PRESIDENT OP THE SOVIET ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Keldysh, Mstislav Vsevolodovich 1911-1978

President, Soviet Academy of Sciences 1961-75

While Sergey Korolev was the engineering genius behind the Soviet space program, Mstislav Keldysh was its scientific genius and his eager partner. 1’here was no single person equivalent to Keldysh in the US space program. As a brilliant and elegant mathematician, he was particularly adept at apply­ing mathematics to complex practical problems, with a special interest in aerodynamic engineering.

From 1946 to 1961 he was head of the research organization NII-1, which is now the Keldysh Research Center. NII-1 was originally Korolev and Glushko’s rocket research group prior to their arrest in the purges. In 1953 Keldysh was named head of the Division of Steklov’s Mathematical Institute which in 1966 became the Institute of Applied Mathematics and now bears his own name. In 1961 he was elected President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

Keldysh’s involvement in space research began in 1954 when he co-chaired with Korolev the committee that designed the scientific spacecraft that ultimately became Sputnik 3. Beginning in 1956 he chaired the Academy’s powerful MNTS committee and was regarded as the ‘Chief Theoretician’ of the space program, in charge of the scientific aspect of space including military applications in computers and nuclear weapons design. He and the Academy’s science institutions provided the theoretical basis for space exploration, rocket design, mission design and navigation in space. Unlike in the US, the Soviet Academy of Sciences was charged with developing the mathematical and scientific tools, including instruments, for space exploration, and as head of the Academy Keldysh was a major force in the development of lunar and planetary exploration in the USSR. The government often had the Academy assess the merits of projects proposed by the various design bureaus. Also, the government presented Keldysh to the international community as the face of the Soviet space exploration program, representing it abroad and to the media. His prominence went hand in glove with Korolev’s obscurity.