Traveling to space is an inherently dangerous thing to do. In the first years of the space race, both the Soviet Union and the United States, were fortunate in that none of their missions resulted in a loss of life.

However, 1967 saw that luck run out for both countries.

NASA saw the death of three astronauts in Apollo 1, and the Soviets lost their first

cosmonaut during the Soyuz 1 mission.

The Soyuz 1 mission is one that few people are aware of today

and it changed the entire course of the space race. Learn more about Vladimir Comorov

and the fateful mission of Soyuz 1 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. The beginning of the space race went really well for the Soviet Union. They put the first satellite into orbit, the first dog into orbit, the first man into orbit, the first woman into orbit. They sent the first human object to the moon and had the first space walkalk. However, that string of first in space

ground to a halt in 1965. The first six Soviet manned space flights were the

vehicle known as the Vostoc capsule. This was the Soviet equivalent of the American

Mercury capsules. They could hold a single person and orbit the Earth for a few days.

In hindsight, it probably wasn't as sophisticated as the mercury capsule but it worked and with

it they were able to accomplish so many of their space first. The Vostock flights

lasted a little over two years from 1961 to 1963. In 1964 they launched a new

capsule which was really just a modified Vostoc capsule called the Vascoid.

The Vascoid removed the emergency ejection equipment and some other things to add a second and third seat.

There were only two Voss Code flights, one in October 1964 with three crew members,

and one in 1965 with two crew members. After that there was a

halt in Soviet human spaceflight for more than two years. The Vostoc-Vascoed

capsule wasn't really cut out to do anything beyond going into orbit for a few days and coming back.

The Soviets needed a new generation of vehicle to get to space, and so they began the development of the Soyuz spacecraft.

The Soyuz spacecraft would be designed for a crew of three,

unlike the Voskhod, which was really just a single-person capsule

...