Grigory Grigoryevich Nelyubov (; 31 March 1934 – 18 February 1966) was one of the original 20 Soviet

cosmonaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

s, who was dismissed from the

Soviet space program The Soviet space program () was the state space program of the Soviet Union, active from 1951 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Contrary to its competitors (NASA in the United States, the European Space Agency in Western Euro ...

in 1963 for drunk and disorderly conduct. His existence in the program was kept secret until the advent of Soviet

glasnost ''Glasnost'' ( ; , ) is a concept relating to openness and transparency. It has several general and specific meanings, including a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information and the inadmissi ...

in the late 1980s. He killed himself on 18 February 1966. Born in the village of ,

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, Nelyubov was a captain and pilot in the

Soviet Air Force The Soviet Air Forces (, VVS SSSR; literally "Military Air Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"; initialism VVS, sometimes referred to as the "Red Air Force") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Sovie ...

. He was selected as one of the original 20 cosmonauts on 7 March 1960 along with

Yuri Gagarin Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who, aboard the first successful Human spaceflight, crewed sp ...

. The following year, six of the original twenty were evaluated for assignment on Vostok flight crews between January 17 and 18; Gagarin, Titov, and Nelyubov were considered the top three candidates. For

Vostok 1 Vostok 1 (, ) was the first spaceflight of the Vostok programme and the first human spaceflight, human orbital spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA space capsule was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 12 April 1961, with Soviet astronaut, c ...

Nelyubov was chosen as second backup for Gagarin and presumably first backup for

Vostok 2 Vostok 2 (, ) was a Soviet space mission which carried cosmonaut Gherman Titov into orbit for a full day on August 6, 1961, to study the effects of a more prolonged period of weightlessness on the human body. Titov orbited the Earth over 17 t ...

for Titov in April and August 1961 respectively. For the dual launches of

Vostok 3 Vostok 3 () and Vostok 4 (, 'Orient 4' or 'East 4') were Soviet space program flights in August 1962, intended to determine the ability of the human body to function in conditions of weightlessness, test the ground control capability to launch ...

and

Vostok 4 Vostok 3 () and Vostok 4 (, 'Orient 4' or 'East 4') were Soviet space program flights in August 1962, intended to determine the Effect of spaceflight on the human body, ability of the human body to function in conditions of weightlessness, test ...

, Nelyubov was again chosen as a backup for

Andrian Nikolayev Andriyan Grigoryevich Nikolayev ( Chuvash and ; 5 September 1929 – 3 July 2004) was a Soviet cosmonaut. In 1962, aboard Vostok 3, he became the third Soviet cosmonaut to fly into space. Nikolayev was an ethnic Chuvash and because of it con ...

and

Pavel Popovich Pavel Romanovich Popovich (; ; 5 October 1930 – 29 September 2009) was a Soviet Union, Soviet cosmonaut. Popovich was the fourth cosmonaut in space, the sixth person in orbit, the eighth person and first Ukrainians, Ukrainian in space. Bio ...

. On 27 March 1963, Nelyubov,

Ivan Anikeyev Ivan Nikolayevich Anikeyev (; 12 February 1933 8 August 1992) was a Soviet cosmonaut who was dismissed from the Soviet space program for disciplinary reasons. Senior Lieutenant Anikeyev was selected as one of the original 20 cosmonauts on 7 M ...

and

Valentin Filatyev Valentin Ignatyevich Filatyev (; 21 January 1930 – 15 September 1990) was a Soviet cosmonaut who was dismissed from the Soviet space program The Soviet space program () was the state space program of the Soviet Union, active from 1 ...

resisted while being arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct by the military security patrol (комендатура) at Chkalovskaya station. According to reports, the duty officer agreed to ignore the whole incident and not send the report if Nelyubov apologized, but he refused, and the matter was reported to the authorities. Because there were previous incidents, all three were dismissed from the cosmonaut corps on 17 April 1963, though officially not until 4 May 1963.

, secretary of the party organization, tried to resolve the situation by calling a party meeting where Nelyubov was once again invited to apologize to the patrol chief and to the other cosmonauts, but he again refused. He was dismissed, never having completed a space mission. Following dismissal he went back to flying

interceptor Interceptor may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Interceptor'', a British drama series on BBC One * Interceptor (game show), ''Interceptor'' (game show), a British television game show that ran during 1989 * Interc ...

s in the

Far East The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In mod ...

but fell to drinking and depression. He died on February 18, 1966. While drunk, he stepped in front of a train near the Ippolitovka station of the Far Eastern Railway, northwest of

Vladivostok Vladivostok ( ; , ) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai and the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia. It is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area o ...

. It was officially ruled a suicide. To protect the image of the space program, efforts were made to cover up the reason for Nelyubov's dismissal and his following suicide. His image was airbrushed out of the "Sochi Six" photo which showed the top members of the original class of Soviet cosmonauts. This airbrushing led to speculation about "

lost cosmonauts The Lost Cosmonauts or Phantom Cosmonauts are subjects of a conspiracy theory, which alleges that Soviet and Russian space authorities have concealed the deaths of some cosmonauts in outer space. Proponents of the Lost Cosmonauts theory argue ...

". In 2007, an award-winning TV documentary was released.Студия "Роскосмоса" стала лауреатом премии "Лавровая ветвь - 2007"
(retrieved March 15, 2024)

References

External links

#4 Research topic

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nelyubov, Grigori Grigoyevich 1934 births 1966 deaths People from Saky Raion Soviet cosmonauts Soviet Air Force officers Suicides in the Soviet Union 1966 suicides