Valentin Vasylovych Bondarenko ( uk, Валентин Васильович Бондаренко, russian: Валентин Васильевич Бондаренко; 16 February 1937 – 23 March 1961) was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
fighter pilot
A fighter pilot is a military aviator trained to engage in air-to-air combat, air-to-ground combat and sometimes electronic warfare while in the cockpit of a fighter aircraft. Fighter pilots undergo specialized training in aerial warfare and ...
selected in 1960 for training as a
cosmonaut
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...
. He died as the result of burns sustained in a fire during a 15-day low-pressure endurance experiment in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
. The Soviet government concealed the death, along with Bondarenko's membership in the cosmonaut corps, until 1980. A crater on the Moon's far side is named after him.
Education and military training
Bondarenko was born in
Kharkiv
Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...
,
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. His father was sent to the Eastern Front in the first days of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. The youngster and his mother went through several years of hardship during the war.
His father volunteering to fight in the Soviet Army instilled the idea of military training into Bondarenko at a young age, leading to his later interest in the Air Force.
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 a member of the local aviation club.Biographies of USSR / Russian Cosmonauts: Bondarenko, Valentin Vasiliyevich ''spacefacts.de'', Accessed 1 May 2019 After Bondarenko's graduation in 1954 he was admitted to the Voroshilovgrad 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 1
Sputnik 1 (; see § Etymology) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for t ...
was launched.
Bondarenko was commissioned a Second Lieutenant, and served in the
Soviet Air Force
The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...
's PribVO (the former
Baltic Military District
The Baltic Military District () was a military district of the Soviet armed forces in the Baltic states, formed briefly before the Operation Barbarossa, German invasion during the World War II. After end of the war the Kaliningrad Oblast was added ...
). He was promoted to
Senior Lieutenant
Senior lieutenant is a military grade between a lieutenant and a captain, often used by countries from the former Eastern Bloc. It is comparable to first lieutenant.
Finland
( sv, premiärlöjtnant) is a Finnish military rank above ( sv, löjt ...
in December 1959.
Selection for cosmonaut training
On 28 April 1960, Bondarenko was chosen to be among the first group of 20 cosmonauts. Bondarenko, "(also known as 'Valentin Junior' and 'Tinkerbell') was the youngest member of the cosmonaut team." He began training on 31 May for a planned launch on the crewed
Vostok spacecraft
Vostok (russian: Восток, translated as "East") was a class of single-pilot crewed spacecraft built by the Soviet Union. The first human spaceflight was accomplished with Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
The ...
. According to his fellow cosmonauts, Bondarenko was a mild-mannered person with a pleasant disposition. He had a good singing voice and played table tennis well.
Death
23 March 1961 was the tenth day of a 15-day endurance experiment in a low pressure altitude chamber at the
Institute of Biomedical Problems
The Institute of Biomedical Problems (IMBP, also IBMP; russian: Институт медико-биологических проблем РАН) is an institution of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The IMBP is the leading organization in Russia for ...
in Moscow.Bondarenko, Valentin Vasiliyevich ''Encyclopedia Astronautica'', Accessed 1 May 2019 The chamber's atmosphere was at least 50% oxygen. Bondarenko, having completed work for the day, removed monitoring biosensors from his body and washed his skin with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball, which he then discarded. The cotton ball landed on an electric
hot plate
A hot plate is a portable self-contained tabletop small appliance cooktop that features one or more electric heating elements or gas burners. A hot plate can be used as a stand-alone appliance, but is often used as a substitute for one of the b ...
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 is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool.
As ...
en coveralls, which caught 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 burn
A burn is an injury to skin, or other tissues, caused by heat, cold, electricity, chemicals, friction, or ultraviolet radiation (like sunburn). Most burns are due to heat from hot liquids (called scalding), solids, or fire. Burns occur mai ...
s over most of his body. The attending physician at Botkin Hospital, surgeon and
traumatologist
In medicine, traumatology (from Greek ''trauma'', meaning injury or wound) is the study of wounds and injuries caused by accidents or violence to a person, and the surgical therapy and repair of the damage. Traumatology is a branch of medicine. ...
