http://news.independent.co.uk/
USSR 'kept secret the deaths of first cosmonauts'
By Fred Weir in Moscow
14 April 2001
The triumphant early Soviet space programme, which culminated in Yuri
Gagarin's first manned orbit of the Earth 40 years ago, was marred by several
tragedies kept secret from the Russian people and the world, say space
veterans.
Every schoolchild learns the USSR lofted the first artificial satellite,
Sputnik, on 4 October 1957 and within four years had Gagarin circling the
globe in his Vostok-I space ship. But between those two historic events at
least three cosmonauts may have died in unsung attempts to break the space
barrier and another perished in a low-gravity accident.
Russia celebrated Thursday's Gagarin anniversary with great fanfare,
including two new TV documentaries glorifying the cosmonaut's life and the
achievement-packed formative years of the Soviet space programme.
But less pleasant news leaked out yesterday. The three early victims were
test pilots launched into the outer atmosphere on parabolic trajectories.
That is, they went up and straight down without orbiting Earth, says Mikhail
Rudenko, a former senior engineer with the Experimental Design Office 456 in
the city of Khimki.
"All three died during the flights and their names were never officially
published," said Mr Rudenko. He gave their names as Ledovskikh, Shaborin and
Mitkov, and the dates of their abortive missions as 1957, 1958 and 1959.
Mr Rudenko said the test pilot deaths caused the Soviet leadership to set up
a special school for preparing space pioneers. "They decided to take a more
serious view of training, and to create a special cadre of cosmonauts," he
said.
During those years the Soviet Union was launching animals, plants, insects
and even a dummy into orbit in the full glare of publicity. The first
creature in space was a Russian dog named Laika, who survived for seven days
in a special suit before being put to death. In 1960 Moscow sent up two dogs,
Strelka and Belka, and brought them back alive.
"Usually they sent street dogs into space, because dogs of pedigree breeding
became nervous," says Vladimir Gubarev, a top Soviet science journalist who
covered 50 space launches. "They tried to look for human candidates with
similar psychological qualities, because they feared a man might go mad in
space."
Irina Ponomaryova, a space expert at the Institute of Biological and Medical
Problems, who has worked with the cosmonaut programme since 1959, says she
cannot confirm Rudenko's story. But she said a member of the original
cosmonaut team, Valentin Bondarenko, burnt to death in an experimental
low-gravity chamber in early 1961. "We were trying to simulate the conditions
a cosmonaut would face in orbit, but fire broke out in the chamber," she
said. "Bondarenko couldn't be saved. This is the only case I remember."
In efforts to design space capsule safe for a human pilot, Soviet scientists
sent a mannequin named Ivan Ivanovich into orbit weeks before Gagarin's
successful flight, with a dog named Chernushka. "I met them when they
landed," said Mr Gubarev. "Ivan Ivanovich was sitting in the crash chair,
like a human pilot. But inside, he was a real Noah's Ark: the scientists had
filled him up with all kinds of organisms, including mice and cockroaches."
When Gagarin finally took off, on 12 April 1961, the Soviet leadership was so
unsure of his prospects that they sent three press packages to the official
Tass news agency and Soviet radio, Mr Gubarev said. "Package number one said
the flight went well and the cosmonaut has returned safely to Earth. Package
number two, to be read with solemn music, announced the pilot's death. And
number three said he had landed in a foreign land or at sea, and asked other
countries to help with his recovery."
Package number one was eventually used. "Later, special couriers were sent
from the Kremlin to retrieve the two unused statements, and all copies of
them were destroyed," Mr Gubarev added.
