![]() But as the Americans ramped up their lunar program, the Soviets seemed unimpressed, calling the lunar missions risky and worthless while insisting they were focusing on the development of space stations. 12, 1962, "and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." With those words, there was no doubt about the United States' intention to land a man on the moon. Kennedy to a crowd assembled at the sweltering Rice University football stadium on Sept. "We choose to go to the moon this decade," said President John F. įound Image Holdings/Corbis via Getty Images So did Soviet cosmonauts die in the quest to become the first humans in space? If so, it's a really well-kept secret. During pre-flight training Bondarenko accidently set himself on fire, an incident the country did not acknowledge until 1986. ![]() After all, the Soviets did cover up astronaut deaths - notably that of Valentin Bondarenko in 1961. But the shroud of secrecy that surrounded the Soviet space program makes them seem enticingly possible. journalist James Oberg, and he found no evidence to support them. ![]() The cries for help were the stuff of Hollywood action movies.īefore you get too excited, it's important to note that the claims about the astronauts' deaths were thoroughly investigated by U.S. From their post in northern Italy, the brothers claimed to have captured the cosmonauts' last moments alive as they orbited the planet on their death mission. What makes these accounts particularly enticing, however, is a series of recordings made by amateur radio operators Achille and Giovanni Battista Judica-Cordiglia. These alleged accidents preceded the flight of Yuri Gagarin, who is recognized as the first person to journey into space on April 12, 1961. The story goes like this: In the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union covered up the deaths of several cosmonauts killed during failed attempts to launch them into Earth's orbit. Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images There are certainly things nobody knows for sure, but here are a few things that are definitely true. It was only after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 that the rest of the world found out some of what their space program was up to all those decades. The Soviets, however, made tight lips a national pastime, denying not only specific events (often failures), but also entire programs. Neither superpower wanted the other to know too much about what they were doing, lest their secrets be revealed. Secrecy was of the utmost importance for the two countries as they battled for superiority in Earth's orbit and beyond. In January 1958, the Americans countered with their own satellite, Explorer I, and the Space Race was on. ![]() Americans worried that Sputnik's success meant it was only a matter of time until their archenemy would soon use the new technology to obliterate them with space nukes. The dim glint from its polished metal surface would have been awe-inspiring had it not been during the early throes of the Cold War when the Soviets and the United States were having a nuclear-fueled staredown. That's when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, a 184-pound (84-kilogram), beach-ball-sized sphere trailing four spindly antennas behind it. ![]()
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