Boris Viktorovich Rauschenbach (; born Boris-Ivar Rauschenbach; ,

Petrograd Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

– 27 March 2001,

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

)

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

physicist of German ethnicity who worked as an engineer in the former

Soviet space program The Soviet space program () was the state space program of the Soviet Union, active from 1951 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Contrary to its competitors (NASA in the United States, the European Space Agency in Western Euro ...

. Trained as an engineer, he found great success in designing rockets and who developed the theory and instruments for interplanetary flight control and navigation in 1955-1960s. He is also notable for his studies in

Christian theology Christian theology is the theology – the systematic study of the divine and religion – of Christianity, Christian belief and practice. It concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Ch ...

and theory of

Art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

Biography

''This article, including quotation, is based on Rauschenbach's 1997 book of autobiographic essays, "Pristrastie" (Obsession)''Russian: Раушенбах, Б.В., "Пристрастие", М, Аграф, 1997, . Available onlin
www.pravbeseda.ru
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Family roots

Boris-Ivar Rauschenbach was born to a

protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

family of ethnic

Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...

, tracing their history to Karl-Friedrich Rauschenbach who settled in Russia in 1766. His father Victor David Rauschenbach, originally a

Volga German The Volga Germans (, ; ) are ethnic Germans who settled and historically lived along the Volga River in the region of southeastern European Russia around Saratov and close to Ukraine nearer to the south. Recruited as immigrants to Russia in th ...

, was a manager at a leather factory in Saint Petersburg, and the family lived at the factory site until 1925. His mother Lonny Christine Hallik was a

Baltic German Baltic Germans ( or , later ) are Germans, ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950), their resettlement in 1945 after the end ...

. The family was bilingual; Rauschenbach said that "I feel myself a German and a Russian at the same time, a peculiar feeling... reflecting reality. We grew up in Russia, immersed in Russian traditions" ("Я чувствую себя одновременно русским и немцем - интересное ощущение... оно отражает реальность. Мы выросли в России, впитали в себя русские обычаи"). Boris attended a former Reformist Protestant school, one of two German-language schools left in the 1920s. The school, plagued by ever-changing novel teaching systems, provided poor education (apart from good language practice).

Education

Boris, like many young men of his time, was fascinated by flight and aviation. The only aviation-related college in Leningrad was a newly established Institute of Civil Air Fleet, later converted into a military academy. After a brief work at an aircraft plant, Rauschenbach completed his studies at this Institute (1932-1937); later he complained about its poor training quality and lack of tradition. More important was his glider hobby of this time, especially the practical studies of

stability Stability may refer to: Mathematics *Stability theory, the study of the stability of solutions to differential equations and dynamical systems ** Asymptotic stability ** Exponential stability ** Linear stability **Lyapunov stability ** Marginal s ...

flying wing A flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft that has no definite fuselage, with its crew, payload, fuel, and equipment housed inside the main wing structure. A flying wing may have various small protuberances such as pods, nacelles, blis ...

gliders. Glider enthusiasts' rallies in

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

exposed Rauschenberg to aviation professionals; in 1937, he received an offer from

Sergey Korolyov Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (14 January 1966) was the lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer during the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. He invented the R-7 Rocket, Sputnik 1, and w ...

to join his RNII (Rocket Institute), based in Khovrino near Moscow.

Early studies (1937-1941)

Sergey Korolyov assigned Rauschenbach to flight control automation for his ''winged rocket'' (

cruise missile A cruise missile is an unmanned self-propelled guided missile that sustains flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large payload over long distances with high precision. Modern cru ...

) project. Despite Korolyov's public statements on "All attention to engines!" ("В центре внимания - мотор!"), he realized a wide range of unsolved rocketry problems, notably flight stability and automated controls. Autopilots on conventional planes could be "trained" and tuned by human pilots in flight; rocket designers had to find an alternative "training" technology. Rauschenbach's first assignments on Model 212C jet cruise missile were done in

TsAGI The Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (also (Zhukovsky) Central Institute of Aerodynamics, , TsAGI) is a Russian national research centre for aviation. It was founded in Moscow by Russian aviation pioneer Nikolai Yegorovich Zhukovsky on Decemb ...

wind tunnel A wind tunnel is "an apparatus for producing a controlled stream of air for conducting aerodynamic experiments". The experiment is conducted in the test section of the wind tunnel and a complete tunnel configuration includes air ducting to and f ...

