Valentin Filatyev

Who was Valentin Filatyev?

Valentin Ignatyevich Filatyev was a Soviet cosmonaut who was dismissed from the Soviet space program for disciplinary reasons.

Senior Lieutenant Filatyev, age 30, was selected as one of the original 20 cosmonauts on March 7, 1960 along with Yuri Gagarin.

On March 27, 1963 Filatyev, Grigori Nelyubov and Ivan Anikeyev were arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct by the militia at Chkalovskiy station. According to reports, the officers of the security patrol that arrested them were willing to ignore the whole incident if the cosmonauts apologized; Filatyev and Anikeyev agreed but Nelyubov refused, and the matter was reported to the authorities. Because there had been previous incidents, all three were dismissed from the cosmonaut corps on April 17, 1963, though officially not until May 4, 1963. Filatyev never completed a space mission. Following his dismissal, he eventually became a teacher.

To protect the image of the space program, efforts were made to cover up the reason for Filatyev's dismissal. His image was airbrushed out of cosmonaut photos. This airbrushing led to speculation about "lost cosmonauts" even though the actual reasons were often mundane.