Valentin Filatyev, born January 21, 1930 in Russia, was selected as an original cosmonaut in March 1960 in the same class as Yuri Gagarin. About three years later, Filatyev and fellow cosmonauts Grigori Nelyubov and Ivan Anikeyev got drunk and arrested for disorderly conduct by militia. Since they were cosmonauts, the patrol was willing to let them go if they apologized. Filatyev and Anikeyev agreed but Nelyubov did not and they were reported. Since they had previous incidents they were dismissed. Filatyev never went into space.
The Soviets made efforts to cover up Filatyev's dismissal and his image was airbrushed out of cosmonaut photos.
Gherman Titov, born September 11, 1935 in the former Soviet Union, was the second human to orbit Earth. He flew on Vostok 2 in August 1961 and made 17 orbits, spending one night in orbit. He holds the dubious record for being the first person to throw up in space. At 25 years and 11 months, he is still the youngest person to go into space.
He continued with the Soviet space program but after the death of Yuri Gagarin, the Soviets decided they couldn't lose another cosmonaut and his career in space ended.
He passed away in September 2000 of cardiac arrest.
Andrey Borisenko, born April 17, 1964 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, has spent almost a year in space total aboard the International Space Station.
His first mission into space was as Flight Engineer on Soyuz TMA-21 (Gagarin) launched in April 2011 as part of Expeditions 27 and 28. It was devoted to the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's historic first manned space mission. He returned to Earth with his fellow astronauts September 16, 2011. During re-entry, communications with the crew were lost and caused concern on the ground, but the crew landed safely. A cause for the communications lost has not been determined.
His second and most recent mission was on Soyuz MS-02 as Flight Engineer, launched October 19, 2016 as part of Expeditions 49 and 50. He returned to Earth April 10, 2017. During re-entry, the capsule experience partial depressurization when a buckle that was part of the deployment system struck a welding seam. Fortunately, this happened about 8 km (4.8 miles) above ground, so they were at a relatively safe altitude.
Vostok 1, the first manned space flight, launched April 12, 1961 with Yuri Gagarin. The space age was born. Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth and landed about 89 minutes after launch.
Valentin Bondarenko, born February 16, 1937 in Ukraine, was an ill-fated cosmonaut in the early years of the Soviet space program. He attended an Air Force college and became a pilot, rising to the rank of Senior Lieutenant in 1959.
The next year, he was selected as a cosmonaut in 1960. On March 23, 1961, Day 10 of a 15-day endurance test, Bondarenko was in a low pressure altitude chamber with an atmosphere of at least 50% oxygen. He removed some monitoring biosensors attached to his body, and washed off his skin with a cotton ball that had been soaked in alcohol. He threw the cotton ball away but it landed on a hot plate, which he was using to brew tea. The cotton ignited. Bondarenko tried to smother the flames but the sleeves of his coveralls were wool, and also caught fire in the oxygen-rich atmosphere.
It took the monitoring doctor almost half an hour to open the chamber because of the pressure difference. By that time, Bondarenko's clothing had burned until all the oxygen had been depleted and he had suffered third-degree burns over most of his body, only the soles of his feet were spared, since his boots had protected them from the flames.
Yuri Gagarin served as a 'deathwatch officer' for several hours until Bondarenko died of shock 16 hours after the accident. Less than three weeks later, Gagarin made his his historic Vostok 1 flight.
The news and circumstances of Bondarenko's death were not released at the time and the Soviets even went so far as to air-brush him out of pictures, since he had already appeared in group photos and films. Details of his death were finally made public about 1980.
There has been speculation that if the Soviets had released information surrounding Bondarenko's death in an oxygen-rich atmosphere, the same fate would not have happened to the Apollo 1 crew. However, NASA was fully aware of the dangers of 100% oxygen atmospheres by 1966.
So if NASA knew about the dangers, why did they not do something to prevent it? Did they gamble with the astronauts' lives? Did they feel it wasn't necessary to change the atmosphere, because they thought something like that would never happen?
What do you think?
As with Chaffee, Apollo 1 astronaut whose birthday we celebrated yesterday, a crater on the far side of the moon has been named for Bondarenko.
Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, born January 12, 1907 in Russia, was responsible for developing Sputnik 1 and sending Laika and the first human (Yuri Gagarin) in space. He was arrested in 1938 on a false charge and spent almost 6 years in a Soviet prison. Against all odds, he actually survived and was recognized for his skills in rocket design.
He directed the Soviet space program and stunned the world when Sputnik 1 was successfully launched in 1957.
Korolev died unexpectedly in 1966 and the Soviet dream of putting a man on the moon died with him.
August 7, 1961, Vostok 2 returned to Earth just one day after it blasted off from Baikinor in Russia. The cosmonaut, Gherman Titov, is the youngest person to fly in space. He was just shy of his 26th birthday when he made the journey.
He made 17 orbits, which surpassed Yuri Gagarin's one orbit on Vostok 1, just a few months earlier. Titov was also the first astronaut to sleep in space (he napped for about 8 hours) and the first to film Earth from orbit, taking over 10 minutes of footage.
Titov is the first person to barf in space, giving rise to the term 'space sickness'.
Cosmonaut Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov, born March 16, 1927 in the Soviet Union, and astronaut R. Walt Cunningham, born March 16, 1932, are both heroes but whose stories end completely different.
Komarov, close friends with Yuri Gagarin, flew his first mission on Voskhod 1 in October 1964 with crew members Boris Yegorov and Konstantin Feoktistov. The flight lasted just over twenty four hours and its success awarded Komarov the Order of Lenin and Hero of the Soviet Union.
He was assigned to the Soyuz program to fly on Soyuz 1 April 1967. Long before the launch, Komarov knew there were major problems with the space capsule and feared that he would be killed if he flew in it. He wanted to refuse the mission, but his backup was Gagarin and Komarov did not want his friend to die.
Soyuz 1 launched April 23 and experienced problems shortly after launch. Upon re-entry, the parachutes did not deploy correctly and got tangled with the spacecraft. Komarov fell several miles to Earth. His last words were of him cursing the men who put him in a botched spacecraft.
Ronnie Walter Cunningham flew on Apollo 7, October 11, 1968 with Wally Schirra (who celebrated his birthday just a couple of days ago) and Donn Eisle. During the mission, Schirra developed a head cold and without the benefit of gravity, could not clear his sinuses. When the crew prepared for re-entry, they refused to wear their helmets. Schirra feared if he blew his nose, he might suffer a pierced ear drum.
As a result of this "mutiny" none of the Apollo 7 astronauts were assigned to future missions.
Although the Soviets had already put two cosmonauts (Yuri Gagarin being the first) into orbit by November 1961, NASA was still debating putting a man into orbit. On November 29, 1961, Enos, a chimpanzee, was launched in the Mercury-Atlas 5 from Cape Canaveral. He made two orbits of Earth and splashed down off the coast of Puerto Rico a little over three hours from lift-off. Enos carried out a series of tests and came through unharmed.
The Mercury spacecraft was deemed ready for human occupants.
The launch of the first space shuttle, Columbia (STS-1), took place April 12, 1981, with Commander John Young and Pilot Bob Crippen on board. They orbited the earth 37 times in just over 2 days. By coincidence, Columbia was launched on the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's historic spaceflight in Vostok 1.
Boyishly handsome and sporting a killer smile, Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, born March 9, 1934, was the first man in space. Although Vostok 1 was his only flight, he remained part of the Soviet space program until his untimely death in 1968. His flight lasted an hour and 48 minutes and circled the earth once.
