The Heartbreaking Truth Behind the Astronaut Job That Many People Dream of

To carry out amazing space explorations, humans have had to sacrifice a lot.

Being an astronaut has always been a big dream for many children. This can be considered a very special career and requires talent, expertise as well as passion and great physical strength. For everyone pursuing this noble profession, stepping into space and adventuring into unknown lands is the biggest dream. But in the past 50 years, there have been a series of tragedies that occurred during space flights. Astronauts have to pay the most, sometimes with their own lives.

Over the past half-century, about 30 astronauts and cosmonauts have died during training or dangerous space missions. Of those, 21 have died in space, according to Nigel Packham, NASA's associate administrator for safety and mission assurance. Five space missions – three by NASA and two by the Soviet Union – have ended in tragic deaths. ' Accidents are usually a combination of abnormal circumstances, equipment failure, human error, politics and management,' said Jim Hermanson, professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the University of Washington in Seattle.

People died on the ground

Early in the space race, both NASA and the Soviet Union suffered numerous fatal jet crashes while pilots were testing rocket-powered aircraft. The most famous was the Apollo 1 fire in January 1967, which tragically killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. During a launch simulation, a stray spark ignited a cabin filled with pure oxygen on the landing craft. A massive, uncontrollable fire erupted immediately, resulting in the tragic deaths of the crew as they tried in vain to open the escape hatch.

Being an astronaut is an exciting, but extremely dangerous profession.

Space disasters

The two deadliest disasters involved NASA space shuttle missions. In January 1986 , the space shuttle Challenger  exploded 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven crew members. The accident was caused by unusually cold temperatures at Cape Canaveral , which caused some of the rocket's sealants to lose their flexibility. Hot gases leaked out, igniting the fuel tank and causing a massive explosion. Management was also partly responsible for proceeding with the launch against the warnings of some NASA engineers.

Another deadly spacecraft accident occurred in February 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia broke apart during re-entry , killing seven crew members. Nigel Packham, who helped investigate the cause of the disaster, said Columbia was damaged during launch when a piece of foam insulation broke off —something that had happened on most launches before and after Columbia. But in this case, the foam hit the shuttle wing, causing it to break apart. The damaged wing could not withstand the high temperatures of re-entry, causing the shuttle to break apart in mid-air.

NASA Memorial for Fallen Astronauts.

Soyuz 11 disaster

The first space station to remain above Earth's atmosphere was the Soviet Union's Salyut 1 , which launched (unmanned) on April 19, 1971. Just a few months later, on June 6, three Soyuz 11 cosmonauts – Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev – were tasked with successfully reaching Salyut 1. After boarding, they spent three weeks outside Earth, setting a new record for the longest time spent in space at the time. The three cosmonauts also conducted numerous experiments focused on how the human body copes with prolonged periods of weightlessness.

Cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolski (left), Vladislav Volkov (center) and Viktor Patsayev (right).

On June 29, the astronauts were loaded back into the Soyuz 11 spacecraft and began their descent to Earth. And that's when tragedy struck.

On the ground, the Soyuz 11 reentry process appeared to be going smoothly. The spacecraft appeared to have successfully passed through the atmosphere and eventually landed in Kazakhstan as planned. It wasn't until the rescue team opened the hatch that they discovered that all three crew members inside were dead.

After finding the Soyuz 11 crew unresponsive, the medical team attempted CPR in vain.

Kerim Kerimov, chairman of the State Committee, said: 'There was no damage outside. The rescue team knocked on the next door but there was no response from inside. When they opened the hatch, they found all three men lying on the couch, motionless, with dark blue patches on their faces and streaks of blood from their noses and ears. Dobrovolski's body was still warm. The doctors performed artificial respiration. Based on their own report, the cause of death was asphyxiation .'

The fatal accident was determined to be caused by a faulty valve on the spacecraft's descent vehicle that burst during separation from the module. At 168 kilometers (105 miles) above the surface, the deadly combination of the leaking valve and the vacuum of space quickly sucked all the air out of the crew cabin, causing a loss of pressure. And because the valve was hidden under the astronauts' seats, they couldn't fix the problem in time.

The astronauts died after performing the feat.

As a direct result of the decompression deaths of the Soyuz 11 crew, the Soviet Union quickly moved to require all cosmonauts to wear pressurized spacesuits during re-entry—a practice that remains in place to this day. The incident is the only one to ever occur outside Earth's atmosphere.

Nigel Packham said around 650 people had flown into space and that number was set to rise rapidly as commercial spaceflight increased. 'It's never going to be risk-free. It's a necessary price to pay for going into space,' he said.