Lost Cosmonauts

Although Yuri Gagarin is probably the first man to survive space travel, there is a conspiracy theory that the Russians had previously launched two human beings into orbit prior to Gagarin, but both cosmonauts died en route or alternatively, one died while one landed off-course and was held by the Chinese government. The subject named most often in these theories is Vladimir Ilyushin, son of the famous Russian airplane designer. The Soviet government then supposedly suppressed this information to prevent bad publicity for their space program.

May 15, 1960

Robert A. Heinlein wrote in his 1960 article "'Pravda' means 'Truth'" (reprinted in Expanded Universe) that on May 15, 1960, while travelling in the Soviet Union, in Vilnius (mistakenly called by its Polish name "Vilno" throughout the article; Vilnius is far away from Soviet rocket launch sites), he was told by Red Army cadets that the Soviet Union had launched a man into orbit that day, but that later the same day it was denied by officials and that no issues of the Pravda national newspaper could be found in Vilnius, or reportedly, other Soviet cities. Heinlein wrote that there was an orbital launch (later said to be unmanned) on that day but the retro-rockets had fired while the vehicle was in the wrong attitude, so recovery efforts were unsuccessful.

According to Gagarin's biography, Starman, these rumours were likely started as a result of two Vostok missions, equipped with dummies and tape recordings of the human voice (to check if the radio worked), that were made in the period just before Gagarin's flight.

According to the NASA NSSDC Master Catalog, on May 15, 1960 Sputnik 4 with "a self-sustaining biological cabin with a dummy of a man" was launched.

7 April, 1961

Vladimir Ilyushin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who is alleged by some to actually have been the first man in space on 7 April 1961, an honor generally attributed to Yuri Gagarin on 12 April.

The theories surrounding this alleged orbital flight are that a failure aboard the spacecraft caused controllers to bring the descent capsule down several orbits earlier than intended, which resulted in its landing in the People's Republic of China whereupon the pilot was held by Chinese authorities for a year before being returned to the Soviet Union. The international embarrassment that would have resulted from having their pilot held is cited as the Soviets' reason for not publicizing this flight and instead focusing their adulation on the subsequent successful flight of Yuri Gagarin.

However, there are reasons to disbelieve this allegation, notably that although both were Communist governments, relations between the Soviets and Chinese were strained, and the propaganda value to the Chinese of a Soviet pilot captured flying over their territory would have given little reason for Chinese complicity in a coverup.

Vladimir Ilyushin, who currently lives in Russia, never did confirm this version.

The theory was lent some credibility in a documentary about the subject in 2004. The son of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said that it was true and Vladimir Ilyushin was actually held in China for over a year as a "guest" of the Peoples Republic of China. He was returned later to the Soviet Union but by then the Gagarin legend was in full swing and the bizarre incident was covered up. The main reason was not to let the USA see the schism between China and the USSR.