Alexey Timofeevich Belokonov ( 1939 [1] - April 7, 1991 ) [2] [1] - Soviet test cosmonaut and test technician, employee of the Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine; test participant for the training of the first cosmonauts of the USSR [1] . It was mistakenly called Western media as one of the first cosmonauts of the USSR to fly before Yu.A. Gagarin’s flight and “perished” upon returning to Earth [2] .
| Alexey Belokonov | |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 1939 |
| Date of death | April 7, 1991 |
| Citizenship |  the USSR |
| Occupation | test cosmonaut, test technician |
| Children | Alexander |
| Awards and prizes |
|
Biography
He served in the Soviet army, had the rank of private [1] . From March to August 1959 he worked in a team of testers, a participant and organizer of a number of tests. In particular, his team was entrusted with ground tests of aircraft equipment and anti-overload flight suits, as well as suits for dogs [3] . The team conducted seven ground tests to study the effect of breathing oxygen under excessive pressure on the human body. Later he worked as a mechanic in the laboratory of high-altitude equipment. He was often assigned to test the oxygen system in high-altitude suits and suits [1] . In total, he worked for more than 30 years as a cosmonaut training technician [4] , was awarded the medal “For Labor Valor” after Gagarin’s flight [3] .
In 1962, according to the recollections of his son, Alexander Alekseevich Belokonev, parents who secretly listened to “ enemy voices ” caught the Deutsche Welle radio station and heard a message from the Russian service saying: “Another cosmonaut died in the Soviet Union. Another victim was the astronaut Alexei Belokonov ” [3] . Around the same time, publications appeared in the American edition of the Readers Digest and the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera about the death of a Soviet cosmonaut named Belokonov [2] (in Italy, some of the information came not without the influence of radio amateur brothers Yudik-Cordilla) [5] , and then in the Weekend weekly (article by Alan Heinderson). Belokonev, however, believed that the cause of the leak was information distorted by Western journalists from the article “On the Threshold of Great Heights” of Ogonyok magazine (No. 42 of 1959), which formed the basis for an article by the New York Journal American about dead astronauts and subsequent journalistic “ducks” ". At the request of the editor of the Izvestia newspaper, Alexei Ivanovich Adzhubey, Belokonev arrived at the newspaper and signed an open letter asking Western journalists not to misinterpret the information published on May 27, 1963 [3] . In July 1963, a plot for television was shot at the airport, where Belokonev appeared without a spacesuit, since even by that time the journalists had not stopped [1] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 Pioneers of the unknown (Russian)
- ↑ 1 2 3 Gagarin was the twelfth? (Russian)
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Defamation (Russian)
- ↑ WHAT THERE IS BEYOND THE FRAME (PHOTO AND CINEMA PAGES) (rus.)
- ↑ Ghost astronauts and Gagarin, who died on the moon. Legends of the Soviet space (Russian)