The exhibition ‘Development of Rocket Engineering in Russia’ dedicated to the life and activities of the outstanding designer Sergey Pavlovich Korolev opened at Samara National Research University, which bears the scientist’s name. The exposition presents photos and documents unknown to a wide audience, including TASS materials about historical events of the 1960s.

“In order to move science, industry, space now, it is important to understand where everything started from. It is important to see the historical aspects of this activity, archival documents”, – Alexander Rabotkevich, director of the RAS archive, said at the opening of the exposition.

The exposition was made up of about 50 exhibits from the fund of Sergei Korolev and the RAS archive – copies of documents, manuscripts, drawings, photographs. Mostly these are evidences that have not been widely circulated before. The exposition opens with Korolev’s childhood photos and excerpts from his biography; his educational documents are presented. The exhibition tells about the period of the 1930s, when the young scientist began his journey, reflects the main stages of his work in the following decades, the 1960s and the first space flights, and then introduces the modern everyday life of RSC ‘Progress’.

Publications with personal edits

Among the exhibits are a report by TASS columnist Alexander Romanov “Vostok-2″ took off” about the flight of German Titov and a fragment of a conversation between the journalist and the scientist called “Higher and higher to the stars”. In the margins Korolev’s hand made edits and additions. With the consent of the scientist materials were published in 1961 and 1965. Next to the text of “space lyric song “Man Overboard”, written by Romanov on the motif of the hit song “We are not stokers, not carpenters”. Korolev also made personal corrections to these lines in 1965.

“Sergei Pavlovich deeply understood not only the essence of his work, but also how it should be told to the people, this is the creative character of his personality”, – Rabotkevich believes. Olga Selivanova, Deputy Director of the RAS Archive and author of the exhibition, added that the scientist “understood very well the importance of what would now be called the formation of public opinion, and his edits in publications were mandatory“.

The exhibition is open to visitors until 28 November. It was organised by Samara Korolev University, the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, RSC Progress, ODK-Kuznetsov PJSC, the Evgeny Primakov Regional Centre for the Development of Public Diplomacy and International Relations.

Sergey Pavlovich Korolev (1907-1966) was a Soviet design engineer, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, twice Hero of Socialist Labour, founder of Russian cosmonautics. He led the launch of the first Soviet rockets and the construction of spacecraft. The scientist authored more than 250 scientific papers, articles and inventions.

 Source: TASS.