Lost in Space (What really happened to Russia's missing cosmonauts?)

Fortean Times ^ | 7/2008 | Kris Hollington

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

I say BS! During reentry, a capsule is surrounded by ultra-hot, ionized gasses that make radio transmissions impossible. There is no way they could have heard such a thing, and moreover, once in orbit (essentially falling around the earth due to gravity), without some means of additional propulsion, it is impossible for a spacecraft to simply veer off course and fly off into space.

[Rome2000]

I'm no expert but if even half of this is true it would make a great movie.

Or Hollywood could remake "The Day the Earth Stood Still" with Keanu Reeves

[Libertarian4Bush]

what an awesome find.

thank you.

[Doctor Raoul]

Amazing.

[wideawake]

Absolutely fascinating. Thanks for posting this.

[rabscuttle385]

There are those who believe that somewhere in the vast blackness of space, about nine billion miles from the Sun, the first human is about to cross the boundary of our Solar System into interstellar space. His body, perfectly preserved, is frozen at –270 degrees C (–454ºF); his tiny capsule has been silently sailing away from the Earth at 18,000 mph (29,000km/h) for the last 45 years. He is the original lost cosmonaut, whose rocket went up and, instead of coming back down, just kept on going.

That is one helluva zot.

[mountn man]

ping

[bmwcyle]

bttt for later

[dalereed]

A close friend of mine that was an engineer @ JPL said that they used to monitor the Russian capsules and that most of the first ones (many) that when the heart monitor quit and everything else was still functioning they knew that the cosmonaut had reached space temperature.

[VOA]

bump for later read

[dalereed]

“That is one helluva zot.”

Someone needs to buy Gore a trip like that!

One way trip to space at 0 kelvin or better yet straight to the sun!

[mkjessup]

Thanks for posting, bookmarked for later.

[petitfour]

interesting

[Boundless]

> I say BS!

I suspect Oberg agrees. I don’t recall any of this from
his book “Red Star in Orbit”.

> During reentry, a capsule is surrounded by ultra-hot,
> ionized gasses that make radio transmissions impossible.

Only in front and aside of the shock cone. Directly aft,
radio still works, but it requires a commsat astern.
NASA TDRS sats allow continuous comm with the shuttle this
way. Prior to TDRS, yep, blackout.

> ... once in orbit (essentially falling around the earth
> due to gravity), without some means of additional
> propulsion, it is impossible for a spacecraft to simply
> veer off course and fly off into space.

No, there are some scenarios, but all of them require
escape delta-V, making it a bit of a stretch, failed
trans-lunar orbits and the like.

None of which is to say that there aren’t cosmonauts
unaccounted for.

[GreyFriar]

Thanks for posting this interesting article

[Skooz]

Thanks for the fascinating post. Bump for later.

[sinanju]

That got me too. Jim Oberg must have known these guys well. His “Soviet Space Disasters” makes it clear that there is simply no hard evidence for any of these lurid, unproven stories.

I don’t see how a Soyuz booster rocket could (even if it had the extra fuel and burned out of control) achieve escape velocity from the sun’s gravitational well.

[Bigg Red]

Fascinating stuff.

[bajabaja]

Actually he is not zotted, if I understand zot in the way the BC comic strip originally intended, and is used here, as in Viking Kitty electrocutions.

If he is at near absolute zero, isn’t he more than cyrogenically preserved?

In a few billion years he may be intercepted and revived.

At least he stands a better chance of a second mortal life than I do.