As I mentioned HERE, NPR ran an article describing the last moments/last words of cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov as presented in the forthcoming book Starman by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony. Well… as it turns out (and as was noted in the comments section of my earlier posting), it seems that the information may not be exactly… well, anywhere near accurate. Noted and respected space historian James Oberg chimed in a number of times on the original NPR site, pointing out the flaws… and pointing towards angry Russian discussions on the topic. One such Russian article (via google translation):
British book about Gagarin was criticized in Russia
The author of the NPR piece has posted again, this time with *something* of a mea culpa, since the author of the post didn’t bother to read any other works on the subject (or do enough research to find that the claims made, when the books was originally published in the 1990’s, have been torn to shreds by other space historians). Now, since I just got done saying that Aviation Week is not wholly to blame for publishing a dead-wrong article about a Soviet nuclear powered bomber, I can’t really jump up and down too hard on NPR for reporting on what’s in a book, especially since the posting was one of their official blogs rather than an on-air piece. But still… while I get stuff wrong here at the Unwanted Blog, nobody is paying me a dime to do it and I don’t call myself a journalist. And I sure as hell don’t get funding from the US FedGuv or claim to be a vital new source.
5 Responses to “Seems the Russians are Pissed”
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That Russian article you linked to makes a Babel Fish translation look almost good:
“Experts call it absurd (after all, as you know, the urn containing the ashes Komarova buried in the Kremlin wall), as listed in the book of “facts” about the death of Gagarin’s because of alcoholism, drunken dances Khrushchev after each successful run, hundreds of “guinea” people who in the name space success was allegedly a certain monstrous experiment to find out which are dangerous to overload these astronauts, etc.”
I want to see the monstrous experiment where people were crossed with Guinea Pigs to create some sort of fat, furry, and docile cosmonaut. 😀
Wondering what you guys thought of this:
http://www.siff.net/festival/film/detail.aspx?id=26174&fid=32
http://www.russianlife.com/article.cfm?Number=2035
50th anniversary http://yurisnight.net/
Wonder if this is true or just apologetics
http://www.spacekb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/space-policy/3174/First-Cosmonaut-Yuri-Gagarin-Never-Denied-Seeing-God-In-Space
Still, my fav’ quote credited to Mr. Eyebrows himself, Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev–as reported on the old Peter Ustinov hosted OMNI program:
Let the meek inherit the Earth–the rest of us will go to the stars.
PS I wonder if Sir Peter was related to the VPK chief
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitri_Ustinov
Popular name, but some resemblance…
As far as the kid goes, it sounds like the Russian version of “Six Degrees Of Separation”, and I suspect that this child is a parasitic hooligan like the one in that work of fiction also.
Though no doubt many dusky women would have been delighted to receive the vital essence of the Hero-Cosmonaut, such things were kept under strict government control, lest they became the tools of the capitalist forces in their attempts to shore up their imperialist schemes for the downtrodden peoples of Africa.
Besides, before leaving the USSR, every cosmonaut had to don “The Red Belt Of Purity” to which only Korolev had the keys…which could deliver a powerful electric jolt to the “dangerous regions” if any counterrevolutionary stirrings were detected down there.
This was the true cause of the injury, and not a car crash, that put Hero-Test Pilot Vladimir Ilyushin into the hospital. A wanton child of the unclean Ukraine tempted him, and due to a unfortunate design flaw in the Red Belt, it became stuck in the on position. This incident became the source of his later nickname “Sparky Shorts”.
Jeff, are you sure that was Brezhnev? It sounds more like Heinlein.
That might be, but I swore I saw in on the old Ustinov hosted Omni program where it was credited to him instead. My memory plays tricks on me. Once as a young child I thought I saw a fireball follow behind the sunset in the early 1970s. I probably dreamed it, but seem to remember a crowd.