The next day, a second vehicle would take off, Soyuz 2, with three more crewmen aboard.
Vladimir Komarov was chosen to fly the Soyuz 1 mission.
Both Vladimir Komarov and Yuri Gagarin were close friends.
They socialized, hunted and drank together.
The Brezhnev administration wanted the docking to take place on or around May Day.
But the Soyuz vehicle was far from being done.
In fact, it was riddled with exactly 203 structural problems that made this machine unworthy of space travel.
But who would tell Leonid Brezhnev?
Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov.
But everyone he approached shirked away.
Russayev was directed by one of his seniors to Georgi Tsinev, a close personal friend of Leonid Brezhnev.
If anyone could deliver an important message straight into the hands of the First Secretary, it was Tsinev.
Tsinev destroyed the memo, and everyone who had seen or handled it was fired or demoted.
Thats Yura, and hell die instead of me.
Weve got to take care of him.
Komarov then burst into tears.
It was a sudden caprice, Golovanov reported.
The Soyuz lifted off with Komarov on board.
As soon as he reached orbit, the failures begun.
One of the solar-power vanes refused to deploy and his guidance computers ran short of power.
Ground controllers worked on Komarovs power deficit throughout the night.
Now they had to bring Komarov back.
Nothing I lay my hands on works properly, he complained.
He told him he was a hero .
The guys wife got on too, and they talked for a while.
He told her how to handle their affairs, and what to do with the kids.
It was pretty awful.
Towards the last few minutes, he was falling apart .
The strange thing is, we were all pretty bummed-out by the whole thing.
In a lot of ways, having the sort of job we did humanizes the Russians.
The space capsule crashed somewhere near Orsk in Orenburg Oblast.
It was flattened and burst into flames.
Vladimir Komarov’s remains in an open casket.
But anyone who takes the pathway into orbit never wants to leave it.
While his heart beats in his chest, a cosmonaut will always continue to challenge the universe.
Vladimir Komarov was one of the first on this treacherous path.
The episode also left him immensely bitter and angry.
I dont know exactly what Yuri had in mind.
Maybe a good punch in the face, Russayev said.
Rumor has it that Gagarin eventually caught up with Brezhnev and threw a drink in his face.
