Valentin Ignatyevich Filatyev (russian: Валентин Игнатьевич Филатьев; 21 January 1930 – 15 September 1990) was a Soviet
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 ...
who was dismissed from the
Soviet space program
The Soviet space program (russian: Космическая программа СССР, Kosmicheskaya programma SSSR) was the national space program of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), active from 1955 until the dissoluti ...
for disciplinary reasons.
Senior Lieutenant Filatyev, age 30, was selected as one of the original 20 cosmonauts on 7 March 1960 along with
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 ...
.
On 27 March 1963 Filatyev,
Grigory Nelyubov
Grigory Grigoryevich Nelyubov (russian: Григо́рий Григо́рьевич Нелю́бов; 31 March 1934 – 18 February 1966) was one of the original 20 Soviet cosmonauts, who was dismissed from the Soviet space program in 1963 for ...
and
Ivan Anikeyev
Ivan Nikolayevich Anikeyev (russian: Иван Николаевич Аникеев; 12 February 1933 8 August 1992) was a Soviet cosmonaut who was dismissed from the Soviet space program for disciplinary reasons.
Senior Lieutenant Anikeyev, ag ...
were arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct by the militia at
Chkalovsky station. According to reports, the officers of the security patrol that arrested them were willing to ignore the whole incident if the cosmonauts apologized; Filatyev and Anikeyev agreed but Nelyubov refused, and the matter was reported to the authorities. Because there had been previous incidents, all three were dismissed from the cosmonaut corps on 17 April 1963, though officially not until 4 May 1963. Filatyev never went on a space mission. Following his dismissal, he eventually became a teacher.
[Asif A. Siddiqi, Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge, 2003, p. 375]
To protect the image of the space program, efforts were made to cover up the reason for Filatyev's dismissal. His image was
airbrushed out of cosmonaut photos. This airbrushing led to speculation about "
lost cosmonauts
The Lost Cosmonauts or Phantom Cosmonauts are subjects of a conspiracy theory alleging that some Soviet cosmonauts went to outer space, but their existence has never been publicly acknowledged by either the Soviet or Russian space authorities. ...
" even though the actual reasons were often mundane.
References
External links
Details of the Soviet training program and launch#4 Research topic
{{DEFAULTSORT:Filatyev, Valentin Ignatyevich
1930 births
1990 deaths
Soviet cosmonauts