Valentin Bondarenko
Encyclopedia
Valentin Vasiliyevich Bondarenko was a Soviet
fighter pilot
and cosmonaut. He died during a training accident in Moscow
, USSR, in 1961. A crater
on the Moon's far side is named for him.
, Ukrainian SSR
, USSR. His father was a furrier and was sent to the Eastern Front
in the first days of World War II
. The youngster and his mother went through several years of privation during the 1941–1944.
From an early age, Bondarenko was fascinated by aviation heroes and dreamed of becoming a military aviator himself. While still at Kharkiv's Higher Air Force School, he was member of the local aviation club. After Bondarenko's graduation in 1954 he was admitted to the Voroshilov Aviation Military Academy and a year later he was transferred to an air force college in Grozny
, Armavir Military Pilot Aviation School, from which he graduated in 1957. In 1956 he married Galina Semenovna Rykova, a medical worker. Their first child was born later that year. During 1956, Bondarenko was sent to Armavir Higher Air Force Pilots School, graduating in 1957—the same year Sputnik was launched.
Commissioned a Second Lieutenant
Bondarenko served in the Soviet Air Force
's PribVO (the former Baltic Military District
) and on 28 April 1960 he was chosen to be among the first group of 29 cosmonauts. He began training on 31 May for a planned launch on the spacecraft Vostok 1
(aboard which Yuri Gagarin
carried out the first human spaceflight
a year later). According to his fellow cosmonauts, Bondarenko was a mild-mannered person with a pleasant disposition. He had a good singing voice and excelled in playing tennis.
which he was using to brew a cup of tea. The cotton ignited and Bondarenko tried to smother the flames with the sleeve of his wool
en coveralls, which caught on fire in the chamber's oxygen-rich atmosphere.
Because of the pressure difference, it took a watching doctor nearly half an hour to open the chamber door. Bondarenko's clothing burned until almost all the oxygen in the chamber was used up and he had suffered third-degree burns over most of his body. The attending physician at Botkina Hospital, surgeon and traumatologist Vladimir Golyakhovsky, recalled in 1984 that while attempting to start an intravenous drip, the only blood vessels he could find for inserting a needle were on the soles of Bondarenko's feet, where his flight boots had warded off the flames. According to Golyakhovsky, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
spent several hours at the hospital as "deathwatch officer" and Bondarenko died of shock 16 hours after the accident, less than three weeks before Gagarin's historic spaceflight. Manned orbital flight program director Nikolai Kamanin
blamed Bondarenko's death on the Institute's poor organisation and control of the experiment.
Bondarenko was buried in Lipovaya Roshcha in Kharkiv, where his parents were then living. On 17 June 1961 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR posthumously awarded Bondarenko the Order of the Red Star
. After his death Bondarenko's young wife Anya stayed on for a time at the cosmonaut centre in an undisclosed job. Bondarenko's only child Aleksandr (Sasha) was five years old when his father died and later became an air force officer.
published an article by science writer Yaroslav Golovanov
, detailing the incident for Russian readers.
James Oberg
, in his book Red Star in Orbit, wrote how the Soviet government airbrushed out the cosmonaut's image
from an official 1961 photograph of the first six cosmonauts selected for training, while British researcher Rex Hall showed that five people had been erased from an earlier group photograph of 16 cosmonauts. Clumsy attempts were later made to further doctor the historic photographs, with the insertion of imaginative but nonexistent photo details to account for the absence of the original members of the group.
Bondarenko's death was caused by fire in a sealed, high oxygen environment, which also befell the crew of Apollo 1
. There was some later speculation that, had the Soviets been open about the Bondarenko tragedy, NASA
might have been alerted to the hazardous design of the early Apollo command module and would have made changes which could have prevented the 1967 deaths of the three Apollo 1 crew members. However, by 1966 the lethal hazards of a high-pressure 100-percent-oxygen environment such as Apollo 1's had been thoroughly described in American scientific publications.
.
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
fighter pilot
Fighter pilot
A fighter pilot is a military aviator trained in air-to-air combat while piloting a fighter aircraft . Fighter pilots undergo specialized training in aerial warfare and dogfighting...
and cosmonaut. He died during a training accident in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, USSR, in 1961. A crater
Bondarenko (crater)
Bondarenko is a lunar crater on the far side of the Moon. It is located to the northeast of the large, dark-floored crater Tsiolkovskiy, and south of the crater Chauvenet. Just to the northeast of Bondarenko is Patsaev G, a comparably sized satellite of Patsaev to the west. This is a moderately...
on the Moon's far side is named for him.
