Many men and women have lost their lives during spaceflight and for this reason have been commemorated by the media and by the general public. However, there are also many people who were selected as astronauts or cosmonauts and worked on these missions but died before reaching space. Their sacrifice and their contributions are often neglected, and the fate of one of them was made public only several years later, when the secrets of the Soviet space program were exposed.
The
In memoriam section of the
preface to this book listed the names of these fallen spacefarers; here is some information about them, as a supplement to the details already given in this book for some of these brave men and women.