. This was followed by crewed

rocket plane A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

program, cut short when

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

arrested Korolyov and

Valentin Glushko Valentin Petrovich Glushko (; ; born 2 September 1908 – 10 January 1989) was a Soviet engineer who was program manager of the Soviet space program from 1974 until 1989. Glushko served as a main designer of rocket engines in the Soviet progra ...

in summer of 1938. Until 1941, Rauschenbach worked on jet combustion stability, a program that resulted in effective and stable

Rocket artillery Rocket artillery is artillery that uses rockets as the projectile. The use of rocket artillery dates back to medieval China where devices such as fire arrows were used (albeit mostly as a psychological weapon). Fire arrows were also used in mult ...

projectiles. After the German Invasion of 1941, recently married Rauschenbach relocated with his institution east, to

Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg (, ; ), alternatively Romanization of Russian, romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( ; 1924–1991), is a city and the administrative centre of Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Ural Federal District, Russia. The ci ...

Internment (1942-1948)

In March 1942, Rauschenbach, then working on auto-targeting anti-aircraft projectiles, was held in a labor camp without trial, like other ethnic Germans. Half of his detachment of around a thousand inmates perished in the first winter. They were working at a brick plant near

Nizhny Tagil Nizhny Tagil ( rus, Нижний Тагил, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj tɐˈgʲil) is a classification of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located east of the Boundaries between the continents#Asia and Europe, boundary ...

Urals The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

. Two weeks after he arrived in the camp, Rauschenbach wrote a technical letter to his former design bureau, commenting on his incompleted work. The letter was promptly received by general Viktor Bolkhovitinov, working on a parallel rocket project, who managed to transfer Rauschenbach from hard labor to a desk job. Until 1946, inmate Rauschenbach performed calculations for Bolkhovitinov's bureau, learning advanced mathematics in the process. In January 1946, Rauschenbach was dispatched from the camp to an exile in

, working there for

Mstislav Keldysh Mstislav Vsevolodovich Keldysh (; – 24 June 1978) was a Soviet mathematician who worked as an engineer in the Soviet space program. He was the academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (1946), President of the Academy of Sc ...

calculation bureau. In 1948, Keldysh extricated Rauschenbach from exile, in what the latter called "a long and completely fantastical affair" ("длинная и совершенно фантастическая история"). Rauschenbach worked with Keldysh on

jet engine A jet engine is a type of reaction engine, discharging a fast-moving jet (fluid), jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition may include Rocket engine, rocket, Pump-jet, water jet, and ...

dynamics until 1954, later saying that "In my life, I worked for two bosses only, Korolyov and Keldysh, both men of high integrity, and that's important" ("Начальников в жизни у меня было только два — Королев, и Келдыш, высоконравственные люди, вот что очень важно"). His twin daughters were born in 1950 in Moscow; wife, Vera Rauschenbach, worked in

State Historical Museum The State Historical Museum () of Russia is a museum of History of Russia, Russian history located between Red Square and Manezhnaya Square, Moscow, Manege Square in Moscow. The museum's exhibitions range from relics of prehistoric tribes that li ...

in Moscow.

Space flight control (1954-1970s)

In 1954, Keldysh allowed Rauschenbach to concentrate on space flight theory, notably orientation of a spacecraft in flight, although it had little common with Keldysh's own jobs. Next year, Rauschenbach joined the Korolyov firm. "It was not a breakup with Keldysh. Rather, my work outgrew his institute, and Keldysh himself negotiated transfer of my team to Korolyov" ("Это не был разрыв с Келдышем. Просто работы, которые я вел, уже не помещались в институте, и Келдыш сам договорился с Королевым, что я со своей “командой” перехожу к нему"). Rauschenbach's first major success was the lunar flyby of

Luna 3 Luna 3, or E-2A No.1 (), was a Soviet spacecraft launched in 1959 as part of the Luna programme. It was the first mission to photograph the far side of the Moon and the third Soviet space probe to be sent to the neighborhood of the Moon. The hi ...

in October 1959, that returned the first photographs of Moon's far side. This was followed by flight control systems for interplanetary probes to

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

and crewed orbital space flight. He was on the mission control during the flight and recorded Gagarin's first technical reports after it. 1961 Soviet newspapers described his identity as ''Professor V. Ivanchenko''. Rauschenbach also designed instruments for the

Vostok 3 Vostok 3 () and Vostok 4 (, 'Orient 4' or 'East 4') were Soviet space program flights in August 1962, intended to determine the ability of the human body to function in conditions of weightlessness, test the ground control capability to launch ...

Vostok 6 Vostok 6 () was the first human spaceflight to carry a woman, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, into space. Mission The spacecraft was launched on 16 June 1963. It set the record for highest orbital inclination of a crewed spacecraft at 65°, a rec ...

joint flight and the first

Soyuz spacecraft Soyuz () is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau (now Energia). The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraf ...

docking systems.

