Fifty three years ago a man fell to earth.  He came from space having survived the appallingly hostile conditions that exist there.  Apart from the hard vacuum, the electromagnetic radiation, the intense cold, the cosmic rays and other damaging particles that exist there.  Despite overcoming numerous failures on his Soyuz-1 spacecraft he had achieved the near impossible and piloted a manual reentry… all he had to do now was to wait for the life saving parachutes to deploy.

Colonel Vladimir Komarov

The Soyuz 1 capsule.

The aftermath of the Soyuz 1 crash.

The commemorative plaque and the Fallen Astronaut sculpture left on the Moon by the crew of Apollo 15.

Vladimir Komarov with his wife Valentina Yakovlevna and daughter Irina.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to NFCC, Smithsonian Institute, NASA and the US Gov.