# Have any astro- /cosmonauts died in SPACE? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [January 17, 2003, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-astro-cosmonauts-died-in-space/149276 "2003-01-17T19:08:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-astro-cosmonauts-died-in-space/149276/1 "2003-01-17T19:08:57Z")
[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030117.html](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030117.html) Followup to the above column. The accidents I know of all seem to involve deaths during liftoff and reentry (Challenger, those Cosmonauts with the bad hatch seal, the Apollo launchpad fire). Has anyone actually died while in space? Apollo 13 was a prime candidate, but they squeaked through. ---
**Author:** ![Santos\_L\_Halper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/santos_l_halper/32/1_2.png) [@Santos\_L\_Halper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santos_L_Halper)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-astro-cosmonauts-died-in-space/149276/2 "2003-01-18T03:22:24Z")
According to the [Encyclopedia Astronautica](http://www.astronautix.com/flights/soyuz11.htm), the cosmonauts of Soyuz 11 died when: > [@](#): > > A pressure equalization valve was jerked loose at the jettison of the Soyuz Orbital Module. As far as I know, they would be considered to have been in space at that point. The only other deaths during actual missions were Vladimir Komarov, killed due to parachute failure on Soyuz 1, and the Challenger crew. Eric ---
**Author:** ![rogmey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@rogmey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogmey)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-astro-cosmonauts-died-in-space/149276/3 "2003-01-18T17:25:33Z")
I remember reading (don’t know where) about a cosmonaut being stranded in space after the retrorockets failed. It struck me when the story said he kept calling and no one would answer him. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-astro-cosmonauts-died-in-space/149276/4 "2003-01-18T20:34:16Z")
One more point: There is no such thing as an “expanding orbit” that will take you farther and farther from Earth. Either you have reached escape velocity, in which case you will be traveling in a parabolic arc, not a spiral. Or you haven’t, in which case you will be traveling in an ellipse. You’ll get farther and farther away from the earth, but you’ll start going slower and slower and eventually turn back. The converse of this of course, is that there is no such thing as a “decaying orbit”, unless you are close enough to the earth to be slowed by friction from the upper atmosphere. ---
**Author:** ![Mooster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8edcca/32.png) [@Mooster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mooster)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-astro-cosmonauts-died-in-space/149276/5 "2003-01-18T21:09:12Z")
Uh…rogmey, I don’t think that “I remember reading (don’t know where)” carries much wait at the Straight Dope… ---
**Author:** ![Mooster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8edcca/32.png) [@Mooster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mooster)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2003, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-astro-cosmonauts-died-in-space/149276/6 "2003-01-18T21:10:49Z")
Duh…of course, extremely moronic spelling errors are ALWAYS impressive here! 😉 (I meant “weight”, of course…) ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2003, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-astro-cosmonauts-died-in-space/149276/7 "2003-01-19T00:21:58Z")
Basic answer: that anyone can _prove_, the Challenger 7, Komarov and the Soyuz-11 crew are the only deaths of spacecrew while the spacecraft was underway. Apollo 1 and the cosmonaut that died under virtually the same conditions some weeks before Gagarin’s flight are the only documented other cases of spacecrew perishing in their spacecraft. and **rogmey** , _the Cecil Adams column being discussed in this thread_ and linked to in the first post, and specially the web document that Cecil himself quotes in that column, is **_precisely about the very story_ that you “remember reading”!**