 Of all the people who have died in the pursuit of manned spaceflight, only three have actually died in space. It was the crew of Soyuz-11 in 1971. Technically speaking, space starts at the von Karmen line. This is an imaginary line 100 kilometers or 62 miles above the planet. Yes, it's sort of arbitrary, but it has to start somewhere, right? Not only is this kind of a nice round number, it's also a point where most of the atmosphere is beneath you. So when we're talking about space and human survival in space, anything above the von Karmen line, you're exposed to the vacuum of space. And that is the threshold that matters when we're talking about Soyuz-11. But let's go back to the history of the mission first. On April 19th, 1971, the Soviet Union launched history's first space station, Salyut-1. This was going to be the Soviet's main artery into space. Not only was a space station going to be an on-orbit hub for technology experiments and human experiments, much like the ISS is today, it was also the first step towards a space station that could be used to launch deep space missions to other planets. Just days later on April 22nd, the first crew launched to rendezvous and dock and actually board the space station. The crew of Soyuz-10 was supposed to spend 30 days in space, but there was a problem with the docking mechanism on the spacecraft. The crew was able to dock with the Salyut, but they couldn't actually open the hatch to board the station. The mission unfortunately failed and the crew was brought home early. Soviet mission planners were unwilling to just let Salyut lie up there in orbit with no one going up there for the rest of the year, and so scheduled two more missions to go to the station at least within 1971. Up next was Soyuz-11. The prime crew of Soyuz-11 was Soyuz-10's backup crew, but there was a problem. Just days before the planned launch, medical examiners found swelling in cosmonaut Valerie Kubasov's right lung. As per Soviet Ministry of Health rulings at the time, they didn't just swap out one man from the crew for his backup, like what happened on Apollo 13 when Jack Swigert replaced Charlie Duke at the 11th hour. Instead, they swapped out the whole crew. Now, Georgiy Dobrovsky, Viktor Patsaev and Vladislav Volkov were on deck. They launched under the call sign Yantar on June 6th. The launch was fine and the crew was able to rendezvous dock and board the Soviet Space Station, and then they began their science-heavy mission. They ran cardiovascular experiments, did tests of visual acuity, and measured exposure to radiation. They ran experiments on tadpoles, algae, and even cared for small plants in a greenhouse built into the station. They also did observations, mainly telescope observations of the Earth and other celestial bodies. In total, the crew ran more than 140 experiments, but the mission wasn't without its challenges. Not only were there technical glitches, the crew was tired after their grueling schedule, and there were some near emergencies, namely one day a strong smell of smoke permeated through the main cabin, and the crew didn't exactly react perfectly. There was discord among the men, and so Soviet mission planners decided to bring them home early. They would spend 24 days in orbit, not 30. On June 29th, the Cosmots left the station and boarded their Soyuz. They said goodbye to the ground as they did their seven-minute re-entry burn and began their fall through the atmosphere. Now, the Soyuz is a modular spacecraft, and it's only the descent module that actually returns to Earth. The descent module has to separate from the instrument module early in the re-entry phase, and all of this is automated. The descent stage separated cleanly, the parachutes deployed on time, and it landed smoothly and safely on the ground. The problem was, controllers in mission control couldn't re-establish communication with the spacecraft. But still everything looked fine. Recovery crews in a helicopter near the landing site saw the parachutes, saw the landing, and saw that everything looked perfect. They landed their helicopter and went to go recover the crew, excitedly welcoming them to Earth. When recovery crews reached Soyuz 11, even though everything looked great from the outside, when they opened the hatch, they found all three men unresponsive. They all had blue patches on their faces, and were dripping blood from their noses and ears. Of the three men, Dobrovolsky was still warm, and they were able to actually take his body out of the spacecraft and attempt to give him CPR and artificial respiration to get him breathing again, but it was to no avail. All three men were killed. And the question was why? There was speculation in the immediate aftermath of the Soyuz disaster that prolonged exposure to weightlessness had been the cause of death. There was still some question of whether the human body could actually be in space for prolonged amount of time. Some biomedical results of the Gemini program saw that astronauts' heart rates slowed down the longer they were in orbit, so there was some question whether the cosmonauts' hearts had just stopped because they'd been in space for so long. But this was ultimately not the case. All three men were found wearing flight suits, not space suits, and still strapped into their couches, exactly as was procedure for descent in a Soyuz. It looked like nothing had been wrong until something suddenly went wrong, which would be the case with decompression. On July 12th, the Soviet Special State Commission investigating the accident released a report confirming that decompression had been the culprit. Reports from the spacecraft suggested that the likeliest culprit was two valves at the top of the spacecraft, both controlled by the same circuit, were accidentally opened. The body's position suggested that Dolbrowski and Patsaev had tried to unstrap themselves to shut the valves, but couldn't act fast enough. Biomedical data supported this. All three cosmonauts' heart rates spiked moments after separation when they first became aware of the leak. In less than a minute, all three showed dangerously low heart rates, indicating a lack of oxygen. And in another minute, all three had lost their heartbeats altogether. The official investigation report and the autopsy results are not publicly known. But from what we know about bodies and how they work in space and explosive decompression, we can figure out just how bad this was a way to die. All three men would have experienced pain in their heads and abdomens. Their eardrums would have burst and then they would have bled from their noses and their ears. And this is exactly how the crew was found, supporting that it was in fact decompression that killed the crew of Soyuz 11. But like every major accident in space flight or dealing with any big technology, there's a legacy of safety that comes from every disaster. There were changes made to the valves in the Soyuz descent module to make them safer. And it's now a mission rule that cosmonauts must wear their flight suits, their proper space suits rather, during descent as an added protection against decompression. And not a single cosmonaut or astronaut has lost their lives to decompression since 1971. So aside from it being a historically very important incident, I wanted to cover the story of Soyuz 11 because I found a really interesting artifact online the other day and I wanted to share it with you guys. There are stamps made for missions all the time. I'm sure stamp collectors out there actually have stunning collections that would make me jealous. I'm just beginning mine. And I found these very odd stamps from Equatorial Guinea celebrating and commemorating the crew of Soyuz 11. So first we have a stamp of Soyuz 11 docked with the Sallie 1 space station in orbit when everything looks good. There's also a stamp depicting the launch of Soyuz 11. You can see the R7 rocket in the background that's launching the flight. This stamp is showing the crew of Soyuz 11 healthy and happy in orbit on board their mission. This stamp is showing the Soyuz 11 re-entry but the heat shield glowing showing more or less that it is a nominal re-entry to use the preferred spacecraft vernacular. And then this is the stamp that I found researching this mission that caught my eye that made me actually go hunt down the stamp set and buy it because it's so bizarre to me that this exists. This is the crew of Soyuz 11 as they appeared in the spacecraft after landing. You can see the three cosmonauts lying in their couches with a member of the recovery crew looking into the spacecraft. It is one of the strangest depictions of fallen heroes on a stamp that I have ever seen. And I also find it interesting that equatorial Guinea of all places chose to put this image on a stamp to commemorate the mission. But as you guys know, I have a definite soft spot for especially the weirdest little relics of the early space age. So of course I had to add this little stamp set to my collection. If you guys have other questions about Soyuz 11, the Salyut space station, disasters in space, or Soviet space mission specifically, leave me those questions as well as anything you would like to see covered in future episodes down in the comments below. And let me know too if you guys would like to see a little bit more about the early Soviet and American space stations, the ones that preceded the ISS that we know and love today. Be sure to follow me on Twitter and on Instagram for daily vintage space content. And if you like this video and want weekly vintage space videos, be sure to give this one a like and subscribe so you never miss an episode.