| THE SOVIET SIDE | ||
On March 23, 1961 the Russian space program lost its youngest cosmonaut, Valentin Bondarenko, 24, inside an oxygen-filled pressure chamber. Bondarenko was removing sensors attached to his body with cotton soaked in alcohol when a piece of cotton landed on an electric plate and ignited. In the oxygen-charged atmosphere, flames engulfed the chamber. Because of the chamber pressurization, it took several minutes before the doors could be opened. Bondarenko died eight hours later from severe burns. It’s possible that had the U.S. had knowledge of this incident, it might have prevented the later U.S. Apollo 1 fire, and the resulting deaths of three American astronauts. |
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