At the dawn of cosmonautics, all projects were carried out in the strictest secrecy. This gave rise to many rumors and speculation, not supported by any evidence. Passing from mouth to mouth, "secret information" about incidents in orbit acquired new vivid details, making the listeners listen to the narrator with admiration and horror. One of the most exciting and tragic legends is the terrible death of the cosmonaut Lyudmila.
"Successes" of Italian radio amateurs
On October 4, 1957, the first artificial earth satellite was launched from the 5th research site of the USSR Ministry of Defense "Tyura-Tam" (later the Baikonur cosmodrome). "Beep! Beep! " - his signals were enthusiastically caught by radio amateurs all over the world. The Italian brothers Achilles and Giovanni Battista Giudica-Cordilovi could not stay away from this epoch-making event. For a nominal fee, they acquired an old German World War II bunker near Turin and equipped it with a powerful radio station. The brothers installed a parabolic antenna, allowing them to very successfully listen to the air, and all their free time they searched in the VHF range. And they have achieved such success that professionals would envy them. Italian enthusiasts not only caught the signals of almost all the first Soviet and American satellites, but even made tape recordings. In the future, they contacted other radio amateurs and created a triangulation network that allows them to fairly accurately determine the location of objects that send radio signals. The results of their work impressed even NASA, which invited the brothers to the United States to exchange experiences.
However, many experts were very skeptical about the achievements of the Italians. In particular, after listening to some tape recordings, they accused the brothers of misinterpreting them, and even of outright forgery. For example, the Italians claimed that in November 1960 they managed to intercept telemetry radio signals of an astronaut's heartbeat in orbit, and in February 1961 - negotiations with the Earth of a Soviet crew of several people. The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera provided a transcript of these negotiations: "Conditions are getting worse … why don't you answer?.. The speed is dropping … The world will never know about us …" - and even named the names of the allegedly deceased cosmonauts: Alexey Belokonov, Gennady Mikhailov and Alexey Grachev …
The Soviet leadership did not even begin to refute this absurdity: we just did not yet have multi-seat spaceships, and in general, no one flew to the stars before Gagarin. But the neglected duck went for a walk in the world media.
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Burned alive
After that, Italians-radio amateurs gave another super sensation to the mountain. On May 17, 1961, that is, shortly after the flight of Yuri Gagarin, they recorded the negotiations of the woman-cosmonaut with the Mission Control Center. She spoke Russian, but with a terrible accent, and besides, her speech was clogged with strong interference on the air, so it was very difficult to make out the words. Almost entirely this record was able to decipher only today the Nizhny Tagil researcher and radio amateur Valentin Degterev using a special computer program Adobe Audition CC 2015. Here's what happened.
“Five … four … three … two … one … Listen!.. Listen!.. One-one-time! Speak!.. Speak!.. I'm hot!.. I'm hot!.. What?.. Fifty-five?.. What?.. Fifty-five?.. Fifty?.. Yes … Yes … Yes … Breathing … Breathing … Oxygen … I'm hot … It's not dangerous?.. Everything … It's not dangerous?.. Everything … What?.. Speak!.. How should I convey?.. Yes … Yes … Yes …
What?.. Our program will be now … I'm hot … I'm hot … I'm hot … I see a flame!.. What?.. I see a flame!.. I see a flame!..
I'm hot … I'm hot … Thirty-two … Thirty-two … Forty-one … Forty-one …
We have an accident … Yes … Yes … I'm hot!.."
Handing over the tape with this recording to the newsmen, the brothers declared that they were absolutely sure that the radio message came from near-earth orbit. According to them, the Soviet spacecraft lost its heat shield and gradually burned up in the dense layers of the atmosphere.
The European media unanimously began to savor this sensation, describing in paints the agony of a woman roasting alive in the cramped cabin of a spaceship. In addition, at about the same time as the Italians, the British Jodrell Bank radio telescope caught unknown signals.
And on May 23, 1961, the TASS agency reported that a huge automatic satellite had burned out in the dense layers of the atmosphere. Some English newspaper suggested that it was the automatic interplanetary station "Venera-1", the connection with which was allegedly lost shortly after the launch. But this version does not stand up to criticism, since the launch of "Venera-1" was carried out on February 12, 1961, and on May 19 it passed 100 thousand kilometers from Venus and entered the solar orbit. So this spacecraft could not be in near-earth space and burn in the atmosphere. And therefore the version about the terrible death of the Soviet woman-cosmonaut took the leading position.
Something is wrong here
The recording, made by Italian radio amateurs, has survived to this day and is still circulating on the Internet. Officials have never commented on it. But the question arises: did this "cosmonaut Lyudmila" exist or is it a duck invented by the brothers for their own PR?
First, anyone familiar with the rules of radio traffic will understand that something is wrong with this recording. First of all, the cosmonaut and MCC use call signs to correctly identify each other. For example, Yuri Gagarin had the call sign "Kedr", Valentina Tereshkova had "The Seagull". And in the conversations recorded by the Italians, there are no callsigns. Further. The cosmonaut has a program that he must carry out, transmit detailed information to the MCC, how he does it - even in case of force majeure. Even if fire, heat, threat of imminent death - the astronaut will still describe the situation: what is burning, what are the readings of the instruments, etc. And he is unlikely to fall into a stupor - courageous people with a proven strong psyche are launched into orbit.
Secondly, the woman's accent is alarming. The fact is that when recruiting cosmonauts to the cosmonaut corps, among other parameters, special attention was paid to the candidate's diction and his knowledge of the Russian language. After all, everyone who has been in space inevitably became stars, doomed to many appearances on radio, television, various meetings and rallies. Here you cannot do without good diction. And even during the flight with the communication level of that time, when the signal from space reached the ground support services through the network of repeaters, through a lot of interference in the air, the operators simply had no time to sort out the "porridge in the astronaut's mouth", and speech clarity had to be perfect. And the "cosmonaut Lyudmila" speech is completely indistinct.
Thirdly, it is not clear where this name came from at all - Lyudmila. It did not sound in any way during the communication session. In addition, the female cosmonaut corps began to form only in 1962. It includes Valentina Tereshkova, Zhanna Erkina, Tatyana Kuznetsova, Valentina Ponomareva and Irina Solovyova, there is no Lyudmila on this list.
The legend of the "red space"
But even if we assume that a little over a month after Yuri Gagarin, the remaining unknown woman flew into space, the question arises: why was such urgency needed? The first manned flight into space ended in complete success, Gagarin became a hero of all mankind, the most popular person on the planet, bathing in the rays of glory and world love. It was a triumph for Soviet cosmonautics, science and technology. In this situation, a new start would be hasty and completely inappropriate.
So the agony of a woman who burned to death - the terrible legend of the "red space" - is most likely a fake, made by enterprising Italian brothers in order to raise the prestige of their enterprise. As the saying goes, only business and nothing personal.
Mikhail YURIEV