Whilst scanning the endlessly entertaining List of Unusual Deaths a few years ago (a lot of my early college mornings were spent shaking off a weird high, removing pieces of Butterfinger from my sheets, and wondering how exactly I was able to spend four hours on wikipedia), I became interested in the life of Vladimir Kamarov, a Cosmonaut whose Soyuz mission ended in disaster when it struck the earth at full-speed in a state of total malfunction. Kamarov, apparently, knew his mission was doomed from the start and cursed the makers of his space-vessel as it sped towards Earth.
In Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin, a just-released book documenting the literal rise of first-man-in-space Yuri Gagarin, authors Jamie Doran and Piers Bizon provide a new account of the Soyuz 1 flight and program that killed Kamarov. Gagarin, who was Kamarov’s dear friend and alternate for the flight, was well-aware of the death sentence that Kamarov’s particpation entailed. Robert Krulwich, of NPR’s Radiolab, discusses the book and the revelations therein, including the possibility that the CIA was listening to (and recording!) the final transmissions of Kamarov. You can check out Krulwich’s blog here . Krulwich also reproduces the famous “In Case of Moon Disaster” speech, written by Robert Safire and to be read by President Nixon in case of a possible Apollo 11 mishap (or Decepticon attack! Transformers 3 this summer, whoo!).
Krulwich’s post, which highlighted the sensational details of Kamarov’s and Gagarin’s tragic friendship, including a last-minute attempt by Gagarin to save Kamarov, was met with a huge response from space-historians and enthusiasts, who questioned the facts behing Doran and Bizon’s account. Krulwich’s measured response, published earlier this month, allows that maybe we’ll never know exactly what happened to Kamarov, but confirms that baseless speculation about soviet space history is a totally reasonable way to spend your days, and is for me, sweet vindication.
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