50 years ago today a very brave man was launched into orbit in Soyuz-1, a series of spacecraft types still in service today. Soyuz 1 was known to have a very large number of technical faults many of which rendered it unsafe and Komarov flew despite this because he knew that his friend, Yuri Gagarin, would be sent in his place if he didn't go.
Knowing what the likely outcome would be he only undertook the flight on condition he would be granted an open-coffin funeral should he not return safely, an eventuality which occurred on April 24th recorded in graphic images and later in the coffin images.
This is a terrible tragic story which affected me deeply as a boy at the time and I'd just like to mark his anniversary with this thread.
