Valentin Petrovich Glushko (; ; born 2 September 1908 – 10 January 1989) was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

who was program manager of the

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 ...

from 1974 until 1989. Glushko served as a main designer of rocket engines in the Soviet program during the heights of the

Space Race The Space Race (, ) was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between t ...

between

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, and was the proponent of

cybernetics Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...

within the space program.

Biography

Valentin Glushko was born on 2 September 1908 (21 August according to the old calendar) in

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

to a Ukrainian cossack father and a

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 ...

peasant mother. At the age of fourteen he became interested in

aeronautics Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design process, design, and manufacturing of air flight-capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. While the term originally referred ...

after reading novels by

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

. He is known to have written a letter to

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (; rus, Константин Эдуардович Циолковский, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin ɪdʊˈardəvʲɪtɕ tsɨɐlˈkofskʲɪj, a=Ru-Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.oga; – 19 September 1935) was a Russi ...

in 1923. He studied at an

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

trade school, where he learned to be a

sheet metal Sheet metal is metal formed into thin, flat pieces, usually by an industrial process. Thicknesses can vary significantly; extremely thin sheets are considered foil (metal), foil or Metal leaf, leaf, and pieces thicker than 6 mm (0.25 ...

worker. After graduation he apprenticed at a hydraulics fitting plant. He was first trained as a fitter, then moved to lathe operator. During his time in Odessa, Glushko performed experiments with explosives. These were recovered from unexploded artillery shells that had been left behind by the White Guards during their retreat. From 1924 to 1925 he wrote articles concerning the exploration of the Moon, as well as the use of Tsiolkovsky's proposed engines for

space flight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly objects, usually spacecraft, into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such a ...

. He attended Leningrad State University where he studied physics and mathematics, but found the specialty programs were not to his interest. He reportedly left without graduating in April, 1929. From 1929 to 1930 he pursued rocket research at the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL), where a new research section was set up for the study of liquid-propellant and electric engines. He became a member of the Reactive Scientific Research Institute, founded in

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 ...

in 1931 when GDL merged with the

Group for the Study of Reactive Motion The Moscow-based Group for the Study of Reactive Motion (also known as the ''Group for the Investigation of Reactive Engines and Reactive Flight'' or ''Jet Propulsion Study Group''; ), abbreviated as GIRD (), was a Soviet research bureau founded ...

(GIRD) On 23 March 1938 he became caught up in

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

and was rounded up by the

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 ...

, to be placed in the Butyrka prison. By 15 August 1939 he was sentenced to eight years imprisonment; however, Glushko was put to work on various aircraft projects with other arrested scientists. In 1941 he was placed in charge of a design bureau for liquid-fueled rocket engines. He was finally released in 1944. In 1944,

Sergei Korolev Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (14 January 1966) was the lead Soviet Aerospace engineering, 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 Sem ...

and Glushko designed the RD-1 kHz auxiliary rocket motor tested in a fast-climb La-7R for protection of the capital from high-altitude ''Luftwaffe'' attacks."''Last of the Wartime Lavochkins''", AIR International, Bromley, Kent, U.K., November 1976, Volume 11, Number 5, pages 245-246. At the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Glushko was sent to Germany and Eastern Europe to study the German rocket program. As part of this he attended an Operation Backfire launch as Colonel Glushko. In 1946, he became the chief designer of his own bureau, the OKB 456, and remained at this position until 1974. This bureau would play a prominent role in the development of rocket engines within the Soviet Union. His OKB 456 (later

NPO Energomash NPO Energomash "V. P. Glushko" is a major Russian rocket engine manufacturer. The company primarily develops and produces Liquid rocket engine, liquid propellant rocket engines. Energomash originates from the OKB, Soviet design bureau OKB-456, w ...

) would design the 35-

metric ton The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the sh ...

(340 kN) thrust RD-101 engine used in the R-2, the 120-ton (1,180 kN) thrust RD-110 employed in the R-3, and the 44-ton (430 kN) thrust RD-103 used in the R-5 Pobeda (SS-3 Shyster). The R-7 ("Semyorka") would include four of Glushko's RD-107 engines and one RD-108. In 1954, he began to design engines for the

R-12 Dvina The R-12 Dvina was a theatre ballistic missile developed and deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Its GRAU designation was 8K63 (8K63U or 8K63У in Cyrillic for silo-launched version), and it was given the NATO reporting name of SS- ...

