When Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed on the moon fifty years ago, one of their ritualistic actions was to place memorabilia on the surface that honored both American and Soviet cosmonauts who had died in their pursuit of forwarding humanity’s quest for discovery in outer space. One of the cosmonauts was Vladimir Komarov, pictured here in his last year. In 1967, despite numerous concerns about the safety of his spacecraft, _Soyuz 1_, Komarov deployed the _Soyuz_: Komarov stated that had he refused, his colleague and backup pilot Yuri Gagarin would have been forced to fly instead. All sorts of malfunctions occurred, and although Komarov successfully re-entered earth’s orbit, he crash-landed, becoming the first person to die in a space flight. The second photo shows a commemorative plaque of astronauts and cosmonauts from the USA and USSR left by the Apollo 15 mission on the moon. The tiny figurine represents the fallen astro/cosmonauts.
