When America's Apollo 15 left the moon, the astronauts left behind a memorial to astronauts from both nations who perished during the efforts to reach the moon. In the United States, the first astronauts to die during direct participation in space travel or preparation were from Apollo 1, Command Pilot Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Edward White, and Pilot Roger Chaffee. These three were killed in a fire during a ground test on January 27, 1967.

Flights of the Soviet Union's Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 also resulted in cosmonaut deaths. Soyuz 1 was launched into orbit on April 23 1967, carrying a single cosmonaut, Colonel Vladimir Mikhailovich Komarov, who was killed when the spacecraft crashed after return to Earth. In 1971, Soyuz 11's cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov were asphyxiated during re-entry. There are claims that monitoring of Soviet telemetry has recorded other deaths (based on audio or loss of their telemetered vital signs in spaceflight) which the Soviet Union did not announce.

Other astronauts died in related missions, including four Americans who died in crashes of T-38 aircraft. Russian Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, met a similar death when he crashed in a MiG fighter in 1968.