Space travel is incredibly dangerous and requires courage at the level of insanity. And that's what makes astronauts and astronauts so cool. We are all aware of cases of large space launch failures. Remember at least "Challenger", "Columbia" or "Apollo 13". Astronauts and astronauts are very often in serious danger to their lives, but most of these cases, as a rule, remain in the shadow of history. Today we'll talk about ten little-known scary and tragic stories related to space, space launches, astronauts and astronauts.
Locked in a vacuum
On March 18, 1965, the historic launch of the Voskhod-2 spacecraft into Earth's orbit took place. Mission goal: the first ever spacewalk. Spacecraft control was entrusted to cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyaev. The flight was accompanied by numerous problems, but the most dangerous of them followed not from the ship, but from Leonov's space suit.
Soon after the spacewalk, Leonov realized that something was wrong. As soon as the astronaut was in the vacuum of space, he felt his spacesuit begin to inflate. The gloves swelled so much that they made it almost impossible to complete the tasks. Worse, the spacesuit was so inflated that it did not pass through the airlock, effectively trapping the astronaut in a lifeless space. In desperation, Leonov decided to release some supply of oxygen for breathing to reduce the pressure inside the suit. The cosmonaut understood that if he failed, he would die from suffocation much faster. Fortunately, the idea turned out to be successful and taught us how not to make space suits.
Collision with the Mir station
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In June 1997, the Progress unmanned space vehicle docked with the Mir space station. Vasily Tsibliev, who was on board the station, carried out remote control of the Progress, checking with the cameras installed on board. Unfortunately, the screens of that time did not transmit the best picture with the best sense of depth of perception. That the apparatus was approaching the station too quickly, Tsibliev, unfortunately, realized too late.
The Progress truck collided with Mir, damaging one of the station's solar panels, leaving a hole in its hull and causing Mir to spin uncontrollably. Fortunately, NASA astronaut Mike Fole, who was on the station, was able to calculate the optimal trajectory to stabilize the station and reported this by radio to the control center, which remotely started the Mir engines and stabilized its position. The damaged module was insulated to avoid oxygen loss.
Deadly deprivation chamber
One of the most common types of training for astronauts is the sensory deprivation chamber (read: pressure chamber). A person is immersed in a room or chamber, isolated from external influences (light, sound, smell), which simulates complete isolation in open space. As a rule, training takes several days. This type of training is not very enjoyable, but nonetheless considered harmless … except in the case of March 1961.
Valentin Bondarenko, a 24-year-old Soviet cosmonaut, was completing his ten-day stay in the so-called "chamber of silence." It was a small room with an oxygen pressure level that corresponded to the conditions of Soviet spacecraft. The decompression process began, and the astronaut began to prepare to leave the chamber. Bondarenko tried to dissolve the glue that was attached to the astronaut's body the electrodes of the apparatus that monitors the state of his body with a cotton swab dipped in alcohol. After that he inadvertently threw it away. The cotton wool got on the hot spiral of the electric stove. The oxygen-filled room turned into hell in the blink of an eye. When the camera was opened, the man was still alive. But the wounds left were found to be incompatible with life. Bondarenko died 8 hours later.
Who said lightning doesn't strike twice?
On November 14, 1969, heavy clouds hung over the Kennedy Space Launch Center. The Apollo 12 spacecraft was preparing for launch that morning. Despite the forecaster's warning, the launching officials decided that low clouds and the possibility of thunderstorms would not affect its success. After 36 seconds from the start, people realized how much they were wrong.
Lightning struck the climbing spaceship with a sniper shot, shaking not only the astronauts, but also turning off most of the ship's electronics. People in a hurry tried to restart the systems, but seconds later a second lightning struck the ship, knocking out the remaining systems. The astronauts realized that they were several kilometers above the Earth in a completely paralyzed ship.
They turned to the flight control center for advice, and one young engineer was able to solve the problem with virtually one flip of a switch. Power was instantly restored, and the mission continued without incident. This engineer was John Aaron, who later made a major contribution to the rescue of the Apollo 13 mission team and subsequently became the head of the Johnson Space Center.
Death suit
Since the early 1960s, the United States has tried to speed up testing of various new space technologies in order to catch up and overtake the USSR in the space race. One of these tests involved two test pilots, Malcom Ross and Victor Prater. They tested new prototype spacesuits. To test the suits, people in a balloon were lifted into the upper atmosphere.
Apart from a few troubles, the tests themselves went smoothly. All the problems that ultimately led to this tragedy began when they returned to Earth. After the balloon splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, a couple of testers waited for a helicopter to pick them up and take them home. When the helicopter flew in and dropped the cables to attach the balloon basket, Prater slipped. He fell into the Gulf of Mexico, water began to flood his spacesuit. The tester drowned in his own spacesuit even before the rescuers could get to him.
Gemini fighter crash
The Gemini Flight Program helped the United States improve various technologies that subsequently helped the Apollo missions reach the moon. However, few people know that this program could have been completely closed because of an incident that occurred one February day in 1966.
