Red Cosmos: K. E. Tsiolkovskii, Grandfather of Soviet Rocketry

Contents

CONTENTS Illustrations ix Preface xi Prelude: Before Tsiolkovskii: Russian Rocketry from Peter the Great to the Nineteenth Century 1 Introduction: Envisioning the Cosmos: K. E. Tsiolkovskii, Russian Public Culture, and the Mythology of Soviet Cosmonautics, 1857–1964 9 Chapter 1. Beginnings, Teaching Science in a Provincial Context: Tsiolkovskii’s Years in the Russian Locale, 1857–1917 15 Chapter 2. Dreaming of the Cosmos: Early Scientific and Technical Experimentation in Pre-1917 Kaluga, Russia 31 Chapter 3. Getting Serious about Rocket Flight in Revolutionary Russia, 1917–1928 47 Chapter 4. Cross-Fertilizing Futuristic Literary Genres: Utopian Science Fiction or Didactic Popular Technology in Revolutionary Russia, 1890–1928 64 Chapter 5. Stalin, Khrushchev, and the Spaceman: Technology, Soviet National Identity, and the Memorialization of a Local Hero in the Dawn of Sputnik, 1928–1957 79 viii contents Epilogue and Conclusion: Chudo (Wonder) or Chudak (Crank), the Legacy of Tsiolkovskii in the Khrushchev Era and beyond 1964 97 Glossary 109 Notes 111 Note on Sources 131 Bibliography 133 Index 139 ...