
Cosmonaut Crashed into Earth 'Crying in Rage' (2011) - vinnyglennon
http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/02/134597833/cosmonaut-crashed-into-earth-crying-in-rage
======
petewailes
As noted in the amended post (link below), this isn't actually true.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/03/135919389/a-...](http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2011/05/03/135919389/a-cosmonauts-
fiery-death-retold)

~~~
chillingeffect
This is another great example of the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. [1] You're an
expert in a field, read an article about it, realize how wrong people are,
then read another article and think the author is an expert. Lots of people
read this article, thinking the author and the novelist were correct. Then the
actual experts wrote in and pointed out where it was wrong.

I think this is a great example of media bias toward drama without having the
proper time to track down and research the truth. I expect, as the news cycle
speeds up even more, articles will continue to be this wrong and worse. It's
going to be ever harder to tell what is true and what is not. Anything
pertaining to be true will require numerous citations and evidence. We can no
longer rely on the brand ("NPR" or "NYT") to determine if something is true.

[1] [https://embracepith.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/on-gell-mann-
am...](https://embracepith.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/on-gell-mann-amnesia-
effect-or-how-crichton-pens-more-than-a-novel/)

~~~
thrwaway210
In an interesting twist, this story is plagiarized in the book Dept. of
Speculation by Jenny Offil. It appears on page 61 of the book.

------
rwhitman
I'm normally very much a skeptic and not prone to conspiracy theories, but one
that's always really fascinated me is the "lost cosmonauts" theory.

The idea that Yuri Gagarin wasn't the first human to travel into space, he was
just the first human to _return safely_ from space is haunting.

The concept that the USSR got ahead in the space race by a willingness to
sacrifice a number of souls to the perils of space, and went to great lengths
to cover it up, still seems plausible in my mind.

Putting humans into space is incredibly dangerous, and there are so many ways
for a human to die in space. I've always felt there was a curious lack of
death-in-space in the history of the early days of the space race, on both the
Soviet and American sides.

Even though it is almost certainly warped by Cold War fear mongering, the idea
that the Soviet Union shot capsules out of orbit, frequently had cosmonauts
burn up on reentry etc just seems to fill in the gaps nicely.

Anyhow mostly conspiracy theory nuttiness, but I still believe there are
nuggets of truth in there somewhere...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judica-
Cordiglia_brothers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judica-Cordiglia_brothers)

~~~
iSnow
We cannot rule this out, but it seems very unlikely to me. The more I read
about it, the less likely it seems.

\- Laika was launched aboard Sputnik 2 in October 1957

\- Gagarin on Vostok 1 in April 1961

Sputnik 2 was much lighter than the Vostok capsule (500 kg vs. 2,500 kg) and
did not feature any re-entry apparatus. In just 3.5 years, the Soviets had to
improve their carrier rocket and develop a man-rated capsule with a heat-
shield and braking system, a guidance system and had to improve the whole
life-support system.

We know they launched dogs on the Vostok in Dec. 1960, so it is unlikely
they'd launch a cosmonaut in the time before. So the time-span between the end
of 1960 and April 1961 seems like the only time they could have lost
cosmonauts. That just does not seem that much time and I have a hard time
believing they managed to lose _two_ cosmonauts in four months.

After the death of Komarov in April 1967, they took 1.5 years to fix their
design till the launch of Soyuz 2. Likewise, they needed 2+ years after the
Soyuz 11 tragedy to launch again. I don't believe they would have just
launched a couple of cosmonauts nilly-willy after a deadly accident.

~~~
rwhitman
Wouldn't the absurdly short time period for design test iteration and the
extreme political pressure weighing on success be the most ripe conditions for
making sacrifices of this type though? We're talking about a generation that
lived through WWII, Hitler and Stalin, where wartime values around dying for
one's country were still viewed as a necessary and noble sacrifice. Seems like
if there was ever a moment in history in which people would be willingly flung
into space, _knowing_ there was a high likelihood they would die, that would
be it.

~~~
iSnow
But what we know of their space program indicates that yes, they were cutting
corners and reducing safety margins, they still used unmanned flights with
dolls and animal flights. So, they were not willing to just shoot up a couple
of guys and see who makes it down alive.

------
kogus
An image of the actual charred remains, and audio of Komarov as he died? I
love NPR, but this is bordering on snuff. It seems far more graphic than is
necessary.

~~~
brudgers
Personally, I appreciate the author's focus on telling Komorov's story with
Komorov at the center and the corpse as meteorite knifed the romantic
abstractions that let me be comfortably unempathetic when reading about people
dying.

~~~
zymhan
For me, imagining knowing that your parachute won't deploy as you hurtle
toward the earth is pretty good at making me empathize with someone's death. I
don't need to the photo to haunt me as well.

~~~
brudgers
The interesting thing as I was replying was that it's the caption that
matters. If it was "commissars inspect moonrock" suddenly it would be science.
With the caption, the photo creates the potential to empathize with the people
who might have made better decisions...if not the actual decision makers, the
people in uniform are a good representation. The audio is consistent with the
tradition of space flight documentary. "Houston we have a problem," doesn't
always work out to a Hollywood ending.

None of which is to diminish someone's reaction. There are many news stories I
forgoe because I don't want to go to the place they are likely to to take me,
too.

------
jkot
I am surprised nobody mentioned why it crashed. Technical flaws could be
expected on prototype aircraft. And Soyuz mostly worked fine without major
redesign for several years.

Sojuz program was postponed, while soviets worked on Voschod. In result Soyuz
1 was put into storage for several months. Parachutes were rolled into
capsules all that time, and nobody repackaged them before start. Parachutes
failed to open on landing.

