Georgy Dobrovolsky
The Soviet Union entered the space age with resounding victories: the first satellite, the first man in space, the first woman in cosmonaut! But then came a dark streak... In 1966, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev died unexpectedly. In April 1967, cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died during a test flight of the new Soyuz spacecraft. To compensate for these setbacks, they switched to a new project—a flight to the first inhabited orbital station, Salyut... Three expeditions were planned for Soyuz-11—three prime crews. There was also a fourth, backup crew, led by cosmonaut Georgy Dobrovolsky. Why was Alexei Leonov's crew pulled from the mission just 11 hours before launch?