(SS-4 Sandal), which had been designed by

Mikhail Yangel Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel (; 7 November 1911 – 25 October 1971), was a Soviet people, Soviet engineer born in Irkutsk who was the leading designer in the missile program of the former Soviet Union. Biography Yangel was the grandson of a Russ ...

. He also became responsible for supplying rocket engines for

, the designer of the

R-9 Desna The R-9 (; NATO reporting name: SS-8 Blackbuck, Sasin) was a two-stage IRBM of the Soviet Union, in service from 1964 to 1976. History Designed in 1959 and first tested in 1961, the R-9 was a great improvement over previous Soviet missile des ...

(SS-8 Sasin). Among his designs was the powerful RD-170 liquid propellant engine. In 1974, following the six successful American Moon landings, premier

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...

decided to cancel the troubled Soviet program to send a man to the Moon. He consolidated the Soviet space program, moving Vasily Mishin's

OKB-1 S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation "Energia" () is a Russian manufacturer of spacecraft and space station components. Its name is derived from the Russian word for energy and is also named for Sergei Korolev, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, th ...

(Korolev's former design bureau), as well as other bureaus, into a single bureau headed by Glushko, later named NPO Energia. Glushko's first act, after firing Mishin altogether, was to cancel the

N-1 rocket The N1 (from , "Carrier Rocket"; Cyrillic: En (Cyrillic), Н1) was a super heavy-lift launch vehicle intended to deliver payloads beyond low Earth orbit. The N1 was the Soviet Union, Soviet counterpart to the US Saturn V and was intended to en ...

, a program he had long criticized, despite the fact that one of the reasons for its difficulties was his own refusal to design the high-power engines Korolev needed because of friction between the two men and ostensibly a disagreement over the use of

cryogenic In physics, cryogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures. The 13th International Institute of Refrigeration's (IIR) International Congress of Refrigeration (held in Washington, DC in 1971) endorsed a univers ...

hypergolic A hypergolic propellant is a rocket propellant combination used in a rocket engine, whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other. The two propellant components usually consist of a fuel and an oxidizer. The ...

fuel. In 1965, after the UR-500 booster began flying, the Chelomei Bureau offered a counterproposal to Korolev's N-1 in the

UR-700 The Universal Rocket or ''UR'' family of missiles and carrier rockets is a Russian, previously Soviet rocket family. Intended to allow the same technology to be used in all Soviet rockets, the UR is produced by the Khrunichev State Research and P ...

, a Saturn V-class booster with nine F-1 sized engines powered by

dinitrogen tetroxide Dinitrogen tetroxide, commonly referred to as nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), and occasionally (usually among ex-USSR/Russian rocket engineers) as amyl, is the chemical compound N2O4. It is a useful reagent in chemical synthesis. It forms an equilibrium ...

and

UDMH Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (abbreviated as UDMH; also known as 1,1-dimethylhydrazine, heptyl or Geptil) is a chemical compound with the formula H2NN(CH3)2 that is primarily used as a rocket propellant. At room temperature, UDMH is a colorle ...

. Korolev was an outspoken opponent of hypergolic propellants due to their toxicity, often citing the 1960

Nedelin catastrophe The Nedelin catastrophe or Nedelin disaster, known in Russia as the Catastrophe at Baikonur Cosmodrome (), was a launch pad accident that occurred on 24 October 1960 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Soviet Kazakhstan. As a prototype of the R- ...

as evidence of the danger posed by them, and had also objected to the UR-500 for the same reason. Glushko meanwhile was an advocate of Vladimir Chelomei's UR-700 as well as an even more powerful UR-900 with a nuclear-powered upper stage. When Korolev continued protesting about the safety risk posed by hypergolic propellants, Glushko responded with the counterargument that the US was launching the crewed Gemini spacecraft atop a

Titan II The Titan II was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the Glenn L. Martin Company from the earlier Titan I missile. Titan II was originally designed and used as an ICBM, but was later adapted as a medium-lift space ...

rocket with very similar propellants and it was not a safety issue for them. He also argued that the N-1 was not a workable solution because they could not develop

RP-1 RP-1 (Rocket Propellant-1 or Refined Petroleum-1) and similar fuels like RG-1 and T-1 are highly refined kerosene formulations used as rocket fuel. Liquid-fueled rockets that use RP-1 as fuel are known as kerolox rockets. In their engines, RP- ...

