The "Lost Cosmonauts" theory & the recording that claims to back it up

[C C]

https://www.iflscience.com/space/the-los...ack-it-up/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmonauts

EXCERPTS: The Soviet Space program, like the US space program, has not been without its disasters. [...] In 1960, a rocket launch in the Soviet Union killed around 160 people near the launchpad. In 1971, three cosmonauts died on Soyuz 11 after a faulty valve led to sudden decompression.

The Soviets also gained a reputation – not completely undeserved – of covering up incidents that embarrassed them and taking unnecessary risks.

So when the Judica-Cordiglia brothers claimed to have made recordings of supposed crewed missions by the Soviet Union, it's easy to see why people were receptive to the idea. The brothers claim to have recorded several missions by the Soviets that were not public knowledge, including a morse code SOS signal from a spacecraft that appeared to be moving away from Earth's orbit.

[...] One of their most famous recordings, supposedly taken in November 1963, claims to capture one of the "lost cosmonauts" as she re-enters the atmosphere, dying before she returned to the Earth.

The brothers claim that they did not speak Russian, and had to get translators (as well as ask their sister to learn Russian) to find out what they had recorded. The brothers maintain to this day that the recordings are genuine.

However, the "lost cosmonauts" theory may just be a conspiracy theory [...] "No evidence for supposed deaths of cosmonauts on these early space missions can stand up under serious scrutiny today," Oberg wrote in a long piece debunking the "lost cosmonaut" theory.

"The blame for the fact that these stories spread and thrived in the early 1960's must rest squarely on the shoulders of the Soviet news managers. Their publicity policy of evasions, boasts, distortions and outright lies created the atmosphere of mystery and secrecy out of which all sorts of sensational and outrageous stories grew." (MORE - missing details)

The Lost Cosmonauts ... https://youtu.be/5YSSxTk3k-Q

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/5YSSxTk3k-Q

[Yazata]

The biggest covered-up disaster in the Soviet space program was probably the explosion of the massive N-1 Moon rocket on the pad at Baikonur, on July 3, 1969.

For years we were told that the Russians weren't trying to race the United States to the Moon. But in reality they had a highly advanced manned lunar program with some pretty amazing hardware. Their answer to the US Saturn V was the N-1. They planned to build 10 of these, test them, then fly them to the Moon and only announce their Moon program to the world when the first crewed landing succeeded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)

Unfortunately, they just couldn't get tbe N-1 to work. They attempted four uncrewed test flights, each of which failed. The most disastrous was the second try. It ascended off the launch pad when a turbopump on one of its 30 first stage rocket engines exploded. That lost engine took out several more surrounding engines. The imbalanced thrust cause the whole giant vehicle to tilt over about 45 degrees and fall back on the launch pad. As it still contained some 2,300 tons of rocket fuel, the explosion was massive, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever. The pad was totally destroyed and many of the Soviet Union's top rocket engineers were killed on the ground by the blast.

After two more failures, four failures in total, the Soviets canceled the Moon program and denied that they had ever tried to go to the Moon. It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that the world learned about the N-1 and about the Russians' attempts to get to the Moon before the Americans.

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FgklV...f=1&nofb=1]

[Image: N1_1M1_mockup_on_the_launch_pad_at_the_B...e_1967.jpg]

[Image: Super_heavy-lift_launch_vehicles.png]

[C C]

The biggest covered-up disaster in the Soviet space program was probably the explosion of the massive N-1 Moon rocket on the pad at Baikonur, on July 3, 1969.

For years we were told that the Russians weren't trying to race the United States to the Moon. But in reality they had a highly advanced manned lunar program with some pretty amazing hardware. Their answer to the US Saturn V was the N-1. They planned to build 10 of these, test them, then fly them to the Moon and only announce their Moon program to the world when the first crewed landing succeeded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)

Unfortunately, they just couldn't get tbe N-1 to work. They attempted four uncrewed test flights, each of which failed. The most disastrous was the second try. It ascended off the launch pad when a turbopump on one of its 30 first stage rocket engines exploded. That lost engine took out several more surrounding engines. The imbalanced thrust cause the whole giant vehicle to tilt over about 45 degrees and fall back on the launch pad. As it still contained some 2,300 tons of rocket fuel, the explosion was massive, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever. The pad was totally destroyed and many of the Soviet Union's top rocket engineers were killed on the ground by the blast.

After two more failures, four failures in total, the Soviets canceled the Moon program and denied that they had ever tried to go to the Moon. It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that the world learned about the N-1 and about the Russians' attempts to get to the Moon before the Americans.

Sergei Korolev: the rocket genius: "Before his death, Korolev had designed a mighty launcher, the N1, which was intended to carry men to the moon. Engineers continued to work on it but without the chief designer's guidance and inspiration, they were lost."

I recall an old documentary where one of the former Soviet space officials essentially said the same thing: That it was all over after Sergei Korolev died in 1966. Saying something to the effect that one mastermind was worth an army of mediocre engineers.

But despite his early innovations and successes, it may have indeed been Korolev himself who sowed the seeds for failure...

Criticism: Engineer Sergei Khrushchev, son of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, explained in an interview some shortcomings of Korolev's approach, which in his opinion is why the Soviets didn't land on the Moon:

"I think Russia had no chance to be ahead of the Americans under Sergei Korolev and his successor, Vasili Mishin. ... Korolev was not a scientist, not a designer: he was a brilliant manager. Korolev's problem was his mentality.

His intent was to somehow use the launcher he had [the N1 rocket]. It was designed in 1958 for a different purpose and with a limited payload of about 70 tons. His philosophy was, let's not work by stages [as is usual in spacecraft design], but let's assemble everything and then try it. And at last it will work.

There were several attempts and failures with Lunnik [a series of uncrewed Soviet moon probes]. Sending man to the moon is too complicated, too complex for such an approach. I think it was doomed from the very beginning..."

[...] Another reason the program didn't succeed was the rivalry between Korolev and Vladimir Chelomey. Their animosity was due to the intolerable persona of both men, and their desire for leadership at any cost. The two never said a harsh word about each other either in public or in private, but toppled each other's projects in any way possible.

Instead of dividing competencies and responsibilities and cooperating in order to pursue the same goal, the two struggled for leadership in the space program. According to Khrushchev, who worked for Chelomey and knew both men well, they both would have preferred the Americans to land on the Moon first rather than their rival.

[C C]

They also showed the interior of the N1's LK lander in the documentary I mentioned above. It reminded me of something out of a Jules Verne novel in the 19th century -- what looked like manual control valves that the lunar cosmonaut had to adjust to maneuver and operate the vehicle.

EDIT: Well, I seem to have found a video clip. Maybe not quite as primitive as reflected in my memory, but one scene does settle on a control valve; and the narrator mentions "like a steam train" and refers to the occupant holding two levers while standing...

Circa the 1:56 minute mark is where the interior footage begins ... https://youtu.be/_64lGoxdCfc

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/_64lGoxdCfc