Valentin Petrovich Glushko (Russian and Ukrainian: Валентин Петрович Глушко; born 2 September 1908 in Odessa, Russian Empire – 10 January 1989) was a Soviet engineer, and one of the three principal Soviet "Chief Designers" (along with Vladimir Chelomei and Sergey Korolev) of spacecraft and rockets during the Soviet/American Space Race.
At the age of thirteen he became interested in aeronautics after reading novels by Jules Verne. He is known to h...
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Valentin Petrovich Glushko (Russian and Ukrainian: Валентин Петрович Глушко; born 2 September 1908 in Odessa, Russian Empire – 10 January 1989) was a Soviet engineer, and one of the three principal Soviet "Chief Designers" (along with Vladimir Chelomei and Sergey Korolev) of spacecraft and rockets during the Soviet/American Space Race.
At the age of thirteen he became interested in aeronautics after reading novels by Jules Verne. He is known to have written a letter to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1923. He studied at an Odessa trade school, where he learned to be a sheet metal 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 1924-25 he wrote articles concerning the exploration of the Moon, as well as the...
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