Konstantin Feoktistov

There was a time when no one in the U.S. would have had anything nice to say about Konstantin Feoktistov except maybe that he wasn't a communist. Feoktistov, who died on Nov. 21 at age 83, was part of that cursed group of Soviet cosmonauts who had a troubling habit of beating the Americans to all the great milestones in space: Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth before John Glenn; Alexei Leonov walked in space before Ed White. And Feoktistov, along with two compatriots, was part of the first group spaceflight, piloting the Voskhod 1 when it rocketed into orbit on Oct....

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