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The Making of a Soviet Scientist: My Adventures in Nuclear Fusion and Space from Stalin to Star Wars
The critically acclaimed memoir that rips the curtain of secrecy off the world of Soviet science
"Revelations and insights about the Soviet space program . . . It is good that such a wise man will live among us for a while." --The New York Times
"A rare, valuable, insider's look at the Soviet military industrial machine."--Publishers Weekly
"I found it fascinating . . . important not only to scientists, but also for those who fashion government politics generally."--Herman Feshbach Institute Professor Emeritus Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"A real contribution to the literature of the space age."--Chicago Sun-Times
"This is a powerful yet charming account of the Soviet Union's scientific, space, and military enterprise, characterized by Sagdeev's frank and insightful style mixed with delightful humor and humanity."--Charles H. Townes Nobel Laureate in Physics University of California, Berkeley
"For all who are interested in the interaction of science and society, and in the nature of the Soviet Union as seen by a keen observer who was at the same time an 'insider' and a dedicated humanist, this book is highly recommended." --Physics Today
"Revelations and insights about the Soviet space program . . . It is good that such a wise man will live among us for a while." --The New York Times
"A rare, valuable, insider's look at the Soviet military industrial machine."--Publishers Weekly
"I found it fascinating . . . important not only to scientists, but also for those who fashion government politics generally."--Herman Feshbach Institute Professor Emeritus Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"A real contribution to the literature of the space age."--Chicago Sun-Times
"This is a powerful yet charming account of the Soviet Union's scientific, space, and military enterprise, characterized by Sagdeev's frank and insightful style mixed with delightful humor and humanity."--Charles H. Townes Nobel Laureate in Physics University of California, Berkeley
"For all who are interested in the interaction of science and society, and in the nature of the Soviet Union as seen by a keen observer who was at the same time an 'insider' and a dedicated humanist, this book is highly recommended." --Physics Today
339 pages, Hardcover
First published March 31, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 23, 2025
PHENOMENAL..... WHENCE COMETH SUCH ANOTHER???
November 9, 2025
An excellent memoir / autobiography of one of the leading Soviet scientists of the late 1970s and 1980s. He was heavily involved in the failed Soviet Mars missions and thoroughly explains the misfortunes their two space probes faced when approaching the planet and its two moons. One cannot but feel sorry for it.
He also explains the collaboration with the other side, the US scientists, namely dr. Sagan.
The book deals with the time when there was so much hope for things to get better in the world, yet we somehow managed to steer away into a completely blind alley.
He also explains the collaboration with the other side, the US scientists, namely dr. Sagan.
The book deals with the time when there was so much hope for things to get better in the world, yet we somehow managed to steer away into a completely blind alley.
December 9, 2012
Roald Sagdeev was born in 1932 in Moscow to Tatar Communist parents who named him after the polar explorer Roald Amundsen. When Sagdeev was 4, his family moved to the Tatar Autonomous Republic, which was where he graduated from high school. After that he studied at the Department of Physics of Moscow State University. After graduating, Sagdeev went on to work at the Kurchatov Institute, the Soviet equivalent of Los Alamos, on plasma physics, where he interacted with many famous Soviet scientists such as Igor Kurchatov and Lev Artsimovich; Sagdeev writes a great deal about them; he even named his son, who was born a few days after Kurchatov's death, after Kurchatov. In the 1960s, Sagdeev worked on nuclear fusion using tokamaks in Novosibirsk, and produced outstanding scientific work, and in 1968 was elected a full member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In 1973, at rocket scientist Mstislav Keldysh's suggestion, Sagdeev became the director of the Space Research Institute, which represented the Academy in the Soviet space establishment. It was this institute that sent unmanned Soviet probes to Mars, Venus, Halley's Comet and Phobos. It also arranged the Soyuz-Apollo mission, "the world's most expensive handshake" in honor of the policy of detente between the two Cold War superpowers. In the 1980s Sagdeev advised Gorbachev during arms-control negotiations.
This book has a great deal of insider information about Soviet nuclear science, space program and arms control, but as always with such specialized books, only someone more familiar with the topics could place this information in proper context. I was impressed with Sagdeev's version of the decision to make the Soviet Space Shuttle clone Buran. The final argument was made by Dmitry Ustinov, the Soviet Minister of Defense: the Americans are a pragmatic people; if they are spending massive sums of money on the shuttle, they must see something we do not; we must be ready for that eventuality, whatever it is. Sagdeev also thinks that Boris Babayan, the designer of the Soviet Elbrus-2 supercomputer, did not deserve his Lenin Prize, and that his creation was not really a supercomputer. Sagdeev's old friend atomic-bomb designer Yuli Khariton told him that the Elbrus-2 was "not a supercomputer at all." Strange: the Elbrus-2 was about 15 times slower than the Cray-2, which came out at about the same time, but this does not make it not a supercomputer. During the Apollo-Soyuz mission, the authorities ordered all Soviet space workers, from the Baikonur launch complex to the Kaliningrad mission control center, to tell the Americans that they reported to Sagdeev's Institute of Space Research; Sagdeev says that he felt like Marquis de Carabas in Charles Perrault's "Puss in Boots".
