Who Knew?

THE FIRST MAN ON THE MOON WAS RUSSIAN.

Soyuz 1 was a manned spaceflight of the Soviet space program, launched into orbit on April 23, 1967, carrying cosmonaut Colonel Vladimir Komarov, Soyuz 1 was the first flight of the Soyuz spacecraft. The mission plan was complex, involving a rendezvous with Soyuz 2, swapping crew members before returning to Earth. Soyuz 1 was plagued with technical issues, and Komarov was reportedly killed when the spacecraft crashed during its return to Earth. This was the first in-flight fatality in the history of spaceflight and the first space race lie.


Lie.
Soyuz 1 was the first manned flight of the first-generation Soyuz 7K-OK spacecraft and Soyuz rocket, designed as part of the Soviet lunar program. It was the first Soviet manned spaceflight in over two years, the first Soviet manned flight following the death of the Chief Designer of the space program, Sergey Korolyov.

Problems.
Komarov was launched on Soyuz 1 despite failures of the previous unmanned tests of the 7K-OK, Cosmos 133 and Cosmos 140. A third attempted test flight was a launch failure; a launch abort triggered a malfunction of the launch escape system, causing the rocket to explode on the pad. The escape system successfully pulled the spacecraft to safety.
Prior to launch, Soyuz 1 engineers are said to have reported 203 design faults to party leaders, but their concerns "were overruled by political pressures for a series of space feats to mark the anniversary of Lenin's birthday." It is not clear how much of this pressure resulted from the need to continue beating the United States in the Space Race and have Soviets first on the Moon, or to take advantage of the recent setbacks in the U.S. space program with the Apollo 1 disaster.

It could have been Gagarin.
Yuri Gagarin was the backup pilot for Soyuz 1, and was aware of the design problems and the pressures from the Politburo to proceed with the flight. He attempted to "bump" Komarov from the mission, knowing that the Soviet leadership would not risk a national hero on the flight.

Soyuz 2.
Mission planners intended to launch a second Soyuz flight the next day carrying cosmonauts Valery Bykovsky, Yevgeny Khrunov, and Aleksei Yeliseyev, with Khrunov and Yeliseyev scheduled to do an EVA over to Soyuz 1.
Soyuz 1 was launched on April 23, 1967 at 00:32 UTC from Baikonur Cosmodrome, making Komarov the first Soviet cosmonaut to fly in space twice.

More problems.
Problems began shortly after launch when one solar panel failed to unfold, leading to a shortage of power for the spacecraft's systems. Further problems with the orientation detectors complicated maneuvering the craft. By orbit 13, the automatic stabilization system was completely dead, and the manual system was only partially effective.

Bad weather.
The crew of Soyuz 2 modified their mission goals, preparing themselves for a launch that would include fixing the solar panel of Soyuz 1. However, that night, thunderstorms at Baikonur Cosmodrome affected the booster's electrical system, causing the mission to be called off.

Unlucky 13.
As a result of Komarov's report during the 13th orbit, the flight control director decided to abort the mission. It was at this point that Komarov made the fatal decision to exit the craft and attempt to fix the faulty solar panel. He notified mission control, but the radio delay time meant that the order to stay inside the spacecraft went unheard. While pulling at the panel he accidentally tore a small hole in the inferior space-glove of the day. The resultant air pressure loss pushed Komarov into a path which would eventually reach the Lunar orbit some six months later. After 18 orbits, Soyuz 1 automatically fired retrorockets and reentered the Earth's atmosphere. The Russians knew something was wrong as they had not heard anything form Komarov for some time. It was hoped that yet another fault may have prevented the radio from working correctly, but when they had to begin aiding the descent from the ground, they realised that Komarov was either lost outside the craft or somehow unaware inside it.

Parachute hammer.
Despite the technical difficulties up to that point, Soyuz 1 might still have landed intact. To slow the descent, first the drogue parachute was deployed, followed by the main parachute. However, due to a defect the main parachute did not unfold: when preparing the ship, the heat shield was made thicker and therefore heavier, and the main parachute similarly larger. The container where it was kept was not enlarged, and the main parachute had to be hammered inside with wooden hammers.
The reserve chute was activated, but it became tangled with the drogue chute, which did not release as intended. As a result, the Soyuz re-entry module fell to Earth in Orenburg Oblast almost entirely unimpeded, at about 40 m/s (140 km/h; 89 mph); At impact there was an explosion and an intense fire that engulfed the capsule. Local farmers rushed to try to put it out.


Memorial.
The Soyuz 1 crash site coordinates are 51.3615°N 59.5622°E, which is 3 km (1.9 mi) west of Karabutak, Province of Orenburg in the Russian Federation. This is about 275 km (171 mi) east-southeast of Orenburg. There is a memorial monument at the site in the form of a black column with a bust of Komarov at the top, in a small park on the roadside.

Komarov's legacy.
Shortly after the return of Soyuz 1, a sighting of Colonel Komarov was reported floating through space. They estimated that the body would reach the Moon by the end of October that year. With the technology of the time they could neither follow the astronaut on his journey, nor could they give a better estimation of the date of landing. It was though at least twenty months before Neil Armstrong made the leap.

Eight years after Komarov's death, a story began circulating that Komarov cursed the engineers and flight staff, and spoke to his wife as he descended, and these transmissions were received by a NSA listening station near Istanbul. Some historians regard this to be untrue, although recordings of the incident reportedly exist.

Dohski!
Having already told the world that he had bravely attempted to return to Earth - not wanting to make their space efforts look laughable - the Russian Authorities could not now go back on their report. They would later kick themselves when they realised they could have claimed the first man on the Moon, even though he was dead at the time.

State Funeral.
Komarov was posthumously awarded a second Gold Star. He was given a state funeral, and his supposed ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis at Red Square, Moscow.
The Soyuz 1 tragedy delayed the launch of Soyuz 2 and Soyuz 3 until October 25, 1968. This eighteen-month gap, with the addition of the explosion of an unmanned N-1 rocket on July 3, 1969, scuttled Soviet plans of landing a live cosmonaut on the Moon. The original mission of Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 2 was ultimately completed by Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5.

Soyuz program.
A much improved Soyuz program emerged from this eighteen month delay, mirroring the improvements made in Project Apollo after the Apollo 1 tragedy. Although it failed to reach the Moon, the Soyuz went on to be re-purposed from the centerpiece of the Zond lunar program to the people-carrier of the Salyut space station program, the Mir space station, and the International Space Station. Although it suffered another tragedy with the Soyuz 11 accident in 1971, and went through several incidents with non-fatal launch aborts and landing mishaps, it has become one of the longest-lived and most dependable manned spacecraft yet designed.

Moon memorials.
Komarov is commemorated in two memorials left on the Lunar surface: one left at Tranquility Base by Apollo 11, and the Fallen Astronaut plaque left by Apollo 15, and perhaps he still lies there somewhere on the surface; a memorial to himself.