In 1966, Soviet chief designer Sergei Korolev died on an operating table in Moscow at the age of 59, and two days later the newspaper Pravda printed his name and face for the first time — until that obituary, the man who launched Sputnik and put Gagarin in orbit was known publicly only as the Chief Designer

For nearly a decade, the architect of every Soviet space first — Sputnik, Gagarin, Luna, Venera — was known to the public only as the Chief Designer. His name and face appeared in Pravda for the first time the morning after he died on a Moscow operating table in January 1966. The post In 1966, Soviet chief designer Sergei Korolev died on an operating table in Moscow at the age of 59, and two days later the newspaper Pravda printed his name and face for the first time — until that obituary, the m