Soviet cosmonauts Pavel Popovich (left) and Andriyan Nikolayev, with Moscow in the background, 1962 (b/w...

Soviet cosmonauts Pavel Popovich (left) and Andriyan Nikolayev, with Moscow in the background, 1962. Popovich (1930-2009), the first cosmonaut from Ukraine, commanded the space flight of Vostok 4 in 1962. Nikolayev (1929-2004) was the commander of the Vostok 3 mission earlier the same year. He was the husband of the first female cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova. In 1969 Nikolayev accidentally found himself the target of a failed assassination attempt on Leonid Brezhnev. The perpetrator shot multiple times at the second car of a motorcade entering the Kremlin, which would normally have been carrying Brezhnev. Instead, four cosmonauts were travelling in the car, including Nikolayev. All four survived, but the driver was killed.