Education and military training
Bondarenko was born in KharkivKharkiv
Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine.The city was founded in 1654 and was a major centre of Ukrainian culture in the Russian Empire. Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine where the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in December 1917 and Soviet government was...
, Ukrainian SSR
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...
, USSR. His father was a furrier and was sent to the Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
in the first days of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The youngster and his mother went through several years of privation during the 1941–1944.
From an early age, Bondarenko was fascinated by aviation heroes and dreamed of becoming a military aviator himself. While still at Kharkiv's Higher Air Force School, he was member of the local aviation club. After Bondarenko's graduation in 1954 he was admitted to the Voroshilov Aviation Military Academy and a year later he was transferred to an air force college in Grozny
Grozny
Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...
, Armavir Military Pilot Aviation School, from which he graduated in 1957. In 1956 he married Galina Semenovna Rykova, a medical worker. Their first child was born later that year. During 1956, Bondarenko was sent to Armavir Higher Air Force Pilots School, graduating in 1957—the same year Sputnik was launched.
Commissioned a Second Lieutenant
Second Lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces.- United Kingdom and Commonwealth :The rank second lieutenant was introduced throughout the British Army in 1871 to replace the rank of ensign , although it had long been used in the Royal Artillery, Royal...
Bondarenko served in the Soviet Air Force
Soviet Air Force
The Soviet Air Force, officially known in Russian as Военно-воздушные силы or Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily and often abbreviated VVS was the official designation of one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces...
's PribVO (the former Baltic Military District
Baltic Military District
The Baltic Military District was a military district of the Soviet armed forces, formed briefly before the German invasion, and then reformed after World War II and disbanded after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991....
) and on 28 April 1960 he was chosen to be among the first group of 29 cosmonauts. He began training on 31 May for a planned launch on the spacecraft Vostok 1
Vostok 1
Vostok 1 was the first spaceflight in the Vostok program and the first human spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA spacecraft was launched on April 12, 1961. The flight took Yuri Gagarin, a cosmonaut from the Soviet Union, into space. The flight marked the first time that a human entered outer...
(aboard which Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
carried out the first human spaceflight
Human spaceflight
Human spaceflight is spaceflight with humans on the spacecraft. When a spacecraft is manned, it can be piloted directly, as opposed to machine or robotic space probes and remotely-controlled satellites....
a year later). According to his fellow cosmonauts, Bondarenko was a mild-mannered person with a pleasant disposition. He had a good singing voice and excelled in playing tennis.
Death
23 March 1961 was the tenth day of a 15-day endurance experiment in a low pressure altitude chamber at the Institute for Biomedical Studies in Moscow. The chamber's atmosphere was at least 50% oxygen. Bondarenko, having completed work for the day, removed some monitoring biosensors from his body and washed his skin with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball, which he then carelessly threw away. The cotton ball landed on an electric hot plateHot plate
A hot plate is a portable self-contained tabletop small appliance that features one, two or more gas burners or electric heating elements. A hot plate can be used as a stand alone appliance, but is often used as a substitute for one of the burners from an oven range or the cook top of a stove...
which he was using to brew a cup of tea. The cotton ignited and Bondarenko tried to smother the flames with the sleeve of his wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
en coveralls, which caught on fire in the chamber's oxygen-rich atmosphere.
Because of the pressure difference, it took a watching doctor nearly half an hour to open the chamber door. Bondarenko's clothing burned until almost all the oxygen in the chamber was used up and he had suffered third-degree burns over most of his body. The attending physician at Botkina Hospital, surgeon and traumatologist Vladimir Golyakhovsky, recalled in 1984 that while attempting to start an intravenous drip, the only blood vessels he could find for inserting a needle were on the soles of Bondarenko's feet, where his flight boots had warded off the flames. According to Golyakhovsky, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
spent several hours at the hospital as "deathwatch officer" and Bondarenko died of shock 16 hours after the accident, less than three weeks before Gagarin's historic spaceflight. Manned orbital flight program director Nikolai Kamanin
Nikolai Kamanin
Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin was a Soviet aviator, awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1934 for the rescue of SS Chelyuskin crew from an improvised airfield on the frozen surface of the Chukchi Sea near Kolyuchin Island.In World War II he successfully commanded air brigade, air division...
blamed Bondarenko's death on the Institute's poor organisation and control of the experiment.
