#I KNOW FOR A FACT I read somewhere that Yuri dug through the crash site for his remains but I can’t remember 😭😭😭

[thatsrightice]

The story of these two men is my Roman Empire.

Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov were highly decorated Cosmonauts, both of which made firsts in the history of space flight.

Yuri Gagarin famously became the first man in space on April 12, 1961.

Vladimir Komarov piloted Voshkod 1 on October 12, 1964 on the first space mission to carry multiple crew members. He flew again aboard Soyuz 1 on April 23, 1967, becoming the first Russian man to make two spaceflights.

Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov were close.

The Soyuz 1 was described as being “a piece of shit” and a “devil ship” as issues plagued the spacecraft throughout development and failed testing. Yuri had done everything he could to get the launch postponed, including writing a ten-page memo detailing the 203 structural problems he had discovered during inspection of the Soyuz 1. Any person who had laid eyes on the memo would be fired or demoted.

Komarov knew of these issues, but refused to step down from the missions. In March of 1987 he met with Venyamin Russayev, a then-recently-demoted KGB agent who had been assigned to "mind" Yuri Gagarin.

He met with Russayev and said, "I'm not going to make it back from this flight." Russayev asked, “Why not refuse?” Komarov answered: "If I don't make this flight, they'll send the backup pilot instead." That was Yuri Gagarin. Komarov couldn't do that to his friend. "That's Yura. And he'll die instead of me. We've got to take care of him." Komarov then burst into tears.

Yuri, nicknamed Yura by friends and family, showed up on the day of the launch “demanding to be put into a space suit,” "demanding this and this and this...", doing anything and everything he could to be the one on that spacecraft instead of Vladimir. Unfortunately, his attempts were be futile.

Soyuz 1 would launch on April 23, 1967 and faced serious issues throughout the flight. The parachutes failed to deploy during reentry and the spacecraft burned up while Vladimir screamed and cried and cursed out those responsible.

Yuri Gagarin was grounded from future space flights and denied permission to pilot military jets. This was devastating for the already deeply depressed man and everyone knew it. Even his favorite hairdresser said that “Yuri couldn't live without flying. It was his whole life. A man can't live without his trade. He can't survive.”

He eventually convinced them to let him fly, but on March 28, 1968, less than a year since Komarov’s accident, he was tragically killed during a routine-training flight aboard a MiG-15. The cause of the accident is unclear, though many speculate that the accident was an assassination on the cosmonaut as he had a falling out with several high-ranking officials following the death of his close friend.

Both Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov’s names are featured on the memorial for fallen US Astronauts and USSR Cosmonauts left on the moon by the Apollo 11 crew.

#I KNOW FOR A FACT I read somewhere that Yuri dug through the crash site for his remains but I can’t remember 😭😭😭 #DID I MENTION HE’S 5’ 2??? #there’s tons of controversy surrounding what’s right and wrong but regardless their story is tragic #and I mean tons of controversy btw #there’s absolutely no way for us to know what’s right and what’s wrong #we’ll never know what actually happened but we all know what should (or should I say shouldn’t) have happened #look at how they look at each other and tell me there’s not *something* there #space race #Cold War #Soyuz 1 #Yuri Gagarin #Vladimir Komarov #cosmonaut #research #information #THIS is my Roman Empire fr #like these two deserved better 😭