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
There are only 3 human beings that have died outside Earth's atmosphere. They are the three cosmonauts who died aboard the Soyuz 11 in 1971. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2018/07/23/only_three_humans_have_died_in_space_the_story_of_soyuz_11.html
Anonymous said: Can you elaborate on the three space deaths I’m interested :3
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Oh, wow, I did not think anyone was going to take me up on the offer to explain but THANK YOU and here we go! To, preface, I am not an expert. This is information I’ve learned from Wikipedia and documentaries.
Buckle up, folks. This is the story of the only three people to die in space.
Now, lots of people have died in the quest to explore the solar system. From test pilot flight crashes to disintegration upon reentry (Columbia), and from fires on the launch pad (Apollo 1) to explosions seconds after take-off (Challenger). But even those that happened far above our heads did so below 330,000 feet (100 kilometers). Above that is where we consider the earth’s atmosphere to end and space to begin.
Enter Soyuz 11.
This mission was launched by the USSR on the 6th of June 1971 and was the second attempt at docking with the first-ever space station (Salyut 1), which had been sent up unmanned earlier in the year. The previous mission, Soyuz 10, had successfully docked with the station…but the entry hatch got stuck. Awkward. Imagine spending years of your life preparing to get launched into space only to forget your keys.
But anyway, Soyuz 11’s three crew members; Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev; successfully boarded the space station and spent three weeks performing experiments. At the time, this was the longest time any humans been in space, and people still weren’t convinced zero gravity wouldn’t slowly stop the human heart after prolonged exposure. Like, that’s how little we knew about space.
On June 29th, the crew reboarded Soyuz 11 and began their return to earth. Because of the heat of reentry and other science, there’s about a window of about 7-8 minutes where no communications can occur between a descending module and ground control. So, Soyuz 11 signed off to ground control before starting their descent back to earth.
Seven minutes later, the Soyuz 11’s parachutes deployed and the descent vehicle touched down in a field to the eager cheers of the recovery crew on the ground. It was a perfect landing, but ground control couldn’t raise audio contact with the crew. The recovery crew then opened the module to greet the cosmonauts.
All three crew members were strapped in their seats, their skin spotted blue and blood draining from their ears and noses, dead. Footage of the recovery crew (declassified and now on Youtube, very haunting) shows them trying to give the crew CPR, but it was too late. All three were dead. Because so little was known about space at the time, some people immediately blamed their deaths on extended exposure to zero gravity or radiation.
Here’s what actually happened. An improperly manufactured valve beneath the seats opened when the descent vehicle detached from the module at 551,000 feet (168 kilometers). At that height, you’re still experiencing the vacuum of space, so the cabin depressurized. In less than a minute, they went into cardia arrest and asphyxiated. It appears Viktor Patsayev fought against the straps on his seat to close the valve but couldn’t reach it. It wasn’t instant. The cosmonauts knew something had gone horribly wrong and were helpless to save themselves.
Now, here are some crazy facts:
This crew was actually the backup crew for the Soyuz 11 mission. Days before the launch, one of the prime crew members showed signs of illness, so the entire crew was grounded, and the backup crew was sent in their place.
The grounded commander of the prime crew warned the three men that he did not trust the valves to close automatically as they were designed to do. He recommended that they close them manually before reentry. For some reason, the crew did not do so, and one of those valves ended up killing them.
The crew was wearing flight suits, not spacesuits during reentry, which could have bought them enough time to block the valve. This tragedy contributed to the policy that astronauts and cosmonauts must wear spacesuits during both launch and reentry in case of sudden depressurization.
And, well, that’s it. These men taught us a lot about space flight both in life and death.
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The space race and its disasters are frankly fascinating to me, especially Soyuz 11, the Challenger (I was in school when it happened), and the Columbia (which was a complete clusterfuck of officials strong-arming engineers into rushing a launch they knew was unsafe all for the media coverage and then LYING ABOUT IT TO CONGRESS AFTERWARDS).
So, yeah, I’m not an expert, but I always love the chance to talk about space exploration history (and this isn’t exactly a fun story you can whip out at parties) so hmu if you wanna know more space facts and stories.
