Zero cosmonauts are people who were allegedly sent into space by the USSR, before Yuri Gagarin's flight. All such launches were kept in the strictest secrecy, since they all ended in disaster and human death. In order not to lose prestige, the Soviet leadership classified the launch data and even hid the identity of the "zero cosmonauts". Since practically nothing is known about these people, they are also called ghost astronauts.
This information about the existence of zero cosmonauts was first published by the Italian news agency Continentale in 1959. The real source of such information was the Czechoslovak communist, who handed over classified data on the launch of people into space, to an Italian journalist. This informant said that the Soviets sent more than one person into space, but all attempts ended in disaster and the death of the pilot. Because of this, the Kremlin kept it a closely guarded secret.
At that time, the Italian edition reported more and more new facts about the space programs of the USSR. Moreover, the names of people who died during the space flight were named. The list of zero cosmonauts includes:
- November 1957 - Aleksey Ledovsky died when launching a ballistic missile with him on board from the Kapustin Yar 1 training ground.
- February 1958 - Sergei Shiborin died during an unsuccessful launch.
- January 1959 - Andrey Mitkov died.
As reported by a Continentale source, all of the above people died as a result of a failed attempt to carry out a manned suborbital flight. Another deceased Russian cosmonaut, according to this publishing house, was Maria Gromova, who flew in a secret orbital plane equipped with a rocket engine. At the moment, there is no data in the archives about the above people as astronauts. Classified?
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In those years, the information that the Czech communist supplied the Italians sounded quite plausible and people believed in it. At the moment, it's safe to say that it was a duck. Indeed, in the 50s of the last century, the USSR was developing suborbital flights under the "VR-190" program, but these were unmanned vehicles. The maximum who could become a passenger of such missiles were dogs.
Why, we know little of the truth … How it really was …