The remains of astronaut Vladimir Komarov, a man who fell from space, 1967 - Rare Historical Photos (2023)

A Journey of Humanity for the Stars has its anonymous heroes. One of them was the Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. His spaceflight on Soyuz 1 made him the first Soviet cosmonaut to fly into space more than once, and he was the first human to die on a space mission: he died when the Soyuz 1 space capsule returned after it crashed on the 24th. of April. , 1967, due to the fall of the paraquedas.

However, as he died when the capsule crashed to the ground, he is not considered the first human fatality in space.

The photo above shows Komarov's charred remains being examined by Soviet officials during his open-casket burial. Only an injured heel bone survived the fall.

All these predicted tragedies began on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Soviet Union, and the government demanded something big from the space program. Leonid Brezhnev, the leader of the Soviet Union, decided to organize a spectacular encounter in space between two Soviet spacecraft.

The plan called for two Soviet spacecraft to be launched into space and perform a dramatic orbital dock that would allow cosmonauts to move between the ships.

The first capsule to be launched would be Soyuz 1 with Komarov inside. The next day, a second vehicle (Soyuz 2) would take off with two more cosmonauts; the two vehicles met, docked, Komarov moved from vehicle to vehicle, switched places with a colleague, and returned home in the second boat. Brezhnev made it very clear that he wanted this.

Komarov was selected to command Soyuz 1 in 1967, with Yuri Gagarin as a backup cosmonaut. Both knew that the capsule's flight was unsafe, but everyone in the space program feared Brezhnev's reaction to the delay or cancellation of the mission. Komarov told his friends that he knew he was likely to die.

But he didn't give up because he didn't want Gagarin to die. Vladimir Komarov was one of Gagarin's best friends. Their families often got together, and on the rare occasions that both men were free, they would hunt together.

They were best friends who were also part of a very small fraternity of men waiting for their own death to travel into space.

Gagarin suggested postponing the mission. The question was, who would tell Brezhnev? Gagarin wrote a 10-page memo and handed it to his best friend in the KGB, Venyamin Russayev, but no one dared forward it to the chain of command.

Less than a month before launch, Komarov realized that delaying was not an option. One of Komarov's friends in the KGB suggested that he refuse to fly.

According to the bookstar man(by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony) Komarov responded, "If I don't make that flight, they'll send the reserve pilot in his place." That was Yuri Gagarin.

Vladimir Komarov could not do this to his friend. "This is Yura", the book quotes him as saying, "and he will die in my place. We have to take care of him." Komarov began to cry.

The closer the release date got, the more pessimistic everyone became. There were serious problems that would make navigating this machine in space dangerous.

Preliminary test flights were problematic and technicians inspecting Soyuz 1 found 203 structural problems. There was an atmosphere of foreboding in the cosmodrome.

When Vladimir Komarov climbed into the transfer van to take it around the block, he exuded an aura of fatalistic resignation. His fellow cosmonauts teased him, trying to cheer him up and make him smile. They started singing and encouraged him to sing.

By the time they reached the block a few minutes later, he was singing with them too, and the pessimistic mood had eased a bit.

Gagarin showed up for the launch full steam ahead and tried to convince the crew to let him pilot the ship, but the crew (including Komarov) refused to let him, and Komarov blew up the ship knowing he would likely die. Eight minutes later, Vladimir Komarov was in orbit, operating one of the most advanced spacecraft ever launched.

Problems began immediately when one of Souz's two solar panels failed, powering the vehicle and obscuring some of the navigation equipment. More disturbances developed as the day progressed. The first attempt to change the spacecraft's orbit was unsuccessful.

The ship began to spin on its axis and only continued to spin when Komarov tried to fix the problem. The thermal control system deteriorated, communications with the ground became erratic, and the lack of electrical power prevented the astronomical guidance system from functioning.

Faced with all these problems, ground control decided to abort the launch of Soyuz 2 and bring Komarov home at the earliest opportunity.

Komarov unsuccessfully tried for five hours to orient the Soyuz module. The vehicle was reporting unreliable status information and communication was lost. Using techniques he had never practiced in training, Komarov was able to level the spacecraft and launch the retrorockets himself.

Despite his heroic efforts to save the mission, the worst was yet to come. On its 19th orbit, it successfully re-entered Earth's atmosphere, but as the cockpit descended through the atmosphere, the floating parachute came off, but the main parachute stubbornly remained in its container.

As the reserve parachute opened, it became caught in the trail of the main parachute's towing parachute. Soyuz 1 crashed into the steppe near Orenberg at high speed at 7 am, killing Komarov.

The cockpit exploded on impact and when Soviet Air Force rescuers arrived, they found only burning metal, the Soyuz nose tip being the only hardware they could identify.

As Komarov walked to his death, American listening posts in Turkey heard him weeping in rage and "cursing the people who put him on a failed spacecraft". He told ground control officers that he knew he was going to die. Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin called him on a videophone to tell him he was a hero.

Komarov's wife was also on the phone to discuss what to say to the children. Kosygin cried. As the capsule began its fatal descent, "American intelligence picked up [Komarov's] screams of rage as he fell to his death". Some translators heard him say, "The heat rises in the capsule." He also used the word "killed", presumably to describe what the engineers did to him.

It was then agreed that the entire mission had been rushed before the Soyuz was really ready. Vladimir Komarov's death seems almost inevitable.

Yuri Gagarin said as much in an interview he gave weeks after Pravda's fall. He sharply criticized officials who let his friend fly.

The Gagarin of 1967 was very different from the carefree youth of 1961. Komarov's death placed an enormous amount of blame on his shoulders.

At one point, Gagarin said, "I must visit Captain [Brezhnev] personally." He was deeply depressed that he had been unable to persuade Brezhnev to call off Komarov's release. A year after Komarov's death, Gagarin died in a fighter plane crash.

Komarov was honored with a state funeral in Moscow and his ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis on Red Square.

The American astronauts asked the Soviet government to allow a representative to be present, but they refused. Komarov was posthumously awarded his second Order of Lenin and also the Order of the Hero of the Soviet Union.

But why was he given an open casket service?

Komarov personally requested this because he wanted to send a message to the government officials who caused his death.

Knowing that the capsule was unsafe and that he would likely die, he knew he would not return alive, so he made the claim before taking off. His final "revenge" was to force his superiors to investigate what they had done.
(Image credit: RIA Novosti/Sputnik/Photo Research Inc.)