Early Soviet Space Program Most of us have never heard the truth about the space program and the race to space between the United States and the Soviet Union. We have been told Yuri Gagarin was the first Soviet into space. He got the credit, parades were given for him and indeed what he did was extremely dangerous and took a lot of courage, but he may not have been the first one in space. It has been said the Soviets had at least two launches with cosmonauts aboard rockets. It has also been said at least two cosmonauts died and a third may have made it into space and back, but landed off course and was captured by the Chinese government. There has been no hard evidence available to prove this, but the name of the cosmonaut who was supposedly captured by the Chinese was said to be Vladimir Llyushin. The story goes further claiming the two cosmonauts who were launched before Gagarin actually made it to space, but they died a lonely death since they could not be recovered since their systems malfunctioned. If Soviet cosmonauts died in space they were probably orbiting the earth and for all we know their bodies might still be up there. It has been said much of what happened in the early Soviet space program has been covered up. Three cosmonauts had gone out on the town, one was a very famous, his name was Nelyubov and he was scheduled to orbit the earth in one or two missions after Gagarin. The cosmonauts got into a fight with an army patrol. It seems they were probably drinking. They were said to have beaten the hell out of the patrol before being subdued. When the officer in charge of the patrol found out they were really cosmonauts as they said, he stated he was willing to forget the whole thing if they apologized for what they did. Two cosmonauts did, but Nelyubov thought he was too important and refused. The patrol officer filed a report and it reached the official in charge of the cosmonaut program and he immediately washed the three cosmonauts out of the program. Nelyubov became depressed and committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. Yuri Gagarin became credited with being the first man in space after his flight around the earth in 1961. He became bigger than life and his image was more than just being the first into space, he was also the embodiment of the Soviet Union’s power. Gagarin died almost seven years later in a plane crash, but was it really an accident? He was being retrained as a fighter pilot and his instructor was in the plane with him. Gagarin had forgotten his identification and told those around him it was a bad omen. It turns out Gagarin was superstitious. After some time training he radioed the base to say he finished his training and was coming back. He never made it. The Soviets investigated his death and a commission filed a 29-volume report. The report may have been 29 volumes, but it was inconclusive. The results were sealed. A lot of theories came out about his death. The most prominent one was Brezhnev was jealous of Gagarin’s popularity with the people so he had him killed. There was more to Gagarin than we were told. Continually having to make appearances had started to take its toll on him and he began to drink. He lost a very good friend about a year before he died. His friend died in a plane crash Gagarin thought could have been avoided and he may have begun to suspect he might be in danger. The Soviets and Americans were in a race to get to the moon. Could the Soviets have launched a rocket with a crew onboard which exploded before the United States launched? This has been a story for the last 47 years or so. Some say this was proven to be a hoax, but has it? There were clues which seemed to show the Soviets did sent up cosmonauts before Gagarin and again before our Apollo launch. Several days before Gagarin was to launch, Western reporters in Moscow were said to have been given a tip the Soviets had already had made a successful launch. Supposedly this was the one I spoke about where the cosmonaut landed outside his designated area and was captured by the Chinese. Different days of Gagarin’s flight had been announced and some indicated he had really accomplished his flight a week before. It seems the officials wanted to wait for awhile after Gagarin landed, in this case maybe a week, before announcing to the world what he had done. This was probably done to make sure he was well after his flight so he would present a nice appearance. Its hard to discover what is real and what is not, but I am going to tell you about something which has been branded a hoax, but was this said just to cover up the terrible circumstances? Two brothers had set up a listening station in Turin, Italy. The claimed they heard the terrifying sound of a cosmonaut gasping for air as his capsule spiraled off into space. Some people believe Gagarin never made it to space and this was just a hoax by the Soviet Union to make them seem far more powerful than they were. There is no doubt the Soviets did lose cosmonauts in accidents just as the United States lost some. Space exploration is a very dangerous business and in the early days loss of human life had to be expected. Was there more to the space race than we have been told? Some say there was a lot more, because the United States was about to invite the Soviets into our space program and this is why Kennedy was killed. The space race during the Cold War did create informal contacts between the Soviets and Americans. The truth is those contacts may have been better than what we have today. |
