Plain Truth 1971 (Prelim No 08) Aug - Herbert W. Armstrong

World's First Space Station...
a
a
Though the flight ended in tragedy, the Soviets recently
accomplished another space first. Will it affect present U.S.
space policy with military considerations, forcing another
crash space program? Or will public pressure preve nt it?
A Tragic End
by George
OVIET SPACE technol ogy recently
scored another impressive first.
ST hree Russian cosmonauts, Lieutenant
Colone l Geo rg i Dobrovolsky in
command; Viktor Patsayev, flight engi ­
neer, and Vladislav Volkov, test engineer,
manned th e world's first spa ce
station - about two years before the
United States is scheduled to put its
first space station into orbit.
However, the success of Russia's latest
space triumph was ma rred by the tragic
deaths of the three cosmonauts.
After spending a record breaking 24
days in space, the cosmonauts returned
to their space capsule for the trip back
to earth . Everything went well until
"black out" time - the point in the
reentry procedure when the heat buildup
on the space veh icle becomes so
great th at radio contact with earth is
impossible.
At th e end of the "black out"
period, Soviet Space officials were unable
to regain radio contact with the
cosmonauts. When the recovery helicopter
reached the capsu le, the recovery
team found the th ree cosmo nauts dea d.
It was a tragic end to a triump hant
space first.
By early July , Soviet space authorities
L. Joh nson
had pinpointed the cause of the three
Soyuz 11 cosmonauts' death . The three
had apparently died of embolism ­
air bubbles in the blood. Embolism was
caused by a sudden depressurization of
their space capsule.
The depresssurization occurred due to
a leak which developed in the air tight
hatch betw een the reentry cabin and the
orbital compartment of the spacecraft.
Some sources attributed the leak to
a small hole in the landing cabin. The
hole could have been caused by a sligh t
damage in the process of cabin separation
from the Soyuz orbital compartment.
Whatever the cause, the sudden depressurization
resulted in a space version
of the "b ends" - a problem most
often faced by deep sea divers. The sudden
depressurization causes air bubbles
in the bloodstream that can block the
flow of blood to vita l organs . The condition
can be fatal within a mat ter of
seconds.
The cosmonauts were not wearing
pre ssurized space suits . Had they been
protected by such space suits, the cosmonauts
would have survived the depressurization.
Will this tragic accident temporarily
halt th e Soviet space efforts ? N ot if the
ma jority of Soviet cosmon auts have