Very grisly and depressing book review I just spotted online about the death of a Russian cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, in 1967.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/ ... ng-in-rageIf this account is true, Komarov and others knew before the launch that the spacecraft was badly constructed and that the mission was a likely death sentence. However, nobody in the KGB had the balls to tell Brezhnev that the flight should be cancelled. Komarov himself could have refused to fly, but he didn't because he thought that would instead lead to the death of the backup pilot, his friend Yuri Gagarin.