Space czar Sergei Korolev won fame for the launch of Sputnik, but a more modest genius deserves the credit.

The Air & Space magazine has an informative article on the man behind Sputnik. Excerpt:

OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS, I have tried to reconstruct the life of Mikhail Tikhonravov, one of the most puzzling figures in the Soviet space program. Although few Westerners have heard of him, it is quite likely that without him, the Soviet Union would not have inaugurated the Space Age 50 years ago this October. Tikhonravov (pronounced “Tee-kun-RAFF-off”) had a hand in most of the critical events in the history of his country’s space program. He designed the first Soviet liquid-propellant rocket, he proposed the clustered-booster idea for the famous R-7 rocket, he oversaw the design of Yuri Gagarin’s Vostok rocket, and he supervised the development of the first Soviet moon probes. He even coined the word “cosmonaut.”

Previously: Planet Earth and The space age began on the chill evening of October 4, 1957.

Sputnik Soviet+Union Tikhonravov Gagarin cosmonaut space race to the moon