Bondarenko was buried in Lipovaya Roshcha in Kharkiv, where his parents were then living. On 17 June 1961 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR posthumously awarded Bondarenko the Order of the Red Star
Order of the Red Star
Established on 6 April 1930, the Order of the Red Star was an order of the Soviet Union, given to Red Army and Soviet Navy personnel for "exceptional service in the cause of the defense of the Soviet Union in both war and peace". It was established by Resolution of the Presidium of the CEC of the...
. After his death Bondarenko's young wife Anya stayed on for a time at the cosmonaut centre in an undisclosed job. Bondarenko's only child Aleksandr (Sasha) was five years old when his father died and later became an air force officer.
Aftermath
News of Bondarenko's accident and death was not published at the time. Bondarenko had already appeared in group films and photos of the first cosmonaut group, and his unexplained disappearance sparked rumours of cosmonauts dying in failed launches. In 1980 the details of this incident were at last published in the West, and in 1986 IzvestiaIzvestia
Izvestia is a long-running high-circulation daily newspaper in Russia. The word "izvestiya" in Russian means "delivered messages", derived from the verb izveshchat . In the context of newspapers it is usually translated as "news" or "reports".-Origin:The newspaper began as the News of the...
published an article by science writer Yaroslav Golovanov
Yaroslav Golovanov
Yaroslav Kirillovich Golovanov was a Russian journalist, writer and science popularizer. He covered space exploration by the Soviet Union from its beginnings.Golovanov's father was director of a theatre . His mother was an actress....
, detailing the incident for Russian readers.
James Oberg
James Oberg
James Edward Oberg is an American space journalist and historian, regarded as an expert on the Russian space program.-Biography:...
, in his book Red Star in Orbit, wrote how the Soviet government airbrushed out the cosmonaut's image
Censorship of images in the Soviet Union
After Joseph Stalin rose to power in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and became Soviet leader, he initiated a number of purges that eliminated perceived enemies. At first, a purge meant expulsion from the Communist Party, but after the Great Purge in the 1930s members were arrested,...
from an official 1961 photograph of the first six cosmonauts selected for training, while British researcher Rex Hall showed that five people had been erased from an earlier group photograph of 16 cosmonauts. Clumsy attempts were later made to further doctor the historic photographs, with the insertion of imaginative but nonexistent photo details to account for the absence of the original members of the group.
Bondarenko's death was caused by fire in a sealed, high oxygen environment, which also befell the crew of Apollo 1
Apollo 1
Apollo 1 was scheduled to be the first manned mission of the Apollo manned lunar landing program, with a target launch date of February 21, 1967. A cabin fire during a launch pad test on January 27 at Launch Pad 34 at Cape Canaveral killed all three crew members: Command Pilot Virgil "Gus"...
. There was some later speculation that, had the Soviets been open about the Bondarenko tragedy, NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
might have been alerted to the hazardous design of the early Apollo command module and would have made changes which could have prevented the 1967 deaths of the three Apollo 1 crew members. However, by 1966 the lethal hazards of a high-pressure 100-percent-oxygen environment such as Apollo 1's had been thoroughly described in American scientific publications.
Books
An account of Bondarenko's life appears in the 2003 book "Fallen Astronauts" by Colin BurgessColin Burgess (author)
Colin Burgess is an Australian author and historian, specializing in space flight and military history. He is a former customer service manager for Qantas Airways, and a regular contributor to the collectSPACE online community. He lives in New South Wales...
.
External links
- Cosmonaut biography for Valentin Bondarenko
- Yaroslav GolovanovYaroslav GolovanovYaroslav Kirillovich Golovanov was a Russian journalist, writer and science popularizer. He covered space exploration by the Soviet Union from its beginnings.Golovanov's father was director of a theatre . His mother was an actress....
, "Cosmonaut No. 1" (in Russian) - James ObergJames ObergJames Edward Oberg is an American space journalist and historian, regarded as an expert on the Russian space program.-Biography:...
, "Dead Cosmonauts", chapter 10 of Uncovering Soviet Disasters, (Random House, New York, 1988) contains a detailed account of his attempts to uncover the facts concerning actual and alleged deaths in the Soviet space program.