There are many: how many astronauts have died in space in the last 50 years

Flight into space has always been associated with great risk to the lives of astronauts, and for some, such a flight was the last in the last 50 years. Although not all astronauts died directly in near-Earth space, they did go there anyway, meaning their deaths could be considered space-related, experts said. He writes about Live Science.

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According to Nigel Packham, NASA Deputy Administrator for Security Affairs, 21 astronauts have died in space over the past 50 years and on their way to or returning to Earth orbit. 5 space missions turned out to be deadly: three NASA missions and two missions to the already defunct Soviet Union.

According to Jim Hermanson of the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, the two biggest disasters in terms of astronaut deaths are associated with American space shuttle flights.

One of the most famous disasters In January 1986, 73 seconds after the launch of the shuttle Challenger, an explosion killed the entire crew of seven astronauts. Unusually low temperatures are believed to have affected the launch vehicle’s pressurization and it exploded. Hermanson believes NASA administration was partly responsible for the crash, because some engineers warned the launch should be delayed, but it still happened.

During the return from space in February 2003 NASA’s space shuttle Columbia explodesresulted in the deaths of the entire crew of seven astronauts. According to Packham, the shuttle was damaged during launch when a piece of the thermal insulation coating ruptured. But this sometimes happened during the launch of shuttles into space. In this case, however, the wing of the spacecraft was damaged, and during re-entry the shuttle could not withstand the high temperatures and broke apart.

“For me, it doesn’t matter where the astronauts die – directly in space or on Earth. After all, they were going into space, which means it could be considered a space disaster,” says Packham.

he calls another disasterresulted in the deaths of three NASA astronauts. This happened during the launch of the Apollo 1 mission in February 1967. The crew died due to a fire inside the spacecraft.

another disaster also occurred in 1967 that led to the death of a Soviet astronaut. During the return of the Soyuz-1 spacecraft from space, the parachute did not open and crashed to the ground at a speed of 50 m/s.

According to Hermanson, catastrophe that killed astronauts in real space, is considered an accident on a Soviet spacecraft in 1971. Three astronauts, who spent more than three weeks on the first space station built in the USSR, tried to return to Earth. But there was a pressure drop on their ship in space, and the astronauts without spacesuits died.

According to Packham, these are accidents that have killed space travelers, but there are many more cases where astronauts could be injured but not injured.

As already written FocusScientists talked about how space flights affect people, especially what happens to the brain in space.