(no subject)
Jun. 6th, 2003 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plutherusJust cuz it's really, really cool, and I'd never heard of it before:
Soyuz 4 was launched in early 1969, then Soyuz 5 was launched about a week later, with three cosmonauts, captained by Boris Valentinovich Volynov. They managed to dock successfully with Soyuz 4 and two of the cosmonauts transferred to Soyuz 4.
Things started going wrong when undocking, however, and Soyuz 5, with only Volynov onboard, began re-entering the atmosphere backwards. With very little heat shielding in the back, the space capsule began melting around him, filling the cabin with toxic fumes and eventually flames.
With an estimated 3 seconds left in which he could have lived, he managed to manually turn the capsule around, so the heat shielding could absorb the re-entry heat, and landed the craft only 200km off course.
Unfortunately, he was lost to radar on the way down, and the landing was harder than planned, which shattered his front teeth.
Bruised, bleeding from the mouth, he abandoned the lander and walked 20km to a small village. There, he had even more trouble as he tried to convince the inhabitants who, living in a small village in rural Russia in the 60's had no television and couldn't really be expected to be up on the latest scientific developments, that he had just come from space and needed to call the Kremlin to send someone to come meet him.
This would make a great movie.
Soyuz 4 was launched in early 1969, then Soyuz 5 was launched about a week later, with three cosmonauts, captained by Boris Valentinovich Volynov. They managed to dock successfully with Soyuz 4 and two of the cosmonauts transferred to Soyuz 4.
Things started going wrong when undocking, however, and Soyuz 5, with only Volynov onboard, began re-entering the atmosphere backwards. With very little heat shielding in the back, the space capsule began melting around him, filling the cabin with toxic fumes and eventually flames.
With an estimated 3 seconds left in which he could have lived, he managed to manually turn the capsule around, so the heat shielding could absorb the re-entry heat, and landed the craft only 200km off course.
Unfortunately, he was lost to radar on the way down, and the landing was harder than planned, which shattered his front teeth.
Bruised, bleeding from the mouth, he abandoned the lander and walked 20km to a small village. There, he had even more trouble as he tried to convince the inhabitants who, living in a small village in rural Russia in the 60's had no television and couldn't really be expected to be up on the latest scientific developments, that he had just come from space and needed to call the Kremlin to send someone to come meet him.
This would make a great movie.
