all of them pretty much urban myth
between jodrell bank and the US's tracking network, if anything like that had happened word would have gotten out.

though not to say that some nasty accidents didnt happen in ground training mind - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Bondarenko ,
but none of the 'phantom cosmonaut' stories hold water when examined properly.

www.astronautix.com/fam/phaonaut.htm
(tjn whizzing on the electric fence of life, Thu 7 Apr 2011, 22:50, 1 reply)

No, I retain a healthy amount of scepticism about the claims - that said, neither snopes nor straightdope (my usual, half-arsed way of ascertaining the likelihood of something being true) goes so far as to flat-out state that it's false.

Shall read that link with interest.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Thu 7 Apr 2011, 22:55, closed)

mind you
the question is 'creepy' and yes, these stories are utterly creepy. so I cant fault you there. **clicks**
the most bizarre has to be the rumours of dwarf KGB agents being sent on one-way missions to the Moon as drivers of the Lunokhod robot rovers...completely insane but then part of you thinks 'well, Soviet Russia in the sixties...they might have done, mightn't they??'
(tjn whizzing on the electric fence of life, Thu 7 Apr 2011, 23:04, closed)

Haha :P
Hi ho, hi ho,
it's off to space we go
our eventual fate
to asphyxiate
Hi ho, hi ho
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Thu 7 Apr 2011, 23:19, closed)

superb.

(tjn whizzing on the electric fence of life, Thu 7 Apr 2011, 23:24, closed)

Fantastic!
Might have worked as the official motto for Soyuz 11
(Tchocky is no longer contagious, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 9:33, closed)

Read Omon Ra by Viktor Pelevin. It's a dark-as-night satire of the Soviet space program, narrated by a Lunokhod driver.
(Tchocky is no longer contagious, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 9:33, closed)