lived, but mostly I thrilled to the exploits of their cosmonauts, and regarded themÐ
along with America's astronautsÐas heroes.
The interesting thing about growing up in the ®rst few years of human space¯ight
was the absolute competitiveness of the Space Race. NASA would openly announce
its plans for each successive mission, but there were only ever very broad hints leading
up to each Soviet space spectacular. While I empathized with the Americas, there was
always a certain thrill in walking by a news stand and seeing a banner headline about a
Russian walking in space, three cosmonauts aboard a single spacecraft, or a manned
link-up in space.
Yet there were always persistent, dark rumours about a number of cosmonauts
who had either gone to glory in training accidents, or who had perished in space¯ight
catastrophes before Gagarin's successful mission. Indierent Soviet ocials never
really bothered to deny these rumours, or if they did it was to simply dismiss them as
complete fantasy, so one never really had any idea whether there was an unexpected
truth lurking behind these stories. However, I kept all of these articles, plus a number
of magazine photos of men purported to be the missing cosmonauts, hoping that one
day the truth about the Soviet space team would ®nally emerge.
James Oberg's revealing book Red Star in Orbit was released in 1981, and it
became a source of fascination for space¯ight enthusiasts the world over. Oberg not
only discussed (among many topics) the life and premature death of the mysterious so-
called Chief Designer of the Soviet space programme, Sergei Korolev, but for me he
provided the most intriguing narrative when he described how some men had been
deliberately but clumsily airbrushed from some photographs of the ®rst cosmonaut
group, eectively going ``down the memory hole'' of Soviet history. Oberg even gave
these mystery men names: there were three known as Valentin, and others were named
Anatoli, Ivan, Dmitri, Grigori and Mars. In this he proved to be totally correct,
although it would be several more years before their full names and what befell them
was ocially documented and released. That would occur in 1986, on the 25th
anniversary of the history-making ¯ight of Yuri Gagarin.
We even learned the fate of young Valentin Bondarenko, who, at the tender age of
23, died in a horrifying ®re in a soundproof pressure chamber just three weeks before
his cosmonaut colleague made mankind's ®rst-ever ¯ight into space. To this day, he is
still the youngest male candidate ever selected to any nation's space team.
As the horizons of my interest in human space exploration widened, so I came into
contact with many ®ne people who shared my enthusiasm and passion for the subject,
and friendships of lasting tenure evolved. Two such chums are Simon Vaughan from
Canada and Bert Vis from The Netherlands, with whom I shared a wonderfully
productive and enjoyable week at the 1993 Association of Space Explorers' Congress
in Vienna. Both were friends with British space historian Rex Hall, whose name
I already knew well, and they encouraged me to get to know him. Thus, over the
years, another great friendship ensued. As my airline job meant I was in London
several times a year, Rex and Lynn would always throw their home open to me for a
visit, an animated talk-fest in their living room, and a local takeaway Greek dinner
washed down by a splendid bottle of Australian red wine. Truly an international
evening!
xxvi About the authors
Rex has always proved to be of great assistance to me in almost everything I've
written to this time on the Soviet/Russian space programme, and I am therefore
delighted that he so readily came onboard when I ®rst broached the concept of this
book with him. Like me, he feels that this story needs and deserves to be writtenÐnot
only to recognize the many accomplishments of those members of the ®rst cosmonaut
group who were able to ful®l their ambitions of ¯ying in space, but also the eight men
whose names and achievements were held in limbo for so many years, and who have
never been properly accorded their place in space¯ight history.
This, then, is our respectful salute to them.
REX HALL It was in the summer of 1961 that a Soviet touring exhibition came to
London, and being swept up in all the excitement of the early days of the so-called
Space Race I decided to attend. One of the exhibition's centrepieces was a full-scale
representation of a spacecraft, duly marked as a Vostok vehicle. It was in fact Sputnik
3, but the organizers were giving away a small Novosti booklet on the Soviet space
programme which I eagerly accepted. I was hooked.
Having had my curiosity aroused, I decided to seek out more information on the
men who were ¯ying these craft, so I wrote to NASA and to my joy received a large
package of photos and biographical material on the astronauts. It was easy and much
appreciated, but where, I thought, would I get the same material relating to the
Soviets? I had no idea. I tried writing to the Soviet embassy in London but did
not receive a reply. However, I discovered a book shop that had a set of cards on
the subject which I purchased. My interest in the cosmonauts was reignited.
In the mid-1970s I discovered American space researcher Jim Oberg through his
great article on missing cosmonauts in the British Interplanetary Society's Space¯ight
magazine, which showed through his investigations that some cosmonauts had been
selected in 1960 along with the known group members, but had not ¯own. Some had
even had their images removed from group photographs. He attempted to identify
men from the ®rst selection in part from photographs which are reproduced in this
book. I was in fact compiling a similar list with backups missing from early missions.
It was the start of the ``sleuths'' who tried to make sense of a Soviet programme set
against a background of secrecy. Then, in the mid-1990s, I discovered for myself the
intrigue of these matters while sitting in the kitchen of a 1965 military cosmonaut who
disclosed that for 20-plus years, both his involvement and his identity had been kept a
State secret.
These sleuths, all of whom became ®rm friends, included some mentioned earlier
by Colin such as Bert Vis and Dave Shayler, but this eclectic group also included noted
researchers Michael Cassutt, Gordon Hooper, Neville Kidger, Phillip Clark, Antony
Kenden, Bart Hendrickx and Geo Perry. There were others who in many ways have
also contributed to understanding the Soviet programme. It is thanks mainly to those
amazing people with their enthusiasm, talents and persistence that a new openness
came about, which has not only shown how much we did know but sometimes did not
understand, as well as uncovering some of the secrets which still exist and hopefully
one day will be in the publicdomain.
About the authors xxvii