Stalin’s Rocket Designers’ Leap into Space: The Technical Intelligentsia Faces the Thaw

Abstract

This article explores the impact of the professional culture of rocket engineering in Stalin’s Soviet Union on the engineering and organizational practices of the space program during the Khrushchev era. The Stalinist legacy and the dual military / civilian character of rocket engineers’ work profoundly affected the identity of this elite part of Soviet technical intelligentsia. Focusing on such notions as control, authority, and responsibility, this article examines the role of engineering culture in shaping the Soviet approach to the automation of piloted spacecraft control. Through patronage and networking, rocket engineers were able to overcome the inefficiency of Soviet industrial management and to advance their agenda of space exploration.

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