Vladimir Golyakhovsky, recalled in 1984 that while attempting to start an
intravenous drip
Intravenous therapy (abbreviated as IV therapy) is a medical technique that administers fluids, medications and nutrients directly into a person's vein. The intravenous route of administration is commonly used for rehydration or to provide nutrie ...
, 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 Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space. Tr ...
spent several hours at the hospital as "deathwatch officer". Bondarenko died of shock 16 hours after the accident, less than three weeks before Gagarin's first spaceflight aboard
Vostok 1
Vostok 1 (russian: link=no, Восток, ''East'' or '' Orient'' 1) was the first spaceflight of the Vostok programme and the first human orbital spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA space capsule was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on Apr ...
.Oberg, James ''Uncovering Soviet Disasters'' Chapter 10: "Dead Cosmonauts", pp 156-176, Random House, New York, 1988, retrieved 8 January 2008 Manned orbital flight program director
Nikolai Kamanin
Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin (russian: Никола́й Петро́вич Кама́нин; 18 October 1908 – 11 March 1982) was a Soviet aviator, awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1934 for the rescue of SS ''Chelyuskin'' crew fro ...
blamed Bondarenko's death on the Institute's poor organisation and control of the experiment.
Bondarenko was buried in in
Kharkiv
Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.Burgess, Colin, ''Fallen Astronauts: Heroes Who Died Reaching for the Moon'', page 163, Bison Books, 2003 where his parents were then living. On 17 June 1961 the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (russian: Президиум Верховного Совета, Prezidium Verkhovnogo Soveta) was a body of state power in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).Order of the Red Star
The Order of the Red Star (russian: Орден Красной Звезды, Orden Krasnoy Zvezdy) was a military decoration of the Soviet Union. It was established by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 6 April 193 ...
.
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 ''
Izvestia
''Izvestia'' ( rus, Известия, p=ɪzˈvʲesʲtʲɪjə, "The News") is a daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia. Founded in 1917, it was a newspaper of record in the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, and describes ...
'' published an article by science writer Yaroslav Golovanov, detailing the incident for Soviet readers.
James Oberg
James Edward Oberg (born November 7, 1944) is an American space journalist and historian, regarded as an expert on the Russian and Chinese space programs. He had a 22-year career as a space engineer in NASA specializing in orbital rendezvous. Ob ...
, 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. There are hardly any documents available depicting Bondarenko's life, an attempt from the Soviet Union to erase Bondarenko.
Bondarenko's death was caused by fire in a sealed, high-oxygen environment, which also befell the crew of
Apollo 1
Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was intended to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, the American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. It was planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbita ...
. There was some later unfounded speculation that, had the Soviets been open about the circumstances of Bondarenko's death,
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
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 and were well known to NASA.NASA History, SP-4204, Predictions of Trouble ' ''hq.nasa.gov'', Accessed 1 May 2019
In 1971, the crew of Apollo 15 placed a
plaque
Plaque may refer to:
Commemorations or awards
* Commemorative plaque, a plate or tablet fixed to a wall to mark an event, person, etc.
* Memorial Plaque (medallion), issued to next-of-kin of dead British military personnel after World War I
* Pla ...
on the moon dedicated to the fallen astronauts. Valentin Bondarenko's name was not on the plaque as his death had not been revealed at the time.
Books
An account of Bondarenko's life appears in the 2003 book ''Fallen Astronauts: Heroes Who Died Reaching for the Moon'' by Colin Burgess.
James Oberg
James Edward Oberg (born November 7, 1944) is an American space journalist and historian, regarded as an expert on the Russian and Chinese space programs. He had a 22-year career as a space engineer in NASA specializing in orbital rendezvous. Ob ...