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The First Manned Space Flight Was the Rocket Designer's Victory as Much as Yuri Gagarin's (smithsonianmag.com)

Posted by msmash on from the credit-where-it's-due dept.

From an article on the Smithsonian magazine: On this day in 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space. And given the risks inherent to early spaceflight, he certainly deserves his place in history. But what about the man who designed the rocket that got Gagarin there? His name was Sergei Korolev, and his influence on the Soviet space program stretched much farther than Gagarin's 108 minutes of fame -- the time it took to make a single orbit of Earth. The flight of Vostok 1, Gagarin's craft, "was a defining moment of the 20th century and opened up the prospect of interplanetary travel for our species," writes Robin McKie for The Guardian. For Gagarin, it was the moment that made him a famous figurehead for the Soviet Union. As Gagarin toured the globe, the space program's chief designer remained at home and unknown. That Sergei Korolev ran the Soviet Union's rocket program wasn't revealed until after his death. "Gagarin became the face of Soviet space supremacy," McKie writes, "while Korolev was the brains. The pair made a potent team and their success brought fame to one and immense power to the other. Neither lived long enough to enjoy those rewards, however."

2 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. No, it was the rocket designers' more than Yuri's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unless Yuri took a far more active role in the launch than seems likely, Yuri was basically payload.

  2. It has always bothered me by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...that we celebrate the astronaut and hardly notice the rocket scientist and the engineers.

    Yes, it takes impressive balls/ovaries to get into a small tin can mounted on top of a giant tube of explosives and ride that into space. (Though this could also be stupidity or insanity..)

    Yes, it takes an impressive amount of composure, skill, and training to handle a trip into space, especially if anything goes off-plan. More than I'll ever have.

    But NONE of that would be useful or necessary at all if someone hadn't conceived of and built the hardware, and there are a lot fewer people capable of designing an orbit (or beyond) capable rocket than there are people of capable of riding one. And that was even more true in the early days when a lot of the theory and best practice wasn't available with a Google search.

    It's nice when you read about the astronauts acknowledging that. Outside of astronauts and space enthusiasts, you find a lot more people who know an astronaut's name than that of the engineer behind the equipment that made them an astronaut...