Soyuz 11: Death in Space

on june 30th 1971 three soviet cosmonauts were returning from what was at the time the longest period of time that any human had spent in space their re-entry seemed to be normal and their soyuz capsule landed safely in kazakhstan not far from the soviet spaceport in barcanur outwardly the capsule appeared to be undamaged but there was no answer from inside when soviet workers knocked on the capsule when they opened the capsule they were shocked to find that the men inside were dead the tragedy and series of events that led to the deaths of georgie dobavolsky vlasslav volkov and victor pacyev deserve to be remembered the space race was a time of incredible scientific advancement when two of the world's great nations and adversaries faced off on a front that had before only been dreamed of in human history space the soviets beat the united states to space with the launch of sputnik in 1957 followed shortly by the launch of the american explorer satellite the soviets then narrowly beat the americans by sending yuri gagarin to space in april 1961 when he successfully orbited the earth alan shepard became the first american in space on may 5th 1961 john glenn would become the first american to orbit the planet when he orbited three times aboard the friendship seven the soviets also beat the americans to achieve the first multi-person crude space flight in october 1964 and the first spacewalk on march 18 1965. by 1965 the soviets lead began to slip as the spacewalk was among the final first that the soviet space program would be able to achieve the overthrow of khrushchev in october of 1964 led to the cancellation of the bookshop program the absolute zenith of the soviet space program it took two years for the soviets to design and develop the soyuz those two years saw the american gemini project catch up with the soviet program and achieve the world's first docking as well as surpassing the soviet extravehicular activity program as they raced to reach the moon the soviets were bested by the launching of apollo 8 which carried the first american astronauts to orbit around another celestial body when they entered lunar orbit on december 24th 1968. the failure of the soviets in one rockets meant that they were nowhere close to reaching the moon when apollo 11 launched in 1969 carrying neil armstrong and buzz aldrin the first men to walk on the moon while nasa focused on a series of missions to the moon the soviets turned their attention to building a space station salute 1 the world's first space station was launched on april 19 1971 successfully three days later the soviet space program sent soyuz tan to dock with the space station but the three-man crew was unable to successfully dock with the station thanks to latching problems the soviets prepared to try again with the launch of soyuz 11 in june 1971. the original crew consisted of alexei leonov valerie kubassov and pyotar coladan however a medical examination only days before the launch suggested that kubatsov had tuberculosis so the primary crew was replaced with the backup crew the diagnosis was incorrect leonov and kobasa would go on to work on the apollo soyuz test project in 1975 and the historic handshake in space subject of another episode of the history guy the new crew consisted of commander georgie dobavoldsky a fighter pilot and research engineer victor patsayev both on their first space flight and flight engineer vladislav volkov on his second space flight he had flown aboard soyuz 7 two years earlier the crew used the callsign yantar russian for amber and were launched from the balcony cosmodrome in kazakhstan on june 6th 1971. the inside of the capsule was too small to allow the astronauts to wear spacesuits so they were protected from space only by the body of the capsule itself the soyuz craft was brought near the unmanned cellute until automatic systems took over to bring the craft close to the station before again reverting to manual control docking was done outside of contact with the ground took three hours and 19 minutes making sure all the connections were secure and the seals airtight on june 7th the three cosmonauts successfully entered solute one becoming the first humans to crew a space station the soviets heralded the successful flight as a new era and one russian scientist declared that such stations with replacement crews constitute mankind's main highway into space with the connected soyuz the astronauts had about 100 cubic meters of space to do their work conducting scientific experiments exercising and of course sleeping the station held the orion uv telescope and a sun watching telescope a treadmill video cameras for broadcasting live from the station and various scientific instruments including possibly a classified military radiometer upon entering the space station the crew noted a smoky and burnt atmosphere and they had to replace some parts of the ventilation system they spent most of the day back in the soyuz while the air cleared after that the astronauts settled in to do their work patsyav operated the orion telescope which obtained ultraviolet images of the stars vega and beta centauri becoming the first person to operate a telescope outside of the earth's atmosphere the mission was something of a novelty for russian space missions as it was highly publicized state media provided constant updates and the live broadcasts included the cosmonauts displaying some of the plants that they were growing as well as a birthday celebration for patsyav gifts included an onion and a lemon the crew also found that the treadmill shook the entire station while it was in use the stated mission was to assess the design systems and equipment on board test the station's navigation systems study the earth's surface operate the various scientific instruments and study what effect living in space had on the cosmonauts themselves crews spent 23 days in space setting records for space endurance that lasted until the launch of skylab in 1973. the work was apparently monotonous as dobrevolsky complained in his diary the crew was meant to witness the launch of the n1 rocket but the launch failed shortly after liftoff the mission had generally been an unqualified success on june 29th the three men loaded up the soyuz with film experiments and other gear and prepared to return the capsule undocked successfully flying in co-orbit with the station for a time before retro firing to prepare for re-entry ground radioed goodbye hunter till we see you on mother earth though bulky replied thank you be seeing you i am starting operations at around 2247 greenwich mean time before the capsule had entered the atmosphere the work compartment and service module the soyuz were jettisoned it was at this time that radio communication abruptly ended during dissent radio communications were expected to be interrupted but not so soon though there may have been concern back on earth the caps arrived safely and according to procedure the ground crew arriving via a helicopter had no idea that the cosmonauts were already dead when