The United States claimed the biggest prize in the Cold War space race when we landed men on the moon in 1969. However, the Soviets had many firsts, like the first satellite, the first man to orbit the earth, and the first woman in space. There have been some horrific disasters, too. We all know about Apollo 1, the Challenger explosion, and the space shuttle Columbia. But the Soviets beat us in that, too, with a disaster that killed more than 100 people and was kept secret for almost thirty years.
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On October 24, 1960, the USSR rolled out a new, improved rocket called the R-16 that used two toxic and corrosive chemicals for fuel that automatically ignited when they were combined. What could possibly go wrong? The rocket had been rushed through its testing phase in order to launch in time for the 43rd anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, and to impress premiere Nikita Khrushchev. There were plenty of people at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to witness the launch. One thing led to another, and before you know it, there’s a 120-meter-wide fireball on the launch pad. Many died instantly, while others were set on fire but couldn’t flee the scene because the asphalt beneath their feet had melted. The incident is called the Nedelin catastrophe after Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin, the head of the missile program, who died instantly. The R-16 rocket was developed by Mikhail Yangel, who survived and had to apologize to Khrushchev for doing so. The disaster was kept secret by the Soviets until 1989. Read the gory details of the worst space-related disaster ever at Amusing Planet.
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Source: neatorama