Dan Seddon
Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was allegedly struggling to operate his spacecraft before dying on re-entry to Earth in 1967.
Although the names of original Moon-landers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are synonymously attached to the vast dark surrounding our planet, Komarov also entered the explorative history books by becoming the first human to lose his life on a spaceflight all those years ago.
A month after his 40th birthday, Komarov manned a 24-hour solo orbit of Earth in the Soyuz 1 test flight, which completed 16 orbits before a parachute failure caused his capsule to smash into the ground and explode.
Advert
This unfortunate 'man who fell from space' recorded one final transmission that will chill you to the core.
The two solar panels of the Soyuz 1 failed to fully deploy upon orbital insertion, which consequently obscured parts of Komarov's navigation equipment.
He needed to orient his ship to the Sun, but failed to do so after a number of attempts.
To make matters worse, the craft was transmitting unreliable status details and lost radio communication with the Soviets on the ground.
Advert
Later, Komarov was ordered to reorient himself using ion flow sensors, but they failed and he didn't have enough time to manually reenter until his 19th orbit.
He successfully re-entered Earth's atmosphere only to find that a main braking parachute wasn't working as it should. At ridiculous speed, his ship landed without any air resistance and killed him on impact.
Interestingly, US listening posts situated in Turkey caught Komarov's final and furious conversation with a high-ranking official of the Soviet Union, Alexei Kosygin, which was controversially published in the 2011 book Starman by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony.
"This devil ship! Nothing I lay my hands on works properly!" he's said to have cried.
Conversely, an official transcript of their devastating exchange from the Russian State Archive claims that one of the last things Komarov told Kosygin was: "I feel excellent, everything's in order. Thank you for transmitting all of that. [Separation] occurred."
In Doran and Bizony's historical account, it's also suggested that the late astronaut's ship harboured over 200 structural problems that were known before it took off on the mission.
Advert
Komarov’s backup pilot, the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, allegedly argued for their mission to be postponed.
Sadly, Komarov tragically plummeted to the ground and was killed in an explosion on 24 April, 1967.
According to reports, his charred remains resembled a ‘lump’ and only his heel bone was recognisable.