the ground crews opened the hatch they saw all three men motionless their faces appeared bruised blood was leaking from their noses and ears they found that derbyvolsky was still warm and immediately began an attempted resuscitation first contact between the rescuers and mission control took the form of three numbers one one one so it's had a code system that reflected the cosmonauts health five for excellent four for good three meant that they had been injured two meant that the injuries were serious and one which meant that the injuries were fatal the initial report from the soviet union focused mostly on the success of the mission beginning with the brief news that tas reports the deaths of the crew on the spaceship soyuz 11. they offered no explanation except that an investigation was ongoing news of the death spread quickly and shocked not just the soviet public who had come to know the cosmonauts as more than just stoic heroes but as people a visibly choked up soviet poet told a television interviewer that the price that they had to pay was not fair there were no heroes come home from a successful space flight only funerals speculation ran rampant in the west especially over fear that haunted many my first worry said astronaut tom stafford then traveling to belgrade was that the stress of a long-term duration flight had killed them astronaut deke slayton wondered the same thing was there something about being weightless that long that could kill you previously two cosmonauts who had been in orbit only 17 days complained that it took a week for them to fully recover american experts were understandably concerned for the health of their own astronauts soon to be sent up to skylab those initial fears gave way to serious considerations as soon most experts abroad were sure that the three had died of asphyxiation nasa dr chuck berry suggested that inhalation of toxic fumes may have caused their deaths in an encouraging sign of thawing relations between the u.s and the soviet union president nixon offered that tom stafford be present at the funeral a similar request had been refused only four years earlier stafford served as the official u.s representative and is a pallbearer the three were posthumously awarded the hero of the soviet union medal and lay in state as thousands paid their final respects all three were cremated and laid to rest in the kremlin wall near yuri gagarin who died in an accident in 1968. it wouldn't be until 1973 after the beginning of the apollo soyuz test project that nasa scientists were given a full account of what happened during re-entry after examinations of the capsule and instruments aborted as well as the autopsies of the three men the soviets had determined that a gradual but catastrophic depressurization of the capsule after the other modules were detached had killed the men a breathing ventilation valve had opened inadvertently at the time as 12 pyro cartridges had fired simultaneously instead of sequentially as they were designed to do the combined force dislodged an internal mechanism which was supposed to be discharged much later to allow the cabin to adjust to earth pressure automatically the valve opened at a height of approximately 168 kilometers and pressure was lost steadily it was likely fatal within seconds there was a valve that could be blocked but it was located underneath the seats and couldn't be reached in time now the position of the body suggested that the cosmonauts may have tried by the time the automatic systems had activated the capsule reached the ground no amount of medical care was going to bring back the three men it was determined that they had experienced cardiac arrests about 40 seconds after depressurization only 50 seconds after loss of pressure patsaya's pulse had dropped to 42 indicative of oxygen starvation and by 110 seconds all three were dead alexi leonov the original commander had suggested to the three that they should manually close the valves before the modules because he didn't trust them to shut automatically the three seem to have chosen to ignore or perhaps forgot this advice after depressurization had occurred it would have taken at least 52 seconds according to leona to close the valve much too long for the three men to have done anything although certainly not the only ones to have died as part of a space program the three cosmonauts are generally considered to be the only people to have died in space as it was later determined that they died before they crossed the carmen line which is an attempt to define the boundary between space and atmosphere and while there's some disagreement over that line they certainly died farther up than any other human however their successful mission was important and meaningful proving that men could survive in space for long periods of time and including much of the technology that would lead directly to the soviet mir station and the international space station it took two years before soyuz 12 was launched and by then had gone through significant reimagining both in the hardware of the capsule and in how it was used final report recommended quick release valves that could be easily reached and that all cosmonauts aboard wear spacesuits at all times soyuz 12 came too late for salyut 1. its fuel exhaust of the soviets decided to end its mission on october 11th after 175 days in space they fired the station's engines one last time for a deorbiting maneuver and the world's first space station burned up over the pacific ocean soyuz 12 launched with only two men so that there was room for the space falcon suits the soviets designed it affected nasa too as changes were made even to the apollo 15 mission scheduling to launch only weeks later in july 1971. the astronauts were to wear spacesuits during their ascent from the lunar surface nasa reported that the decision was due directly to a re-evaluation conducted following the soyuz 11 accident it was a tragic but important moment which also marked a kind of end to the space race as the two competitive nations began to work together in a statement u.s president richard nixon said but the achievements of cosmonauts dobrevolsky volkov and patsaya remain it will i am sure proved to have contributed greatly to the further achievements of the soviet program for the exploration of space and thus to the widening of man's horizons in 1973 the soviet union built a monument to the three lost cosmonauts and places the location in kazakhstan where their capsule landed but it was rarely visited because it was such a remote location and apparently had been vandalized and destroyed by 2012. in 2016 a new monument was erected it reads the feet of the crew of soyuz 11 will always be stored in the memory of grateful descendants i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide short snippets of 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 204,105

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, space, soyuz, salyut 1, cosmonaut

Id: O6lZpXKkngE

Length: 13min 27sec (807 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 27 2021