Rauschenbach School

Since 1948, Rauschenbach lectured in Physics and Technical Department of

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

, which was converted to an independent

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT; , also known as PhysTech), is a public university, public research university located in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It prepares specialists in theoretical physics, theoretical and applied physics, ...

(MFTI) in 1951. Rauschenbach chaired Theoretical Mechanics department in MFTI since 1978. His course of lectures in the recent years was 'Dynamics of spaceflight'. Rauschenbach trained the first

cosmonaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

s in flight dynamics and spacecraft control systems,Detailed accounts:

Nikolai Kamanin Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin (; 18 October 1908 – 11 March 1982) was a Soviet Air Force general and a program manager in the Soviet space program. A career aviator, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1934 for the rescue of S ...

diaries, Russian: Каманин, Н., "Скрытый космос", М, 1995 but after the death of Korolyov in 1965, he gradually stepped aside from active space program and concentrated on academic activities and his studies of art.

Art theories and theology

Rauschenbach later linked his interest to visual art with the problems of docking spacecraft. During docking operation, pilot could see the other spacecraft only on a TV screen. Does it render real objects well enough, wondered Rauschenbach, to bet the lives of two crews on a flat electronic image? This led him to study perspective and human perception of flat images. This applied problem transformed into general interest in humanities: "Art and art studies, faith and religion live forever, and the man is always anxious to step further into the deep of it" ("искусство и искусствознание, вера и религия существуют вечно, и в человеке всегда живет и будет жить какое-то беспокойство, желание проникнуть как можно глубже в сущность всего этого"). Rauschenbach's first published work outside rocketry, "Spatial composition in old Russian art" (1975) and later "Spatial composition in painting" (1980, including world art) were dedicated to mathematical foundations of perspective in art. His mathematics prove the impossibility of rendering correct spatial perspective on a flat sheet. His studies of the difference between the material artwork and human perception of it indicated that perception differs with the subject of an image. Great artists deliberately distorted perspective, and the degree of distortion depends on the subject. His theological essays, published in the 1990s, concentrate on the proof of

Holy Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, three ...

. This work, as well as studies of icons, earned him credits of

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

. At the age over 70 Rauschenbach experienced clinical death and after that he was rebaptized converting to Orthodoxy.

Awards

* 1960 -

Lenin Prize The Lenin Prize (, ) was one of the most prestigious awards of the Soviet Union for accomplishments relating to science, literature, arts, architecture, and technology. It was originally created on June 23, 1925, and awarded until 1934. During ...

for automatic circumlunar flight * 1961 - Order of Lenin for the first crewed spaceflight * 1966 - Correspondent member, Academy of Sciences of USSR * 1986 - Member, Academy of Sciences of USSR * 1990 -

Hero of Socialist Labor The Hero of Socialist Labour () was an honorific title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries from 1938 to 1991. It represented the highest degree of distinction in the USSR and was awarded for exceptional achievements in Soviet ...

* 1994 -

Demidov Prize The Demidov Prize () is a national scientific prize in Russia awarded annually to the members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Originally awarded from 1832 to 1866 in the Russian Empire, it was revived by the government of Russia's Sverdlovsk ...

for works in mechanics *

Asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

4237 Raushenbakh is named after him.

References

Books by Rauschenbach

In English: * Rauschenbach, Boris V., "Hermann Oberth: The Father of Space Flight 1894-1989", West Art Pub, 1994, * Rauschenbach, Boris V., "On My Concept of Perceptual Perspective that Accounts for Parallel and Inverted Perspective in Pictorial Art", Leonardo, Oxford, vol.16, no.1, Winter 1983, * Rauschenbach, Boris V., "The Rocket Flight Stability Problem: A History of Misconceptions", 30th History of Rocketry and Astronautics, 1996, In Russian: * Раушенбах Б.В. Вибрационное горение, М., 1961г. * Раушенбах Б.В. Управление ориентацией в космических аппаратах, М., 1974 * Раушенбах Б.В. Системы перспективы в изобразительном искусстве. Общая теория перспективы. - М., 1986 * Раушенбах Б.В. Пространственные построения в живописи. - М., 1980 * Раушенбах Б.В. Геометрия картины и зрительное восприятие. - М., 1994, * Раушенбах Б.В. Герман Оберт (1894-1989) М., 1993, * Раушенбах Б.В. Пристрастие, - М., 1997, * Раушенбах Б.В. Постскриптум (воспоминания). - М., 1999, * Раушенбах Б.В. Праздные мысли. - М., 2000