/ LOX engines on the scale of the Saturn F-1. When Korolev suggested developing a

liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen () is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecule, molecular H2 form. To exist as a liquid, H2 must be cooled below its critical point (thermodynamics), critical point of 33 Kelvins, ...

engine for the N-1, Glushko said that LH2 was completely impractical as a rocket fuel. The UR-700, Glushko said, could enable a direct-ascent trajectory to the Moon, which he considered safer and more reliable than the rendezvous-and-dock approach used by the Apollo program and Korolev's N-1 proposals. He also imagined the UR-700 and 900 in all sorts of applications, from lunar bases to crewed Mars missions to outer planet probes to orbiting battle stations. When Korolev died in January 1966, his deputy Vasily Mishin took over the OKB-1 design bureau. Mishin succeeded in getting the Kremlin to terminate the UR-700/900 project and the RD-270 engine Glushko planned for the launch vehicle family. His main arguments were the tremendous safety risk posed by a low-altitude launch failure of the UR-700 and the waste of money by developing two heavy-lift launch vehicle (HLV) families at once. After the complete failure of the Soviet crewed lunar effort, uncrewed Mars missions, and the deaths of four cosmonauts, Mishin was fired in 1973 and the Kremlin decided to consolidate the entire Soviet space program into one organization headed by Glushko. One of Glushko's first acts was to suspend the N-1 program, which, however, was not formally terminated until 1976. He then began work on a completely new HLV. During this time, the US was developing the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

. Glushko decided that the new HLV, Energia, would use entirely liquid-fueled engines, with an LH2 core stage taking the place of the Shuttle main engines, and the Shuttle's solid-propellant strap-on boosters with liquid boosters using LOX/RP-1 RD-170 engines. While the RD-120 engine used for the Energia core stage was developed quickly and with little difficulty, the RD-170 proved harder to work out. Glushko instead decided to use an engine with four combustion chambers fed from a single propellant feed line. The RD-170 powered strap-on boosters designed for Energia became the basis for the Zenit booster family which began flying in 1985. Since the Buran space shuttle was not ready for operations, Energia's maiden flight in May 1987 carried aloft a prototype space station module called Polyus. Ultimately, Buran did fly the following summer, a few months before Glushko's death. While Energia and Buran fell victim to loss of funding after the collapse of the USSR, the RD-170 engines and its derivatives are still flying today and the experience in LH2 engines made during the Energia project would be used in later upper stages such as Briz. Glushko's team was part of the Soviet Ministry of General Machine Building headed by Minister Sergey Afanasyev. Before his death, he appointed Boris Gubanov to become his successor. Glushko died on January 10, 1989. His obituary was signed by multiple

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

leaders, including

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

. He was buried at

Novodevichy Cemetery Novodevichy Cemetery () is a cemetery in Moscow. It lies next to the southern wall of the 16th-century Novodevichy Convent, which is the city's third most popular tourist site. History The cemetery was designed by Ivan Mashkov and inaugurated ...

in Moscow. His most significant engineering failure, as noted by division chief Yuri Demyanko, was his insistence that hydrogen fuel was unsuitable for use as a rocket fuel. As a result, the Soviet space program was still discussing using hydrogen-fueled engines while the Americans were assembling the

Saturn V The Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, had multistage rocket, three stages, and was powered by liquid-propel ...

launcher. Also, Glushko's design bureau consistently failed at building a rocket engine powered by LOX/Kerosene with a large combustion chamber to rival the American F-1 used on the

; instead, his solution was the RD-270, a single large combustion-chamber engine powered by hypergolic propellants which had almost the same thrust and better

specific impulse Specific impulse (usually abbreviated ) is a measure of how efficiently a reaction mass engine, such as a rocket engine, rocket using propellant or a jet engine using fuel, generates thrust. In general, this is a ratio of the ''Impulse (physics), ...

when compared to the F-1 engine. In addition, the RD-270 used the very advanced full-flow, staged, closed-cycle combustion concept instead of the simple open-cycle gas generator design used by the F-1 rocket engine. This was a primary reason for the failure of the N-1, which was forced to rely on a multitude of smaller engines for propulsion since Sergei Korolev, its chief designer, insisted on using the LOX/Kerosene combination, which Glushko felt would take much more time and money to design. Glushko never did overcome the combustion instability problems of large rocket engines using kerosene propellants; his eventual solution for this is seen on the RD-170 which is basically four smaller combustion chamber/nozzle assemblies sharing common fuel delivery systems. This solution and engine gave the Soviets the large thrust propulsion needed to build the Energia

super heavy-lift launch vehicle A super heavy-lift launch vehicle is a rocket that can lift to low Earth orbit a "super heavy payload", which is defined as more than by the United States and as more than by Russia. It is the most capable launch vehicle classification by mass ...

