Hi Charlie here Neil Armstrong Buzz Aldrin Chris Hadfield we all know these
heroes of space exploration but like anything space exploration has its own
forgotten unsung heroes and the best example of this is one fladam a Komarov
from the soviet union the year was 1967 in the soviet union it was approaching
the 50th anniversary of the Union and the government demanded something big
from their space program the Soviet space program was trying to battle NASA
when it came to the Cold War but because of the country's 50th anniversary the
government wanted them to do something special the then leader Brezhnev decided
he wanted to have two Soviet spacecrafts rendezvous in space he wanted these two
Soviet space vehicles to launch into outer space
they would then dock together and allow the cosmonauts to move between ships
this mission would be known as Sawyer's the first ship would be known as so yes
one in the second so yes - it was decided that Vladimir Komarov a
cosmonaut would be in the first Soyuz ship and Yuri Gagarin the first man in
space would be in the second ship when they were both in space the two vehicles
would meet the two vehicles would then dock together
Komarov would climb into Gagarin vehicle and Gagarin would go into komarov's
exchanging places they would then return home in each other ships Brezhnev who
was a brutal leader said he wanted this to happen no exceptions but there was a
problem scratch that a lot of problems everyone in the Soviet space program
knew thatthey space capsules were not ready to fly but everyone was terrified
of fresh Nev his reaction to the mission being canceled or even delayed would be
brutal and Komarov told friends that he would likely never come back from space
at least not as an alive man however Komarov did not want to back out of the
mission you see if he did that then Gagarin would take his place
Komarov and Gagarin were best friends and he could not do that to his best
friend the men's families would often get together and they'd even go hunting
together to you Karan said the mission should not go ahead and even wrote a 10
page memo and gave it to the KGB sadly though no one in the KGB would send it
up the chain of command they were all far too scared of Brezhnev fast forward
a few months and it was less than 30 days before launch
Komarov realized that canceling the mission or even delaying it was simply
not an option friends of comer ups in the KGB
privately said that he should refuse to do the mission but Komarov said that if
I don't make this flight they'll send a backup pilot instead that was yuri
gagarin or Yura asked Komarov Cawthon he said that Gagarin will perish instead of
me and we've got to take care of him as Komarov said this he burst into tears
every day that passed everyone on the space program was very pessimistic and
worried there was a serious problem with his space machinery 203 structural
problems to be exact that's how many ther technicians have identified on the
pre test flights of Soyuz 1 eventually it was the day of reckoning on April
24th 1967 a flat amir Komarov arrived to work
Burtie knew full well that he would likely never make it back to his planet
let alone his house as he climbed into the spacecraft he was very pessimistic
but he was also kind of resigned and he'd accepted his fate his fellow
cosmonauts tried to cheer him up by singing and eventually he joined in Yuri
Gagarin actually turned up to the launch in full gear he tried to convince the
crew to let him pilot the craft instead but all of the crew including Komarov
refused 8 minutes later the spacecraft took off and Komarov was in outer space
he was inside the most sophisticated spacecraft ever launched but almost
immediately as he got into orbit there were problems too of the spacecraft's
solar panels failed to deploy this meant it had no electrical power and this
obscured some navigation equipment there were also various other glitches in the
technology as the day went on Komarov tried to change the spacecraft's orbit
but this did not work the ship began to wildly rotate around its axis
Komarov tried to correct the issue but this only worsened the problem this led
to the thermal control system breaking communications with the ground also
ceased and when the electricity finally cut off at the orientation system failed
now Soyuz - was set to launch and bring it Gagarin up with Komarov burt's with
ground control seeing all of these problems they decided to abandon so yes
- is launched they shifted their attention on to trying to bring Komarov
home as soon as possible but after five hours Komarov could not
orientate the Soyuz module the craft was relaying unreliable status
information to ground control and eventually after five hours
communication was lost Komarov then had to do something he'd
never done before in training he tried to align the spacecraft and fire the
retrorockets himself this kind of worked and he did successfully re-enter Earth's
atmosphere but as the cabin filled to earth the parachute did not deploy the
backup parachute did deploy but it got tangled in the drag chute of the main
parachute this course Soyuz went to crash at great speeds and of course
Vladimir Komarov did not make it as Komarov headed to its doom us
listening-posts in Turkey actually hurt him he was
crying out in rage annoyed at the people who'd built the spaceship some
translators heard him say heat is rising in the Captur and he also said that the
engineers had doomed him when the cabin hit the ground there was a gigantic
fireball hours later the Soviet Air Force recovery teams came to the scene
but all they found was burning metal the Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin called
komarov's wife they talked about what to say to their children and Alexei also
called him a hero he also cried when talking to coma Rob's wife the aftermath
was very bad for the Soviet space program and government everyone realized
that the mission had been rushed and in the newspaper Pravda Garrigan criticized
the government who let his friend fly gary kiehne actually said that he must
go and see brushin if personally because he was so angry but sadly one year later
Garrigan himself passed away when he crashed a fighter jet Vladimir Komarov
was honored with a state funeral in Moscow but many were baffled as to why
he chose an open casket the only thing left of him was a heel bone but Komarov
personally decided he wanted to do this to send a message to the government he
blamed them and this was kind of like his final revenge he was forcing his
superiors to look at what they'd done it's important we remember astronauts
like Vladimir Komarov everyone knows the American heroes and
also some Russian cosmonauts like Garrigan but we can never forget those
who made the ultimate sacrifice to get humanity into outer space but now it's
time to make your voice heard seeing as space travel is now a lot
safer what do you like to travel to space in the future if you want some
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