The dawn of the Space Age in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s took place during a very desperate and dangerous time. After World War II the two remaining Superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union wrestled for world superiority at every level. Technological domination was paramount and the costs of gaining an upper hand were staggering, financially and in lives lost. This was especially true in the Soviet Union where the ends justified any means. There are many stories, some true some purely propaganda, about early cosmonauts being launched into space and certain death or being abandoned to orbit forever in the cold darkness of space. This is a song imagining such an incident.

(Blast from the past: In grade school, I remember practicing emergency drills, hiding under our desks in preparation for a potential nuclear attack. I'm guessing those desks were constructed of far superior materials than the ones they are making now. Eat your hearts out, Ikea.)

Lyrics

Lost In Space words & music JRRothrock

Cold War, 1950, was a perilous time. We had our missiles and a “direct” telephone…
…but a radio was always on to stay “aware” of Soviet and other “threats” unknown.
Satellites began to circumscribe the Earth. As stars would beckon, man would hear the call.
He’d soon become obsessed with ringing “heaven’s bell” by traveling on a giant fireball.

To dominate the world in space technology, no risk too heavy for the “Russian bear”…
…when Khrushchev sealed the fate of the “Sochi Six”… to be blasted into space without a prayer.
In ’61 a lonely Russian Cosmonaut… sat strapped atop a makeshift “coffee can”.
Soviet vital ends had justified the means, with expedient success the only plan!

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(spoken in Russian accent)
He would become a National Hero… rising up from peasant roots.
…and even facing death, “white knuckles” were his “bond”.
So, in “tinker-toy” he blasted off the launching pad…
…and up through “Heaven’s Gates” and into the “Great Beyond”!

Shaking and quaking up through atmosphere… Earth retreating quickly from his rearward view.
Thunder sounding, as heart was pounding. “They” never told him what “they” already knew.
A guinea pig can’t know it’s on a one-way trip… or it would scurry off and crawl into a hole.
Would a captain take commission on a sinking ship…
…knowing his body’d soon be emptied of its soul?

Higher and higher through the atmosphere… mortal man had never orbited the globe.
With panels sparking, equipment arcing, capsule pressure falls as vision strobes.
Beseeching ground control design a “quick return” as communications crackled in and out.
That he’d already abandoned, he had yet to learn…
…and could they even hear him had crept into his doubt!
In desperation to survive he coldly braced himself…
…for a violent crash back through Earth’s atmosphere.
With only one chance to return…or forever he would earn…
…his rest among the stars, and forever disappear...
…drifting…in endless space….

(Cosmonaut crying out)
“Come in! Come in! Come in! Why do you not answer me? Come in…Come in? Please, answer me! Can you hear me? Help! Help me, please…I’m so cold! Can you hear me? …Why do you not answer?… please…help me…do not forsake me…please…help me! …please…(fading away…)