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CalliArcale
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It's been a while since I've posted a space history bit, so here goes. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br /><b><i>Birthday of Vladimir Komorov</i></b><br /><br />Vladimir Komorov was born March 16, 1927. He was one of the first Soviet cosmonauts, though obviously not the first to actually fly into space. He was first assigned as the backup crew of Vostok 4, then as the prime crew of Vostok 7. However, Vostok 7 was cancelled. It would have been the first of several follow-on Vostok missions, this one targetted at the lower Van Allen Belts to make radiological-biological studies. But the Soviets had a different plan for Komorov. To best the upcoming American Gemini flights, the Vostok module was redesigned to carry three crew, and was renamed Voskhod. Komorov commanded the flight of Voskhod 1 on October 12, 1962. His crewmates were a scientist named Konstantin Feoktistov and a physician named Boris Yegorov. Thus, in addition to being the first multi-crew flight, it was also the first flight to carry scientists. Some safety concessions were made, however; Vostok was never meant to manage such a large crew, and the Voskhod modifications had included the deletion of all means for a launch abort. The crew couldn't even wear pressure suits. But the mission was a resounding success anyway. The same could not be said of Komorov's next flight, unfortunately. On April 23, 1967, he became the first person to die during. Komorov was the sole crew of Soyuz 1, testing out the radical new modular spacecraft. Before the flight, he had argued successfully for a rendezvous and docking between Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 2. So while three cosmonauts were getting ready for Soyuz 2, Komorov launched aboard Soyuz 1 on April 23. The plan was to launch Soyuz 2 into a favorable orbit for rendezvous once Soyuz 1 was ready. Soyuz 1 was never ready; serious problems cropped up immediately after orbit insertion. One solar array refused to deploy, cutting power output in half. Ma <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em> -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>