Asif Siddiqi

 

Asif Siddiqi is a professor of history at Fordham University in New York and the author of The Red Rockets’ Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination, 1857-1957 (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Read more at asifsiddiqi.com.

A still from the 2017 film Salyut-7, about the daring rescue of a Soviet space station in 1985.

A Brief Guide to Russian Space Movies

In the 60 years since Gagarin, the world’s first spacefaring nation has produced its own equivalents of <i>The Right Stuff </i>and <i>Apollo 13</i>.

The first attempted launch of the N-1 moon rocket, in February 1969.

Why the Soviets Lost the Moon Race

Even with a late start, cosmonauts might still have made the first lunar landing. But by the end of 1968, it was game over.

Throughout his life, Soviet space designer Mikhail Tikhonravov (left) never got the credit or acclaim accorded to Sergei Korolev, his friend. Ten years before they launched the world's first satellite, the two paused in front of a bust of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, considered the father of cosmonautics.

The Man Behind the Curtain

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

Space titans: Yuri Gagarin with Russian rocket designer Sergei Korolev.

Russia's Long Love Affair with Space

It started with Utopian dreams and rocketeers.

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