The Soyuz 11 crew set a new space endurance record: 23 days, 18 hours aboard Salyut 1. A genuinely impressive scientific mission by any measure.

Georgy Dobrovsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev — all three dead on June 30, during the re-entry of Soyuz 11.

A pressure equalization valve in the capsule opened prematurely, allowing the cabin atmosphere to vent to vacuum. At 104 miles altitude, with parachutes not yet deployed. The crew had no spacesuits — like Voskhod, to save weight and volume in the small capsule. There was nothing they could do. The leak was detected too late for manual closure to save them.

The recovery crews opened the capsule expecting to greet the returning cosmonauts and found three dead men, seated, in normal posture. They had been conscious when the leak began — autopsy showed attempts to close the valve manually — but the decompression was fatal within roughly 60-90 seconds at that altitude.

This is the second time the Soviets have flown crew without spacesuits and the second time this choice has had consequences. Voskhod got lucky (barely). Soyuz 11 did not.

I don’t know what to say about this that I haven’t said before. The people in this program — ours and theirs — are extraordinary and brave and the tragedies are real regardless of politics. Patsayev, Volkov, Dobrovsky: three men who spent 23 days in space doing good science and came home to nothing.

The Soyuz will fly again with suits. The valve will be redesigned. The lessons will be incorporated. This is how the terrible things teach us — at the cost of people who deserved better.

I grieve for them and for their families.