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This story keeps resurfacing every year or so. It's bogus. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2433/are-there-really-lost-cosmonauts-stranded-in-space htt

by Luc 16y ago

This story keeps resurfacing every year or so. It's bogus. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2433/are-there-really-lost-cosmonauts-stranded-in-space http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2433/are-there-real...

yardie 16y ago
Yeah, the rest of it sounds pretty reasonable, but the SOS one is sort of impossible that early in the space race. To reach escape velocity they would have to build and launch a Delta-III like rocket. And then scale back the later launches to ICBM based rockets? Yeah right! But, and this is highly unlikely (but I'm trying to remember from astrophysics class), if the spacecraft was going fast enough (but not necessarily escape velocity) and entered the atmosphere at a shallow angle it could skip across the surface of the atmosphere until it achieved enough speed to escape orbit. But that is highly, highly unlikely. Unless Russian scientists were born with Jedi powers of astromechanics.
- eru 16y ago
  How would skipping across the atmosphere give you more energy than you started with?
jdub 16y ago
Well, the crux of the article is about what the radio hackers actually did do, so that story isn't bogus. It does mention some of their claims, but points out that they're unverified.
- acqq 16y ago
  I was intrigued enough to go to http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/wom.htm http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/wom.htm and download the Real Audio file of the alleged "first woman in space." It certainly doesn't sound like a communication of the astronaut, and it also sounds like it's doctored, like in the modern music, using the same sample more times from the pieces of some recording of the phone call talk. I'm curious if anybody who has enough experience with the sound analysis would be able to confirm the use of the same sample more than once. Maybe it can be shown that the Italian brothers faked their proof of their most exorbitant claim the same way it can be shown that something is photoshopped. Then we can claim that what they did was that they were actually producing fakes.

by Luc 16y ago

yardie 16y ago

Yeah, the rest of it sounds pretty reasonable, but the SOS one is sort of impossible that early in the space race. To reach escape velocity they would have to build and launch a Delta-III like rocket. And then scale back the later launches to ICBM based rockets? Yeah right! But, and this is highly unlikely (but I'm trying to remember from astrophysics class), if the spacecraft was going fast enough (but not necessarily escape velocity) and entered the atmosphere at a shallow angle it could skip across the surface of the atmosphere until it achieved enough speed to escape orbit. But that is highly, highly unlikely. Unless Russian scientists were born with Jedi powers of astromechanics.

eru 16y ago
How would skipping across the atmosphere give you more energy than you started with?

jdub 16y ago

Well, the crux of the article is about what the radio hackers actually did do, so that story isn't bogus. It does mention some of their claims, but points out that they're unverified.

acqq 16y ago
I was intrigued enough to go to http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/wom.htm http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/wom.htm and download the Real Audio file of the alleged "first woman in space." It certainly doesn't sound like a communication of the astronaut, and it also sounds like it's doctored, like in the modern music, using the same sample more times from the pieces of some recording of the phone call talk. I'm curious if anybody who has enough experience with the sound analysis would be able to confirm the use of the same sample more than once. Maybe it can be shown that the Italian brothers faked their proof of their most exorbitant claim the same way it can be shown that something is photoshopped. Then we can claim that what they did was that they were actually producing fakes.