In September 1983, a Soyuz rocket caught fire on the pad with two cosmonauts strapped in above it, and the flames burned through the cables carrying the abort command. Saving them came down to two controllers pressing their buttons within five seconds of each other

In September 1983, a Soyuz rocket caught fire on the pad with two cosmonauts strapped in above it, and the flames burned through the cables carrying the abort command. Saving them came down to two controllers pressing their buttons within five seconds of each other

On the night of 26 September 1983, a Soyuz rocket was on fire at its base at Baikonur. Above the flames sat two men, Vladimir Titov and Gennady Strekalov, strapped into a capsule and waiting for a launch to the Salyut 7 space station that would never come. The story is usually told as a lucky escape. The record tells a more interesting one, about how that escape was designed to work. The usual version credits the crew’s survival to good luck and…