#soyuz 1

[voskhodart]

Turning heavenward.

[beansmakesthings]

I'm being emotional about space. Have a little doodle.

The Artemis mission went really well and part of me likes to think that, some of the reason it did, was because they had quite a group of chaperones ensuring their safety all the way there and back

[probablyaleksashka]

Un-tradegy's your soyuz 1

[cupidcosmos]

The last song Komarov ever listened to was Tenderness " (Russian: Нежность) by by Aleksandra Pakhmutova, with lyrics by Nikolai Dobronravov and Sergey Grebennikov. (The link below is the cover of the song that popularised it, tumblr Is stupid and won't let me add audio files)

-"The Earth is empty without you

How can I survive for a few hours?"

This song first debuted in a musical festival in late 1965, it wasn't a success to say the least, only a few cosmonauts actually appreciated it, because they were the ones who requested the poets and songwriters to write something about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. (Yuri Gagarin even danced with the writers of the song during the festival)

-"It's just empty on Earth without you

And you are flying and the stars

are giving their tenderness to you"

However, this song clearly found a place in Vladimir Komarovs heart, reportedly, this was the final song he chose to listen to before departing to the launchsite to board Soyuz 1, and he even asked Gagarin to thank the authors of the song on his behalf.

-"The Earth is empty without you

If you can, come back soon"

The song is about loss, and more specifically, losing a lover you'll never be able to see again. This song is most widely known as Yuri Gagarins favourite song. It became tradition for cosmonauts to listen to this song before launch after the Soyuz 1 tragedy. It really got popularised during the 1967 red carnation festival, only a few months after Vladimir Komarovs death. (Red carnations are also the flowers cosmonauts traditionally bring the fallen cosmonaut heroes before they launch)

[thatsrightice]

The story of these two men is my Roman Empire.

Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov were highly decorated Cosmonauts, both of which made firsts in the history of space flight.

Yuri Gagarin famously became the first man in space on April 12, 1961.

Vladimir Komarov piloted Voshkod 1 on October 12, 1964 on the first space mission to carry multiple crew members. He flew again aboard Soyuz 1 on April 23, 1967, becoming the first Russian man to make two spaceflights.

Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov were close.

The Soyuz 1 was described as being “a piece of shit” and a “devil ship” as issues plagued the spacecraft throughout development and failed testing. Yuri had done everything he could to get the launch postponed, including writing a ten-page memo detailing the 203 structural problems he had discovered during inspection of the Soyuz 1. Any person who had laid eyes on the memo would be fired or demoted.

Komarov knew of these issues, but refused to step down from the missions. In March of 1987 he met with Venyamin Russayev, a then-recently-demoted KGB agent who had been assigned to "mind" Yuri Gagarin.

He met with Russayev and said, "I'm not going to make it back from this flight." Russayev asked, “Why not refuse?” Komarov answered: "If I don't make this flight, they'll send the backup pilot instead." That was Yuri Gagarin. Komarov couldn't do that to his friend. "That's Yura. And he'll die instead of me. We've got to take care of him." Komarov then burst into tears.

Yuri, nicknamed Yura by friends and family, showed up on the day of the launch “demanding to be put into a space suit,” "demanding this and this and this...", doing anything and everything he could to be the one on that spacecraft instead of Vladimir. Unfortunately, his attempts were be futile.

Soyuz 1 would launch on April 23, 1967 and faced serious issues throughout the flight. The parachutes failed to deploy during reentry and the spacecraft burned up while Vladimir screamed and cried and cursed out those responsible.

Yuri Gagarin was grounded from future space flights and denied permission to pilot military jets. This was devastating for the already deeply depressed man and everyone knew it. Even his favorite hairdresser said that “Yuri couldn't live without flying. It was his whole life. A man can't live without his trade. He can't survive.”

He eventually convinced them to let him fly, but on March 28, 1968, less than a year since Komarov’s accident, he was tragically killed during a routine-training flight aboard a MiG-15. The cause of the accident is unclear, though many speculate that the accident was an assassination on the cosmonaut as he had a falling out with several high-ranking officials following the death of his close friend.

Both Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov’s names are featured on the memorial for fallen US Astronauts and USSR Cosmonauts left on the moon by the Apollo 11 crew.

[un-ionizetheradlab]

On April 24, 1967, cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died aboard Soyuz 1 as his spacecraft crashed into the Earth.

Rumors and sensationalized stories of Komarov's death have portrayed the forty-year-old cosmonaut as "crying in rage" and "cursing" via radio transmissions during the final moments of his life. These rumors are a slap in the face to Komarov's memory and legacy, and have been debunked many times over by scholars including space historian Asif Siddiqi. As an experienced test pilot, Komarov was accepted into the cosmonaut corps precisely because of his ability to remain calm under pressure. Had he grasped the reality of his situation in the few seconds between the parachute failure and the crash, he most likely would have spent his final moments of consciousness attempting to fix the problem as best he could.

Crucially, Komarov could not have transmitted any communications during re-entry, let alone "cries of rage." In the early decades of the Space Age, both Soviet and American spacecraft experienced communications blackouts during re-entry due to the ionized air surrounding the craft as it tumbled through the atmosphere (Colin Burgess, Fallen Astronauts).

On this somber anniversary of Vladimir Komarov's death, we should look back on some of the lighter moments of Komarov's life. He was truly a brave man and a genuine hero who deserved so much better than what happened to him.

Photo 1: Vladimir Komarov in Cuba, 1965. Credit: "Kosmos: Pervaia Krov'" – Pervyi Kanal.

Photo 2: Vladimir Komarov and his daughter, 1965. Credit: RIA Novosti.

Photo 3: Vladimir Komarov, Pavel Belyayev, Alexei Leonov, and Yuri Gagarin at Chkalovsky Air Base, 1964. Credit: RIA Novosti.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/spacehipsters/

[spaceexp]

On April 24, 1967, while returning to Earth, the Soyuz-1 spacecraft crashed. The pilot-cosmonaut, Hero of the Soviet Union Vladimir Komarov, who piloted it, died! Gagarin was Komarov's backup in preparation for the flight.

[yuri-alekseyevich]

“you ever just see someone so breathtaking, so incredibly beautiful, that all you can do is stare at them like a painting... like a museum painting.”

-A.M. Mooney