Traveling into space has been one of the greatest achievements in history, but it has taken a heavy toll in human lives, as there have been a number of accidents throughout the space race. Today we are going to review what some of those catastrophes were.
Names like Yuri Gagarin or Neil Armstrong will remain engraved in the pages of history books for being pioneers in space exploration. However, others less fortunate are also remembered because they gave their lives to fulfill the dream of crossing the borders of our Earth.
Apollo 1 (1967)
The capsule burned on the same launch platform at Cape Canaveral on January 27, 1967 , when the launch maneuver was being rehearsed, which was to take place on February 21 of that same year. The astronauts, Virgil Ivan Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger Chaffee died in it.
Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom (left), Edward H. White II (center), and Roger B. Chaffee (right)
A short circuit in a poorly insulated cable caused a fire that spread very quickly, killing the astronauts by suffocation in just 17 seconds. His last words were: “Fire in the cabin!”
Soyuz 1 (1967)
The first person to die in space was the Soviet astronaut Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov, who was piloting the Soyuz I spacecraft. This was launched on April 23, 1967 and, the next day, April 24, 1967 , during the return maneuvers, there was a failure in the descent apparatus.
Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov (Soyuz 1)
The guidance system broke and the lone crewman managed to get the craft onto a landing trajectory, but when it was at a height of 7 kilometers, the parachutes failed and it hurtled to Earth, crashing to the ground in a ball of flames.
What makes this story so tragic is that Komarov knew the mission was compromised. In fact, his last recorded transmission from the ship had him screaming and cursing at his superiors.
Soyuz 11 (1971)
On June 6, 1971, the Soyuz II was launched into space, manned by Georgi Dobrovolski, VIadislav Volkov and Victor Pasayev, who managed to dock this ship with the Salyut the next day, an unmanned machine in which the astronauts remained for 24 days. performing various experiments. Once the mission was accomplished, both ships separated and headed for Earth.
Soyuz 11 crew
On June 29, 1971 , after an apparently perfect landing in Kazakhstan, the three astronauts were found dead in their seats, due to a sudden drop in pressure in the vehicle due to a faulty vent opening that caused depressurization. of the cabin and the lack of special suits caused them to run out of oxygen and probably suffocate approximately 30 minutes before landing.
Challenger (1986)
On January 28, 1986 , the Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launch. The ship completely disintegrated in the Atlantic Ocean, with its crew of 7 astronauts: Francis Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik, and Christa Corrigan McAuliffe, a high school teacher who had been selected as part of NASA’s new “Teacher in Space” program.
The catastrophic launch of the Challenger occurred despite the fact that the manufacturers of the solid-fuel booster rockets warned that the famous O-rings that seal the union joints of the different segments of the rocket had lost elasticity due to subzero temperatures. reigning in the early morning before the countdown. These synthetic rings have the mission of preventing combustion gases from propellants from escaping to the outside.
Fifty-nine seconds after liftoff, a tongue of flame appeared at one of the joints on the right rocket, as seen on television footage. Finally, the fire reached the gigantic orange external fuel tank, causing the ship to explode.
Challenger crew
An engineer working on the Challenger shuttle, a Bob Ebeling, had desperately tried to warn that there was not enough data on how rubber gaskets would withstand temperatures below 12C and that the launch should be postponed. His request fell on deaf ears and he went home, going so far as to tell his wife that the Challenger shuttle would explode, which it eventually did.
Columbia (2003)
The STS-107 Columbia spacecraft disintegrated while re-entering Earth’s atmosphere over Texas on February 1, 2003 . The crew consisting of Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael P. Anderson, Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla, David McDowell Brown and Laurel Clark died on the spot.
Crew of the Columbia
Of this disaster, Pamela A. Melroy, head of the accident investigation, said: “The crew was doing everything they were trained to do, and they were doing everything right when the disaster happened.”
Again, negligence on the part of NASA was to blame, as the detachment of a piece of thermal insulation during takeoff was the cause of the accident, since, when it came back, the hot air entered the ship and ended up disintegrating it. The foam insulation had come off during previous shuttle launches without incident, leading NASA officials to believe it was not a problem.