, and is probably the finest example of Glushko's technical abilities when he was at his best.

Honours and awards

Hero of Socialist Labour The Hero of Socialist Labour () was an Title of honor, 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 achievem ...

, twice (1956, 1961) *

Order of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

, five times (1956, 1958, 1961, 1968, 1978) *

Order of the October Revolution The Order of the October Revolution (, ''Orden Oktyabr'skoy Revolyutsii'') was instituted on 31 October 1967, in time for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. It was conferred upon individuals or groups for services furthering communis ...

(1971) *

Order of the Red Banner of Labour The Order of the Red Banner of Labour () was an order of the Soviet Union established to honour great deeds and services to the Soviet state and society in the fields of production, science, culture, literature, the arts, education, sports ...

(1945) * Jubilee Medal "For Valiant Labour. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" (1970) * Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" (1975) * Jubilee Medal "Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" (1985) * Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" (1945) * Medal "Veteran of Labour" (1984) * Medal "In Commemoration of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow" (1948) *

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 ...

(1957) *

USSR State Prize The USSR State Prize () was one of the Soviet Union’s highest civilian honours, awarded from its establishment in September 1966 until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. It recognised outstanding contributions in the fields of science, mathem ...

(1967, 1984) * Gold Medal. Tsiolkovsky Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1958) * Diploma of them. Paul Tissandier (FAI) (1967) * Honorary Citizen of Korolyov *

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 ...

number 6357, discovered in 1976, was named in Glushko's honour by

Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh ( rus, Никола́й Степа́нович Черны́х, , nʲɪkɐˈlaj sʲtʲɪˈpanəvʲɪtɕ tɕɪrˈnɨx, links=yes; 6 October 1931 – 25 May 2004Казакова, Р.К. Памяти Николая Сте ...

* Crater Glushko on the Moon is named after him * An avenue in the Ukrainian capital

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

is named after Glushko

Bibliography

*V. P. Glushko and G. Langemak, ''Rockets, Their Construction and Application'',

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart ...

. *Glushko, V. P., ''Rocket Engines GDL-OKB'', Novosti Publishing House, Moscow,

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

. *V. P. Glushko, ''Development of Rocketry Space Technology in the USSR'', Novosti Press Publishing House, Moscow (1973)

References

Sources

*
"Rockets and people"
– B. E. Chertok, M: "mechanical engineering", 1999.
English translation
at the NASA website. * "Testing of rocket and space technology - the business of my life" Events and facts - A.I. Ostashev, Korolyov, 200

* "Bank of the Universe" - edited by Boltenko A. C.,

, 2014., publishing house "Phoenix", * A.I. Ostashev, ''Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov - The Genius of the 20th Century'' — 2010 M. of Public Educational Institution of Higher Professional Training MGUL .
Valentin Glushko
/Family history * "S. P. Korolev. Encyclopedia of life and creativity" - edited by C. A. Lopota, S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, RSC Energia. S. P. Korolev, 2014
The official website of the city administration Baikonur - Honorary citizens of Baikonur
* "Space science city Korolev" - Author: Posamentir R. D. M: publisher SP Struchenevsky O. V., * "I look back and have no regrets. " - Author: Abramov, Anatoly Petrovich: publisher "New format" Barnaul, 2022.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Glushko, Valentin 1908 births 1989 deaths Members of the Central Committee of the 25th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Members of the Central Committee of the 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Members of the Central Committee of the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Engineers from Odesa People from Odessky Uyezd Heroes of Socialist Labour Recipients of the Lenin Prize Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the USSR State Prize Early spaceflight scientists Ukrainian aerospace engineers Sharashka inmates Soviet space program personnel Soviet spaceflight pioneers Soviet engineers 20th-century Ukrainian engineers Rocket scientists Sheet metal workers Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic people Employees of RSC Energia Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery Russian scientists