Reporters/Media seeking additional information should contact Scott Sacknoff via email at [email protected] or by phone at (202) 596-1812.
Newly Discovered Document Debunks Soviet Space Conspiracy Theories on the Death of Soyuz-1 Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 27 February 2020 [Washington DC] --
The forthcoming issue of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly (Volume 27 #1) features new research from noted Soviet space expert Asif Siddiqi, PhD, that debunks the various conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Soyuz-1 cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, the first fatality of a spacefarer during a space mission.
In late 2018, an official Soyuz-1 Onboard Journal was discovered by Quest publisher Scott Sacknoff in a Heritage Auctions catalog. The 16-page document was recently translated and analyzed by Dr. Siddiqi, who recognized that it was a previously unknown official copy that contained information not previously available to researchers or the public, including details from the final hours of the Soyuz-1 flight. Signed by the shift directors of the Soviet equivalent of “mission control,” an inscription dated 5 May 1967 indicates that this document is a “true copy” and also was signed by Vladimir Nikolaevick Pravetskii (1921-1980), who was responsible for biomedical support of the Soviet cosmonauts at that time.
“In the history of Soviet space exploration, there are a few high points that have attracted the attention of conspiracy theorists,” said Dr. Siddiqi. “One of them is the flight of Yuri Gagarin in 1961. A simple Google search will lead one to a slew of websites chronicling in great detail all of the supposed cosmonauts who died getting to space before Gagarin, not to mention the nefarious plots to kill Gagarin in the late 1960s. And then, of course, there is the tragic flight of Vladimir Komarov in 1967, a veritable font of all manner of wild speculations.”
According to Christopher Gainor, PhD, the editor of Quest, “At the time, the immediate futures of both the United States and the Soviet space programs were shrouded in mystery. NASA was still trying to understand the causes of the fire that killed the crew of Apollo 1 on the launch pad, and no one seemed to know how well Apollo would recover from this catastrophe. The Soviet Union’s human space program had not been heard from for 25 months, but rumors were flying that something big was in the offing as the 50th anniversary of Russia’s October Revolution approached.”
In April 1967, the Soviets launched Komarov on the very first mission of the Soyuz spacecraft. A day later, the cosmonaut died after his space capsule plummeted to Earth and crashed in Soviet Central Asia. As soon as Komarov’s death was announced, conjecture and rumors quickly filled the vacuum created by the lack of hard information. The most ubiquitous include: that he was “crying in rage” as his spaceship plummeted to Earth, angry at the engineers and designers who built a faulty capsule; that he directly talked to Chairman of the Council of Ministers Aleksei Kosygin, who broke into tears telling Komarov (over video!) that he was a hero; or that Komarov’s wife and children tearfully said their goodbyes before his demise. American intelligence agencies supposedly picked up all of these harried transmissions from tracking stations in Turkey. None of this, of course, was ever confirmed. “Now with the official journal from the mission, the true and complete story can finally be told,” said Scott Sacknoff.
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Dr. Asif Siddiqi is historian at Fordham University specializing in the history of science and technology. His book Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974 is considered the best English-language history of the Soviet space program. He also edited the series, Rockets and People, a four-volume English- translation of the memoirs of Boris Chertok, a leading space designer under Sergei Korolev. His honors include the American Historical Association’s Fellowship in Aerospace History, the Eugene M. Emme Astronautical Literature Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Published since 1992, Quest is the only peer-reviewed publication focused exclusively on the history of spaceflight. It is currently edited by Dr. Christopher Gainor.
Quest is a publication of SPACE 3.0, a 501c3 charitable foundation launched in 2019, the 50th anniversary of the first moonwalk. Its mission is to build an endowment that can provide grants for space history preservation efforts and empower entrepreneurs and visionaries.
Information about Quest can be found at: www.spacehistory101.com Information about The SPACE 3.0 Foundation: www.spacecommerce.org
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Reporters/Media seeking additional information should contact Scott Sacknoff via email at [email protected] or by phone at (202) 596-1812.