On that day, Gemini crew members Elliot C and Charlie Bassett flew the T-38 Talon trainer. They were accompanied by a backup team of Tom Stafford and Gene Cernen. The pilots were on their way to the McDonnell plant in St. Louis, where the Gemini IX and Gemini X spaceships were built and where they were to be trained in a simulator. The weather that day was disgusting. The visibility was extremely low, which made landing very difficult.
Stafford and Cernan decided to fly around the runway and take a safer angle for the descent, but C and Bassett decided not to waste time and proceeded to land. This decision turned out to be fatal. The fact is that the landing strip was very close to the factory itself. Because of the falling fog, Xi miscalculated the speed and sent the plane straight into the building where the two spacecraft were being assembled. Unfortunately, both astronauts died, but by cruel irony, one of the vehicles under construction survived, and the Gemini program itself was decided not to close.
Gas chamber "Soyuz-Apollo"
On July 17, 1975, the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft docked. Both sides exchanged pleasantries and conducted a joint ship demonstration tour. Everything went perfectly according to plan … until Apollo began to return back to Earth.
At the time of descent, there were problems with the engines and the ventilation system of the ship, which caused the module to fill up with toxic nitrogen tetroxide. The team had no choice but to pray and wait for an early splashdown, so they tried to do everything possible to quickly and without additional problems land the module, despite the increasing difficulty for breathing. In a sad irony of fate, things got worse when the module turned over after splashdown and thus the ventilation system was completely blocked by water.
Fighting the gas and trying to stay conscious in this toxic fog, astronaut Tom Stafford procured breathing masks for his team members, one of whom had already passed out. The team was soon saved. The deadly vapors quickly disappeared as soon as the module hatch was opened. After this incident, the Apollo team had to spend two weeks in the hospital.
X-15 plane crash
American pilot Michael Adams was an outstanding pilot with outstanding skills. Having won numerous awards for incredible achievements by that time, he became the obvious choice as the future astronaut of the manned space laboratory program. He began training as an astronaut, however, when it smelled of the cancellation of the program, Adams was asked to work on the X-15 project. The North American X-15 was an experimental rocket plane operating at altitudes where pilots, including Adams, were viewed by officials as astronauts, not just pilots.
Adams' flight on November 15, 1967 began quite well, and everything went according to plan. But as soon as he lifted the car to a height of 80 kilometers, the rocket plane's electronics went out of order. As a result, the X-15 rotated at a speed of 5500 kilometers per hour for several minutes. Thanks to training, the pilot was able to stabilize the supersonic machine, but, unfortunately, it all ended with the rocket plane getting into a hypersonic spin, which the pilot could not cope with. The car crashed into the sand of the California desert at a speed of 6400 kilometers per hour. The pilot died instantly.
Space is a place where no one will hear you … drown
In July 2013, astronauts at the International Space Station were performing a routine spacewalk when one of them discovered, or rather felt, something that he would never have expected to feel in space. Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano felt water running down the back of his head.
Puzzled, but nonetheless focused on his mission, he continued to work until the water began to literally block his view inside the suit. He reported the incident to the control center, which demanded an immediate cessation of work in outer space. By this point, the water almost completely blinded Parmitano and began to penetrate his nose and mouth.
Surprisingly, the man managed to maintain his composure and without panic, in fact, from memory he reached the airlock on his own, where the crew members helped him take off his spacesuit and breathe deeply. It was then that it became clear that the cause of the "water attack" was a failed cooling system built into the back of Parmitano's helmet.
The terrible fate of Vladimir Komarov
Without a doubt, Yuri Gagarin was the first person to be in space. However, few people know about the story of his friend and colleague Vladimir Komarov, despite the fact that this case was no less memorable.
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the world communist revolution, the Soviet Union decided to dock two spacecraft. Unfortunately, all this led to the fact that the terms of project implementation and construction of devices were seriously reduced in order to meet the planned date. Komarov was chosen as the commander of the first ship. He knew that if he refused, then his friend, Gagarin, who was his understudy, would be sent instead. Komarov agreed, although, most likely, he understood that he would not return home.
The malfunctions began on April 23, 1967, right after Soyuz-1 with Komarov on board was launched into orbit. Since one of the solar panels did not open, the ship began to experience energy starvation. It was decided to stop the flight immediately. During the descent, the parachute deployment system failed. The reserve parachute, which came out at an altitude of 1.5 kilometers above the surface, could not be filled, as its lines were caught and wrapped around the lines of the un-fired main parachute that had failed. As a result, the module hit the ground at a speed of 50 meters per second.
According to the official version, Komarov died from hitting the surface, however, according to information from American listening stations, the cosmonaut remained alive for some time. During the impact, the container with hydrogen peroxide was damaged, as a result of which a fire broke out in the module, which almost completely destroyed it, in fact, evaporating the astronaut alive.
NIKOLAY KHIZHNYAK