December 10, 2004

• Yeah, I've seen this before but always find it fascinating (if true...). What a way to go, knowing it was coming etc. They also said the space dog Laika died peacefully, but in reality was was burnt to a crisp too. [Yay, 100th post since 'the crash']
• Very interesting stuff. After the Soviet Union crumbled, the old veil of secrecy crumbled too. Journals of Soviet workers right at the heart of the Russian space program were published. Documents of all kinds ended up sold at auction; personal diaries, official notes et al, most purchased by Western museums & institutes. Lots of stuff was revealed, disasters & blunders of huge proportions, but nothing about these early lost cosmonauts. In fact, the claims of the Judica-Cordiglia brothers have been debunked. As for Vladimir Ilyushin, although he was a real guy, it seems that he was never a cosmonaut & never flew in space - he has never gone on camera to back up the stories & nobody has found verifiable evidence to place him in the cosmonaut program. Good idea for a movie, though.
• It might be true, but I incline to think it isn't. I understand it was generally believed by Western pilots during the Cold War that Russian planes had no ejector seats (because the Communists didn't care about losing a few airmen). Truth was (it seems), they had the best in the world, and a Russian pilot had a significantly better chance of surviving a bale-out than an American one. I have a feeling the cosmonaut thing might be a survival of the same kind of mythology. I've heard the colleagues of Valentina Tereshkova interviewed, and they complained about how she was selected as the first female cosmonaut because of her working-class background, in spite of being among the dimmer and more idle of the candidates. But they never said anything about a previous female cosmonaut dying. There could be explanations for that, but...
• Ah, thanks for the debunking link, I was wondering if this was real or not.
• Yeah, its one of those links.. I had it on my bookmarks for a long time, always wondered what the deal was. S'funny, cos only recently came across that debunk page. Still a good post tho'.
• I thought that you said Lost Consonants and got all excited.
• so i'm confused (as usual). what's the motivation for the lost cosmonauts site then? which is a cool and interesting post regardless. is somebody pitching a movie or book?
• I don't know about the motivation for putting it up, but for me, looking at gives me that 'ooh, what a horrible way to die' feeling that I suspect we all quite enjoy. We're all sick puppies sometimes.
• there was a documentary I saw in Germany (and later in the States) about the horrible failures of the RUssian space program... google-fu is not with me today, so I'm having trouble finding it. rather ghastly stuff, with film clips of crash sites and audio as the various problems transpired.
• Cecil gives us the short version.
• hmm, here's a piece that details a number of the cosmonaut fatalities (as well as those who left the cosmonaut program).
• Did they publicize Gagarin's flight before or after he did it? If it was before, then I would have every reason to doubt these claims.
• wonder if this is the same guy? from a UPI story circa 1984: An Italian professor said Thursday he believes a bolt of lightning created the mysterious image on the Shroud of Turin, a burial cloth many Roman Catholics believe was wrapped around the body of Jesus Christ. Professor Giovanni Battista Judica-Cordiglia told reporters Thursday that he has recreated in his laboratory conditions he thinks were similar to those that caused the image of a man to be imprinted on the cloth.