The path of humanity to the stars has also had heroes not very publicly recognized but equally valuable for our space advancement. One such person was the Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov (1927-1967).
His space flight on the Soyuz 1 made him the first Soviet cosmonaut to fly into outer space more than once, but unfortunately, he also became the first human to die on a space mission.
This fateful moment occurred during the mission to travel to the Moon with the Soyuz 1 space capsule. Colonel Komarov was the only crew member. The truth is that the flight, which barely lasted a day, was full of technical problems, even before takeoff. Not wanting to delay the mission, they went ahead with the launch. However, when Komarov returned to Earth seeing that it was going to be impossible to complete his objective, the parachutes also failed and the capsule brutally crashed into Earth.
As a curiosity, Komarov and Yuri Gagarin were great friends ; they often hunted together and their families met regularly. If he decided not to fly, it was Gagarin who was going to take over this mission as the reserve pilot, but he commented to his teammates that since he knew he would probably die, he didn’t want his place to be taken by his friend Gagarin. So it was.
Komarov’s death occurred on April 24, 1967, in Orenburg Oblast (Russia). He was only 40 years old .
A lunar crater and an asteroid discovered in 1971 are named after him.
