Indeed - and there's a special corner for Soyuz 1, because to the Klingons - at least those who are exo-space-exploration nerd enough to know about any of them - the greatest of Earth's pre-Contact spaceflight heroes is Colonel Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov, the first Earthman to perish during an actual space mission.

Komarov may have been the bravest man who ever lived. Like almost everyone else involved with the Soyuz program, he knew the spacecraft wasn't ready, that the launch date imposed by the Party bosses for Soyuz 1 was a pointless piece of symbolism, and that the mission was a death sentence. At one point one of his colleagues found him off by himself quietly weeping for his fate. Asked why he didn't refuse the mission, he replied, "If I refuse, they'll send Gagarin."

And so he went, and as he knew it would, Soyuz killed him - but not easily. He fought like a tiger all the way, overcoming potentially fatal glitch after glitch until finally the flawed parachute system got him - cursing the spacecraft, the program, and the venal, petty bureaucrats who condemned him to his hideous fate all the way to the ground.

Now that, the space nerds of Klinzhai Prime assert, was a warrior.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.