “See you on Earth, and prepare some cognac.”
After disconnection, the flight proceeded as planned. The braking system was launched in a timely manner, and the descent module separated from the main compartment. After this, communication with the crew stopped.
Those who were expecting the astronauts on Earth were not particularly alarmed. When the ship enters the atmosphere, a wave of plasma rolls across its hull and the communication antennas burn out. Just a normal situation, communication should resume soon.
The parachute opened strictly according to schedule, but “Yantari” (this is the crew’s call sign) was still silent. The silence on the air began to get annoying. After the descent apparatus landed, rescuers and doctors almost immediately ran up to him. There was no response to the knock on the casing, so the hatch had to be opened in emergency mode.
A terrible picture appeared before my eyes: Dobrovolsky, Patsayev and Volkov were sitting dead in their chairs. The tragedy shocked everyone with its inexplicability. After all, the landing went according to plan, and until recently the cosmonauts were in touch. Death occurred from an almost instantaneous air leak. However, what caused it was not yet known.
The special commission literally reconstructed in seconds what actually happened. It turned out that during landing the crew discovered an air leak through the ventilation valve above the commander's seat.
They had no time left to close it: this required 55 seconds for a healthy person, and there were no spacesuits or even oxygen masks in the equipment.
The medical commission found traces of cerebral hemorrhage and damage to the eardrums in all the victims. The air dissolved in the blood literally boiled and clogged the blood vessels, even entering the chambers of the heart.
To find the technical malfunction that caused the valve to depressurize, the commission conducted more than 1,000 experiments with the involvement of the manufacturer. At the same time, the KGB was working on a variant of deliberate sabotage.
However, none of these versions have been confirmed. Elementary negligence at work played a role here. Checking the condition of the Soyuz, it turned out that many of the nuts were simply not tightened properly, which led to the failure of the valve.
The day after the tragedy, all USSR newspapers were published with black mourning frames, and all space flights were stopped for 28 months. Now the mandatory equipment for cosmonauts included spacesuits, but at the cost of this was the lives of three pilots who never saw the bright summer sun on their native Earth.
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Classmates
Space does not forgive mistakes. And yet humanity tries tirelessly. It has been sending its best representatives to storm the skies for more than 50 years. And during this time, many tragedies related to space flights occurred.
Over the past half century, approximately 30 astronauts and astronauts have died while preparing for or carrying out dangerous space missions. But the vast majority of these deaths occurred either on the ground or in the Earth's atmosphere. That is, below the generally accepted boundary of outer space, called . This imaginary border runs at an altitude of about 100 kilometers.
Total time space age Approximately 550 people have been in space. And speaking in legal terms, directly in outer space three of them died.
Fatal border
Early in the space race, both the United States and the Soviet Union experienced several deadly plane crashes that killed several pilots testing advanced jet aircraft. Then the tragic incident with Apollo 1 happened. The fire, which occurred in January 1967, killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. How did this happen? During a launch simulation, an accidental spark occurred in the spacecraft cabin. Which was filled with pure oxygen. This resulted in an uncontrollable fire that quickly engulfed the doomed crew. And it led to tragic deaths. Even though they struggled to open the hatch door, which was under pressure. Subsequent training was carried out without an atmosphere of pure oxygen.
Over the next three years, Apollo astronauts completed seven missions to the Moon. "" brought people to its surface for the first time. And the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission ended in failure. Due to problems on board, the spacecraft had to return to Earth. The moon landing was cancelled. But there were no casualties.
But on June 30, 1971, humanity witnessed the first (and currently only) deaths in space.
Soyuz-11 disaster
The first space orbital station was the Soviet Salyut 1. She was launched into space without a crew on April 19, 1971. Just a few days later, the Soyuz-10 spacecraft set off for the station. Her crew included three Soviet cosmonauts. The goal of their expedition was to dock with the station, transfer the astronauts to it and work there for a month.
The Soyuz-10 spacecraft safely docked with Salyut-1. But problems with the entrance hatch prevented the astronauts from entering the space station. Therefore, it was decided to return the expedition to Earth ahead of schedule. However, during descent, toxic chemical substances leaked into the air supply system of the Soyuz-10 spacecraft. And one of the astronauts lost consciousness. However, all three crew members returned home safely.
Just a few months later, on June 6, the Soyuz-11 expedition went into orbit. Her goal was to try to still gain access to the space station. Unlike the previous crew, three Soyuz-11 cosmonauts - Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev - successfully transferred to Salyut-1. They spent three weeks on board. At the same time, a new record for the time spent was set. Many experiments have also been carried out aimed at studying the consequences of a person’s prolonged stay in weightlessness.
On June 29, the cosmonauts transferred back to the Soyuz-11 spacecraft. And they began their descent to Earth. And after that tragedy happened...
Faulty valve
To those on the ground, it seemed that the return of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft took place without any problems. The spacecraft appeared to pass through the atmosphere normally. And eventually landed in Kazakhstan. As planned. It was only when the rescue team opened the hatch that they discovered that all three crew members were dead.
“There was no external damage to the descent module,” recalls Kerim Kerimov, chairman State Commission on manned flights. “The rescue team knocked on the side of the rescue apparatus, but there was no answer. Having opened the hatch, the rescuers found that all three astronauts were lying on couches. They were motionless, with dark blue spots on their faces and traces of blood near their noses and ears. We pulled the bodies out. Dobrovolsky was still warm. Doctors performed artificial respiration on the astronauts. Apparently, the cause of death was suffocation.”
The investigation determined that the fatal accident was the result of a faulty valve seal on the lander. It burst during separation from the service module. At an altitude of 168 km, the deadly combination of a leaking valve and the vacuum of space quickly removed all air from the flight deck. This valve was located in a hard-to-reach place under the astronauts' seats. And they had virtually no chance to solve the problem.
Three Soviet heroes to date (and this will always be the case) are the only people who ended their journey directly in outer space...
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