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Within a few days of returning to Earth, Yuri Gagarin stood alongside Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow’s Red Square to be welcomed by tens of thousands of people cheering his success. It was an overwhelming, and largely spontaneous, celebration of Soviet achievement.
But the engineer who made the first human spaceflight possible was nowhere to be seen. Only when he died in 1966 was the name of the Chief Designer, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, revealed to the world. This genius at the heart of the Russian space programme was one of the Soviet Union’s most closely guarded secrets.
Born in Ukraine, Korolev oversaw the design of the vast R7 rocket that launched the first satellite, first dog, first man, first woman and first spacewalker into orbit. He developed the capsules, control systems and rigorous checks that ensured that every person he sent into space during his lifetime came back alive.
The propaganda value alone of his work was enough to guarantee the Soviet Union’s superpower status. But, unlike his famous American rival Wernher
von Braun, the identity of the “Chief Designer” was considered too precious to share with the world.
But the engineer who made the first human spaceflight possible was nowhere to be seen. Only when he died in 1966 was the name of the Chief Designer, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, revealed to the world. This genius at the heart of the Russian space programme was one of the Soviet Union’s most closely guarded secrets.
Born in Ukraine, Korolev oversaw the design of the vast R7 rocket that launched the first satellite, first dog, first man, first woman and first spacewalker into orbit. He developed the capsules, control systems and rigorous checks that ensured that every person he sent into space during his lifetime came back alive.
The propaganda value alone of his work was enough to guarantee the Soviet Union’s superpower status. But, unlike his famous American rival Wernher
von Braun, the identity of the “Chief Designer” was considered too precious to share with the world.
The genius behind early Russian space tech
Posted from bbc.com
Space
Russia
Posted >1 y ago
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Their genius-in space is the same in life is this. "My opinion" is their way of simplifying tasks. Sometimes blunt! Having spent some time in Russia in the Far East my take on the Russian way of doing things is different, from Americans love to exercise their brain with Bla Bla. Russians are bluntly clear and straight forward. It seems to me the Russian mind is formed through its culture, their culture is direct and straight forward. No pussy footing around. Let me give an example women serving in Russian combat units. Why not let them serve? Russian thinking of woman in combat units does not have at its corps the concept of social cause or woman’s rights. It seems to me most Russians think why not, if they want to fight in front line units. Americans like to keep things convoluted and complicated with surrounding issues. I am guessing this is why disgraced Army General Flynn got on. He liked their directness.
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