Overall, this book reads like supporting material for Francis Spufford's Red Plenty, and the author looks like a composite of several characters of that book.
This book has a great deal of insider information about Soviet nuclear science, space program and arms control, but as always with such specialized books, only someone more familiar with the topics could place this information in proper context. I was impressed with Sagdeev's version of the decision to make the Soviet Space Shuttle clone Buran. The final argument was made by Dmitry Ustinov, the Soviet Minister of Defense: the Americans are a pragmatic people; if they are spending massive sums of money on the shuttle, they must see something we do not; we must be ready for that eventuality, whatever it is. Sagdeev also thinks that Boris Babayan, the designer of the Soviet Elbrus-2 supercomputer, did not deserve his Lenin Prize, and that his creation was not really a supercomputer. Sagdeev's old friend atomic-bomb designer Yuli Khariton told him that the Elbrus-2 was "not a supercomputer at all." Strange: the Elbrus-2 was about 15 times slower than the Cray-2, which came out at about the same time, but this does not make it not a supercomputer. During the Apollo-Soyuz mission, the authorities ordered all Soviet space workers, from the Baikonur launch complex to the Kaliningrad mission control center, to tell the Americans that they reported to Sagdeev's Institute of Space Research; Sagdeev says that he felt like Marquis de Carabas in Charles Perrault's "Puss in Boots".
Overall, this book reads like supporting material for Francis Spufford's Red Plenty, and the author looks like a composite of several characters of that book.
July 10, 2014
Sagdeev's autobiography is a warm, enjoyable and surprising window into the history of Soviet science, and indirectly of the Soviet Union itself. Viewing this history from the perspective of a scientist provides an accessibility to the material, and Sagdeev's dry humor keeps it alive.
Most interesting were the chapters on the Soviet (scientific) space program, whose "issues" are remarkably similar to those of the US civil space program, both past and present. Whether in the interplay between aerospace industry and national space policy (and programs), competition between human and robotic spaceflight, the role of civil space in international diplomacy, the crushing micromanagement of programs by bureaucracies at the top, the development of large programs before the identification of mission requirements, or the nepotistic promotion of technological "miracle cures" which lack technical credibility or community endorsement to senior officials, Sagdeev's Soviet civil space program will sound hauntingly familiar to those familiar with the U.S. program.
Sagdeev's balancing act as "forward and alternative thinker", yet not full blown Sakharov dissident, also provides a unique vantage into exactly how far the Soviet system could be challenged from within.
The only weakness of this book is that it draws to a somewhat hurried conclusion which disrupts an otherwise strong and fairly linear narrative through most decades of the 20th century. The final chapters cover interesting material but lose focus and flow, regrettable as they cover critical periods in the 1980s as the Soviet Union drew to a close.
Overall, I found this book to be a surprising and welcome "find" which should be of interest to for either scientifically or historically minded readers.
Most interesting were the chapters on the Soviet (scientific) space program, whose "issues" are remarkably similar to those of the US civil space program, both past and present. Whether in the interplay between aerospace industry and national space policy (and programs), competition between human and robotic spaceflight, the role of civil space in international diplomacy, the crushing micromanagement of programs by bureaucracies at the top, the development of large programs before the identification of mission requirements, or the nepotistic promotion of technological "miracle cures" which lack technical credibility or community endorsement to senior officials, Sagdeev's Soviet civil space program will sound hauntingly familiar to those familiar with the U.S. program.
Sagdeev's balancing act as "forward and alternative thinker", yet not full blown Sakharov dissident, also provides a unique vantage into exactly how far the Soviet system could be challenged from within.
The only weakness of this book is that it draws to a somewhat hurried conclusion which disrupts an otherwise strong and fairly linear narrative through most decades of the 20th century. The final chapters cover interesting material but lose focus and flow, regrettable as they cover critical periods in the 1980s as the Soviet Union drew to a close.
Overall, I found this book to be a surprising and welcome "find" which should be of interest to for either scientifically or historically minded readers.
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March 23, 2010Do u know why we struggle to develop while others match on? follow the steps of how soviets taught science and mathematics to their scientists at the height of the cold war
November 7, 2012
I've read a lot of books about soviet design bureaus, but this one is may be the honest one of them all.
August 6, 2015
Egetabu ekiya kia amang'ana ebiro, gekooroki obobarimo bwarenge ase ense ya USSR chingaki chioboraai bweegekuba abwo kare.
April 2, 2017
a great autobiography, a lot of insight stories about the Soviet space program and firsthand experiences with Korolyov, Glushko, Sakharov and the likes.
April 14, 2017
Sagdeev provides an illuminary voice to the state of science in the previous Soviet Union and brings a human image to the men and women in science at the time. Remarkably, they were in many ways similar to the scientists of the West, curious and wanting the freedom to pursue scientific goals. Sagdeev also recounts the incredible bureacracy in the Soviet system and the perversion of science, specifically space exploration, for political and military gains that only intensified as the communist 'experiment' disintegrated in 1991. Overall, an interesting, but at times slow moving insight.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews