9781603441179 (cloth : alk. paper)

1603441174 (cloth : alk. paper)

Centennial of flight series ; no. 18

Prelude: Before Tsiolkovskii : Russian rocketry from Peter the Great to the nineteenth century

Introduction: Envisioning the cosmos : K.E. Tsiolkovskii, Russian public culture, and the mythology of Soviet cosmonautics, 1857-1964

Beginnings, teaching science in a provincial context : Tsiolkovskii's years in the Russian locale, 1857-1917

Dreaming of the cosmos : early scientific and technical experimentation in pre-1917 Kaluga, Russia

Getting serious about rocket flight in revolutionary Russia, 1917-1928

Cross-fertilizing futuristic literary genres : utopian science fiction or didactic popular technology in revolutionary Russia, 1890-1928

Stalin, Khrushchev, and the spaceman : technology, Soviet national identity, and the memorialization of a local hero in the dawn of Sputnik, 1928-1957

Epilogue and conclusion: Chudo (wonder) or chudak (crank), the legacy of Tsiolkovskii in the Khrushchev era and beyond 1964.

Aerospace engineers > Soviet Union > Biography.

Authors, Russian > Biography.

Authors, Soviet > Biography.

Science fiction, Soviet > History and criticism.

Astronautics > Russia > History.

Astronautics > Social aspects > Soviet Union.