It is not often that the flow of time brings the name of a celebrated scholar
closer to our
days. Not often at all, and not because a world-famous research center
and a square in the capital of his homeland, a lunar crater, a planet of
the solar system and a research vessel all bear his name. And not because
the Russian Academy of Sciences has named after him its annual award for
the most promising contributions to applied math and mechanics. The scholar
in question, Mstislav Keldysh, was bigger than life and is remembered as
a legendary figure. His fellow workers used to describe him as the main
brain of the space exploration programs.
Mstislav Keldysh, who would grow up to become a full member of the
national Academy of Sciences, was the son of a college professor and a
graduate of the math and physics department of Moscow's Lomonosov University.
His very first writings attracted attention and as soon as he finished
school, 22-year-old Keldych was invited to join the staff of an aviation
research center. He was special because he refused to get bogged down in
the trivia: he was aiming to find new ways to put math at the service of
hydro- and aerodynamics. Aviation engineers of the 30's racked their brains
over the problem of "flutter,"i.e. destructive trembling that destroys
planes as they pick up speed.
The aviation industries of all advanced nations were facing that
problem but the Soviet Union was the first to cope with it thanks to brainstorming
efforts by Mstislav Keldysh and his fellow-workers.
As a result, Soviet plane designers got a headstart on the Germans
just before the war with Nazi Germany.
Mstislav Keldysh spent the war years at aviation plants and in the
rooms of design centers.
With the end of the war, the Soviet Union got what one might describe
as a second wind but the deepening rift in relations with the wartime allies
and memory of the devastating war made national security the word of the
day. A stronger defensive potential translated into the development of
nuclear weapons and the adoption of missiles by the national armed forces.
Keldysh, who had done well in fundamental as well as applied research,
was invited to focus on both problems. He was concentrating on powerful
jet boosters for winged rockets. The first Soviet-made missile was put
to test in 1959. It compared favorably with the Navajo, designed and manufactured
at about the same time in the United States.
The successful launch of the first Soviet-made space satellite gave
a boost, in 1957, to the development of space missile systems. Mstislav
Keldysh took it upon himself to plan the placement of made-made objects
in circumterrestrial orbit and, eventually, flights to the moon and other
planets of the solar system. He did much in terms of manned space flights.
And, in addition to all that, he supervized international efforts under
the Intercosmos space exploration program. He was, without a shade of doubt,
the best brain behind the Soviet space ventures. When the world's first
astronaut Yuri Gagarin flew a Soviet-made Vostok into outer space, on April
12, 1961, Keldysh said that
"The first step on the road for the unknown happens to be the most
difficult and decisive. Years will go by and space flights will come to
be seen as a feature of everyday life, but what Gagarin did, what many
Soviet people did, will go down in history, what they did is one of the
most important achievements of the human race."
The Gagarin flight settled a number of engineering and academic problems.
It offered solutions to the problems of zero gravity in the living quarters
of spacecraft, hazardous space emissions, orbital navigation and landing
maneuvering.
His contribution to science and the national and international recognition
of his role brought Mstislav Keldysh to the presidency of the Soviet Academy
of Sciences. He lost no time in overhauling the Academy. The command post
of Soviet scholars was, indeed, living up to its name. The recognition
of his role in fundamental research, the deep respect he enjoyed in the
academic circles enabled Keldysh to bring together reform-oriented scientists
thanks to whose efforts the country recalled many famous names, reinstated
in their rights genetics and cybernetics, and gave the green light to molecular
biology and quantum electronics.
In spite of his high position in the power structures, Mstislav Keldysh
was no government zealot. He loved his country and always identified with
the Russian intelligentzia. He was full of scholarly self-abnegation.
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