October 3, a presentation of a collection of reminiscences of veterans of the Baikonur Cosmodrome "Coast of the universe" was held at the exhibition hall of the Section of Aviation and Astronautics named after I.Sikorsky of State Politechnic Museum NTUU "KPI".
Place for its implementation was chosen surprisingly successful. Such kind of the halls are ideal for presentation of such publications. "Coast of the Universe" is a collective work of the veterans of Baikonur - the first spaceport where the space age was launched. The book was edited and compiled by the head of the Section of History of Aviation and Astronautics of I.Sikorsky Alexander Boltenko, who is also the author of one of the essays published in this smart volume.
October 4, the date of presentation was also not accidental - 57 years ago the first artificial satellite of the Earth was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It was on this day ten years ago, the International Federation of Cosmonautics Day announced the beginning of the space age for humanity. Therefore, it is symbolic that all this activity was carried out directly under suspended from the ceiling silver sattelite - a real, real (!) doubler of the world's first artificial satellite "Sputnik-1", which was launched into Earth orbit.
The presentation of the book and the celebration of the 57th anniversary of the launch of the first artificial satellite of the Earth was attended by the chairman of the Veterans Council Strategic Missile Forces of Ukraine, Major-General Nikolai Filatov, executive director of Aerospace Society of Ukraine Valery Frolov, a spokesman for DB "South" in Kiev Nikolay Mitrahov, veteran World War II, a member of the Victory Day parade, a veteran of the Strategic Missile Forces Nikolai Tsarev, veterans of Baikonur and members NTUU "KPI". The Vice-Rector of NTUU "KPI" for scientific work NASU academician Mikhail Il'chenko was a Chairman of the meeting.
In the book, "The Coast of the Universe" there are a lot of very interesting materials, which were written not by professional journalists or writers, but by the people who were directly involved in space programs and worked side by side with the individuals whose names are written with golden letters in the history of mankind. For all the authors Baikonur is not just a dot on the map, but it is their youth and a large part of their life. Their stories present the "living history", which now defines one of the main trends in the development of modern historiography.At the same time, the publication is constructed in such a way that a strictly historical structure is not lost behind the diversity of personal memories. It is opened by the famous "Plan Tsiolkovsky" and thorough essay winner of the State Prize of the USSR, the former long-term chairman of the Federation of Cosmonautics of Ukraine, Major-General Anatoly Zavalishin "The first historic flight Yu .A.Gagarin".
The book will certainly be useful to historians of science and technology, as well as anyone interested in the history of space exploration.