My source is Karel Pacner. Well known Czechoslovak journalist who writes
mostly about space exporation. He was only journalist from soviet block who
covered Apollo 11 launch onsite from Florida. After soviets opened archives he
studied their records and wrote several books.

------
peter303
The sad thing too is that both space shuttle accidents the astronauts knew for
seconds to minutes what was happening. NASA isnt making full reports to
protect relatives. In either accident the astronauts could not do anything.
The new Orion system changes this.

~~~
secstate
Oh, for Columbia's crew it could have been far worse than that.

There's reasonable evidence [0] that the director of NASA and ground crews
knew the Columbia's wing damage was bad enough to make re-entry impossible.
But they had two options, tell the astronauts they were never coming home at
the start of their mission, or wait until they discovered it minutes before
their vehicle disintegrated.

The director chose the former path, and ended up getting fired as it looked
like a cover up. It was really just being compassionate.

No pad abort system would have saved Columbia. But on the flip-side, while
everyone is up and arms over the loss, NASA's astronauts are trained to WANT
to fly. We can hem and haw and say what a tragedy, but there is a class of
people who know the risks, who know the possibility of death always exists and
will still pilot or crew the vehicles that we send into space.

0: [http://goo.gl/vdagzb](http://goo.gl/vdagzb)

~~~
DiabloD3
Except that is entirely bullshit.

The reason everyone is up in arms, still to this day, about the Columbia
"accident" is because we could have sent a second shuttle to retrieve them
very easily.

NASA engineers were fighting the decision for the Columbia to return because
they already were assembling a plan to get them home alive.

Seven astronauts died because Bush put Sean O'Keefe in as Administrator of
NASA, and Sean O'Keefe decided it'd cost NASA less money to let the astronauts
die instead of bringing them back alive.

Sean O'Keefe personally tried to halt any work on sending Atlantis up as a
rescue mission, and ended up succeeding, all in the name of budgetary
concerns. He didn't give a fuck about those astronauts.

And to him? It was just a revolving door. He's now working some cushy job at
Airbus as their US CEO, a military contractor he made friends with when he
worked for the DoD and was Secretary of the Navy (under Bush's father, the
other President Bush).

So, fuck him. This wasn't an accident, this was murder for profit.

~~~
erbo
There was a story published about that potential rescue mission recently [1].
Briefly stated, the complexity involved in getting _Atlantis_ up there in time
to rescue the _Columbia_ crew members makes the rescue plans depicted in the
book/movie _The Martian_ (the Iris probe, and the Rich Purnell Maneuver) look
completely safe and sane. Any delay _at all_ in getting _Atlantis_ up would
probably have made it too late for the _Columbia_ crew, as their lithium
hydroxide canisters would have run out and they would have choked to death on
their own CO2. The _Columbia_ Accident Investigation Board came to similar
conclusions in their own report [2].

It would have made for great drama. But either having _Atlantis_ get up there
too late to save the _Columbia_ crew, or, even worse, losing _Atlantis_ as
well, would have been a PR disaster from which NASA might well not have
recovered. Hell, they _barely_ recovered from _Columbia_ as it is.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/the-audacious-
rescue-...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/the-audacious-rescue-plan-
that-might-have-saved-space-shuttle-columbia/)

[2]
[http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/html/start.html](http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/html/start.html)

~~~
Udik
Just out of simple curiosity. Isn't/ wasn't there any other vector or capsule,
from any other nation (that is, Russia) that could have been sent up in
rescue?

~~~
secstate
Not to recover 7 astronauts. And that only matters if they were prepared to
launch inside of 14 days, which the vast majority of vehicles are not.

Regardless, the Soyuz can only hold 110 lbs of extra weight beyond three crew
members. So they'd need almost as many skeleton-crew Soyuz modules as there
were crew aboard Columbia.

~~~
Grishnakh
Maybe they could have shipped additional supplies on the Soyuz up to transfer
to the Shuttle, to keep the remaining crew alive for enough time to prep
additional STS or Soyuz launches to bring them back. Or maybe send up some
supplies for them to attempt a repair on the wing in-orbit.

~~~
erbo
Unlikely. There would have had to have been a Soyuz almost ready to go that
could be used for the purpose, and there wasn't. I'm also not sure that a
Soyuz could have been launched from Baikonur into the orbital plane that
_Columbia_ was flying in; they commonly launch into the ISS' orbital plane,
and we already know _Columbia_ couldn't have gotten there. And, even if you
_could_ get a Soyuz there in time, _Columbia_ wasn't equipped for retrieving
supplies from another spacecraft. It wasn't carrying a RMS robot arm, for
instance, nor did they have any SAFER jetpacks for their pressure suits.
Getting supplies out of another spacecraft, even one nearby, without either of
those would be tricky at best...maybe too tricky for a crew already possibly
suffering from partial CO2 poisoning.

------
elbigbad
It's creepy and tasteless to make the sound clip of his last words available
for sale:

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002SHRCYU?ie=UTF8&*Versio...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002SHRCYU?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0)

------
blarneyman
Known to be false. Stop posting such crap.

------
andrewtbham
title should probably have in parenthesis that it was published in 2011. i
know i read this a long time ago.

------
brudgers
Date: 2012

~~~
zymhan
Thanks. Might as well say "Date: 1967" as well.

/s

This is obviously a historical piece.

~~~
brudgers
It's conventional on Hacker News to add the publication year to stories that
have been around for a while. I suspect this is because by editing the title,
it avoids needless "This is old" comments.

------
jt2190
(2011)

