I’ve been searching in vain for some information to fill in a vague memory I have from years ago, without much success.
I seem to remember some rumors that there was a “lost” Russian cosmonaut, who went into orbit before Yuri Gagarin, but never made it back alive. Apparently they had planned to bring him back, but something went wrong and he was stranded in orbit until he ran out of air.
Some snippets of the story that (I think) I remember:
Some people, including some ham radio operators, had reported receiving signals from the spacecraft (medical telemetry, sounds of labored breathing.)
There was a name associated with this, someone who had been a member of the cosmonaut corp, but who subsequently officially “disappeared” (group photos were retouched to omit his picture, etc.)
The American government knew all about it, but didn’t announce it because they didn’t want to admit how far along the Russians were in the race to space.
The pointed out at the time that the Russians didn’t pre-announce Gagarin’s flight either. It wasn’t like the American flights that were public knowledge.
Does anyone else remember this? Was this just wild rumor that died out, or has there been some substantiation to this?
I know the Ruskies sent either a monkey or a doggie into space before Gagarin went up, one or both of which died under similar circumstances. Maybe this is where the “lost cosmonaut” rumor started.
Of course, given how secretive the USSR was, your story could be possible.
Not that the Unibrows haven’t had their bad luck. In 1980 a Vostok rocket blew up while being refueled at Plesetek Space Center, killing 50. My god.
Thats not as bad as in 1960 when another rocket blew up in Kazakhstan SFSR killing 91 on the ground. I guess that legend about using cell phones at gas stations WAS true after all!
And in 1971 Russia lost 3 Cosmonauts who died during reentry when the Souyuz 11 reentered the atmosphere and depressurized (they weren’t wearing spacesuits). As you might imagine, this could be about one of the suckiest ways to die.
Last week I VERY surprised to see on PBS a documentary about the first man in space, and it was not Gagrin. Apparently, it was Sergei Vladimir Ilyushin, Jr, the son of the aircraft designer. One of the most popular and experienced test pilots, with dozens of speed and altitude records to his credit, Sergei Ilyushin was the Russian equivalent of America’s Chuck Yeager.
April 7th, 1961 Ilyushin was launched into space. After his third orbit, he crash landed in China and was injured. The Chinese held him for months. At that time the USSR had a hot boarder war with the Chinese and was in a crunch to beat the Americans. So the USSR sent up Gagarin, a lesser qualified, but highly loyal Party member.
Since the USSR could/would not admit their first was a failure, they touted Gagarin to the world while ilyushin, severely injured, stayed with the Chinese in a hospital bed.
Only recently have the top-secret state archives in the Kremlin been opened up to the world, revealing
Ilyushin’s space mission. Ilyushin, now an Air Force General, lives in a modest apartment in Moscow with his wife of over 45 years. He remains active as a test pilot, aircraft designer and spokesperson for a major military aircraft manufacturer. He is 72 years old.
He was interviewed in this documentary and confirmed what the archives said.
Wow. That is incredibly interesting. I have never seen nor heard anything about this, but I would point out a couple of items that might lend a bit of veracity to the story, if my memory serves:
Early Soviet launches were often planned two-at-a-time, with one serving as a backup in case the other cracked up.
The date of Gagarin’s launch, 11 April 1961 (or 12 April if you insist on GMT) was a ‘reserve’ day in the launch program, with the twelfth as the planned date. I always suspected they launched early either because they wanted an extra day on the Americans or because all the brass at the launch facility were getting ancy. The point is all the important Soviet officials were there a day early. That would make sense if they had been waiting around for five days already.
In the weeks and months prior to this launch, a number of “unmanned” Vostok craft were orbited carrying dogs, plants, and weighted dummies to simulate the flight characteristics of a manned craft. As the vehicle was controlled entirely from the ground, it would have been just as easy to put a warm body in place. The Vostok had an emergency key which the cosmonaut could use to override ground control if necessary.
Gagarin ejected from his Vostok craft, with little explanation ever given. This was denied by the Soviet Union for years because it would technically exclude Gagarin from a number of world records which required the vehicle to be ridden all the way to the ground. Similarly, Vlad Titov ejected from Vostok 2. Both of these ejections would make sense if a predecessor had been injured by riding Vostok all the way down.
Please keep in mind that all of the above is more or less a WAG, with no official citations. Unfortunately, I have real work to do.
Robert Heinlein mentions, in one of his essays (I think it was “Pravda means ‘Truth’”), that he and his wife were in Russia when Gagarin’s predecessor went up. He said they were approached by some Soviet military cadets who wanted to brag up the latest Soviet space victory, and I think he said he heard the news from several sources. The next day, however, he couldn’t find anyone to admit that the Soviets had launched a live human into space. If I recall correctly, his guess was that something had gone terribly wrong with the mission (cosmonaut got cooked on re-entry or whatever). Good to finally get the Straight Dope.
Usurer: Heinlein mentions the same event, in more detail, in his account of his trip around the world, Tramp Royale. IIRC, the story before the launch was about a man being launched (no name given), and the Pravda headlines the next day recorded how an experimental craft containing a mannequin had crashed.
And Mjollner, depending on how we define “space”, Thog (Neander Valley) beats them all.
Not to knock Kittinger’s flights but if there is enough atmosphere to support a balloon it certainly isn’t outer space. The Air Force designated 50 miles as the threshold of space flight and awarded astronaut wings to X-15 pilots who exceeded 264,000 feet. There is mention in Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff that civilian test pilots were denied astronaut wings so the military pilots made up for it by making cardboard “ass-tronaut” wings for them.
Here’s an interesting and angry letterfrom one of the producers of that TV special to the various detracters at myhero.com. He also mentions that the top-secret documents about the launch were seen by a western researcher, not by them and they don’t have any copies.
The people atPhantoms of Space have a good write up of the deal. They point out that the Dennis Ogden, British correspodant for the Daily Worker broke the Ilyushin story. Ogden also had some firsthand information that Vladimir (many articles do not use his full name but use Vladimir as the first name) was hospitalised during that time. This is a pretty good article, the Ilyushin story starts towards the second half of the page.
There’s a badly formated debunking of Ilyushin’s flight and Ogden’s story near the bottom of the page here.
I hope everyone followed this link - it goes directly to the Ilyushin page, but partway down that page there’s a paragraph that brings us back to my original question:
This was enough for me to head to the home page at lostcosmonauts.com. Here, we find the details on this and claims of several other lost cosmonauts, some lost in space and many lost in related activities.
According to Uncovering Soviet Disasters by James Oberg the Ilyushin story was one of many baseless rumors about the early Soviet Space program. The story was originated by “Dennis Ogden, Moscow correspondent of the Daily World, the official British Communist party newspaper.” The mistake may have come about because Ilyushin was involved in an automobile accident at about that time and Ogden knew that he was in the hospital (they lived in the same building). Some other rumors about the space program
That’s not what I said. I said, according to the link I gave, it is an baseless rumor. I am not taking sides in a debate, but simply reporting on what someone said who seems to know more about the subject than do I.
What do the Chinese have to say about the story regarding Iluyshin? I can’t see them trying to keep a Soviet space failure a secret. Is there any evidence that they did have the cosmonaut?
I was under the impression that this was by design. I read somewhere that the single astronaut was supposed to jump from the Vostok with a parachute. Perhaps it was thought safer, as the Soviets didn’t make water landings?