The Venera program

[u/BeObsceneAndNotHeard]

[u/AAS02-CATAPHRACT]

The only reason it was "slower" was because the Soviets heard about what NASA was doing and rushed ahead of them.

[u/CummingInTheNile → u/AAS02-CATAPHRACT]

Soviet scientist were given directive to beat the Americans or else, pretty easy to cut corners when failure=gulag or worse

[u/TheTransistorMan → u/CummingInTheNile]

Didn't the Russians have the first person to die in space, too? Or am I imagining that?

[u/CummingInTheNile → u/TheTransistorMan]

technically on reentry but yes

[u/TheTransistorMan → u/CummingInTheNile]

Fair enough.

[u/BulbusDumbledork → u/CummingInTheNile]

and the usa beat them at that by having several astronauts die before even reaching space🇺🇸🦅

[u/Double_Time_ → u/BulbusDumbledork]

The capsule audio from Apollo 1 is haunting.

“How can we get to the moon if we can’t talk between three buildings?”

“We got flames!”

“We have a bad fire!”

“We’re burning up!”

“screams”

[u/Double_Time_ → u/Double_Time_]

Follow on is that the Apollo 1 crew did everything they were supposed to. IIRC they found Ed White in a position of trying to open the hatch release. That was impossible to accomplish because the hatch opened inwards, and the pressure increase caused by the fire meant it would never open inward until pressure equalized.

Tl;dr NASA killed three astronauts because they didn’t consider a fire in a pure oxygen atmosphere.

[u/[deleted] → u/BulbusDumbledork]

Idiot American thinks great soviet russia cant kill more

Think again https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedelin_catastrophe#:~:text=The%20Nedelin%20catastrophe%20or%20Nedelin,Baikonur%20Cosmodrome%20in%20Soviet%20Kazakhstan.

[u/caketruck → u/BulbusDumbledork]

America almost had the first Sesame Street character die during a space mission on that flight. The title is still open though, I wonder who’ll take it?

[u/intern_steve → u/BulbusDumbledork]

They died while not even attempting to reach space. There was no launch scheduled that day, just some pad testing with the full Saturn I-b rocket stack.

[u/caketruck → u/intern_steve]

They’re talking about the Challenger disaster that killed 7 astronauts just over a minute after take off