Monument to the lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (1907-1966) in Moscow, Russia
Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (12 January 1907 in Zhytomyr, Volhynian Governorate, Russian Empire - 14 January 1966 in Moscow, Soviet Union) was the lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer in the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s. He is considered by many as the father of practical astronautics. Although Korolev was trained as an aircraft designer, his greatest strengths proved to be in design integration, organization and strategic planning. Arrested for alleged mismanagement of funds (he spent the money on unsuccessful experiments with rocket devices), he was imprisoned in 1938 for almost six years, including some months in a Kolyma labor camp. Following his release, he became a recognized rocket designer and a key figure in the development of the Soviet Intercontinental ballistic missile program. He was then appointed to lead the Soviet space program, made Member of Soviet Academy of Sciences, overseeing the early successes of the Sputnik and Vostok projects that include launching Yuri Alexeevich Gagarin into orbit on 12 April 1961, the first human in space. By the time he died unexpectedly in 1966, his plans to compete with the United States to be the first nation to land a man on the Moon had begun to be implemented. Before his death he was often referred to only as "The Chief Designer", because the Soviet leadership feared that the United States would send agents to assassinate him. Only many years later was he publicly acknowledged as the lead man behind Soviet success in space.
Size: 5616px × 3744px
Location: Monument to the Conquerors of Space, Prospekt Mira 111, 129164 Moscow, Russia, Eastern Europe
Photo credit: © DE ROCKER / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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