* Astronomy

Tyazhely Sputnik (Sputnik 7) reentered the atmosphere over Siberia on 26 February 1961

A pendant shaped like a small globe with the continents etched on it was placed on the 1VA. Inside this small sphere was a medal depicting the Earth-to-Venus flight path. On the other side of the medal was the emblem of the Soviet Union. The pendant was placed in a spherical capsule with thermal shielding to protect it during entry into Venus' atmosphere at reentry velocity. We weren't very concerned about which of the Venusians would discover this pendant. The important thing was to publicize a description of it and prove that the Soviet Union was the first to touch down on Venus.

Korolev went on to explain that the medal and the remains of the structure in which it was packed were handed over personally to Keldysh from the KGB. The remains of the pendant had fallen into the hands of the KGB, not from space, but from Siberia. While swimming in a river - a tributary of the Biryusa River in eastern Siberia - a local boy hurt his foot on some sort of piece of iron. When he retrieved it from the water, rather than throw it into deeper water, he brought it home and showed it to his father. The boy's father, curious as to what the dented metal sphere contained, opened it up and discovered this medal inside. This took place in a Siberian village, the name of which Korolev had not been told. The boy's father brought his find to the police. The local police delivered the remains of the pendant to the regional department of the KGB, which in turn forwarded it to Moscow. In Moscow the appropriate KGB directorate found no threat to state security in these objects, and after notifying Keldysh as president of the Academy of Sciences, this unique find was delivered to him by courier.
Thus, I was awarded the medal that had been certified for the flight to Venus by the protocol that Korolev and I signed in January 1961. After the launch we were all certain that the Tyazhelyy sputnik and the pendant had sunk in the ocean. Now it turned out that it had burned up over Siberia. The pendant had been designed to withstand Venus' atmosphere and therefore it reached the Earth's surface.
According to the ballistics experts' forecasts, the probability of the satellite splashing down in the Pacific Ocean was greater than 90%. The probability of falling on dry land was 10%, of which 3% was the probability for falling on the territory of the USSR. It came down precisely to that 3%. But if, using the theory of random processes, you calculate what the probability would be of finding the pendant on the territory of the USSR, this value would be virtually zero. But it happened! An event occurred, the probability of which was close to zero! Most unfortunately, at that time in the hurly-burly of my daily routine, I didn't bother to find out the names of the boy and his father and the geographical location of the find. Their names deserved to be mentioned in the history of cosmonautics under the heading "Strange but True."
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