Activities and affiliations

Science and technology Affiliation unconfirmed 1936–2012 → Exile 1990 · natural causes

“China’s Sakharov”, the astrophysicist known for the 1986 student protests and his 1989 refuge in the US embassy

Astrophysicist and Chinese dissident who argued that repression of thought damaged both science and society.

An astrophysicist from Beijing, labelled a rightist in 1957 and later rehabilitated, he became vice-president of the University of Science and Technology of China. In 1986 lectures he openly questioned Marxism’s scientific authority and party leadership, was named the spiritual guide of that winter’s student protests, and in 1987 was expelled from the party — a pretext for Hu Yaobang’s fall. In January 1989 he wrote an open letter to Deng Xiaoping asking for Wei Jingsheng’s release; after the crackdown of 4 June he and his wife Li Shuxian took refuge in the US embassy for thirteen months before being allowed to leave. He taught at the University of Arizona and died in 2012.

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions 1937–

Tereshkova's backup cosmonaut, the physically strongest candidate Kamanin judged too reserved for the spotlight

"We decided it was worth trying": after she and her fiancé, skydiving instructor Sergey Kiselev, discussed the secret-police recruitment offer at their favorite café until closing time.

A mechanical engineer and nationally ranked parachutist, she was one of five women selected in 1962 for the Soviet Union's first female cosmonaut group. She trained as Valentina Tereshkova's primary backup for the Vostok-6 flight; Nikolai Kamanin rated her the best physically among the candidates but judged her too introverted for the worldwide propaganda role the first woman in space would have to play. Later she prepared with Valentina Ponomaryova for what would have been the first all-female spacewalk on Voskhod, but the mission was cancelled; after the women's group disbanded in 1969, she spent her career as a researcher at the Cosmonaut Training Center and earned a Candidate of Psychological Sciences degree.

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions 1937–

The chief engineer who refused to believe the reactor was destroyed and kept pumping water into its ruins

He smashed his glasses and cut his wrists with the shards, forcing the court to postpone his trial.

Nikolai Fomin was a Soviet nuclear engineer who joined the Chernobyl plant in 1972 and rose to chief engineer in 1981. Arriving at the plant shortly after the April 26, 1986 explosion, he refused to accept reports that the reactor was destroyed and ordered water to be pumped into the wreckage of Unit 4 for hours, while sending a subordinate on a reconnaissance mission that delivered a fatal radiation dose. Arrested after the disaster, he was sentenced to 10 years but was released early after a pre-trial suicide attempt and subsequent confinement in a psychiatric hospital; he later worked at the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant before retiring.

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions 1937–

The textile-worker 'Chaika,' first woman in space

At the launch pad: "Hey, sky! Take off your hat!" — quoting Mayakovsky, June 16, 1963.

The first woman to fly solo in space: aboard Vostok-6 in 1963, the textile-worker 'Chaika' orbited Earth 49 times over 71 hours alone, a symbol of proletarian women's liberation through science. Later became the first woman general in Russian military history.

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions 1951–1986 ✕ Killed in explosion

The first victim of Chernobyl, standing in the pump hall when the reactor exploded, his body never recovered

Seconds before the explosion, he called a fellow pump operator: "I need to recharge the lower feed for 22… Okay, come on. So it's shortened, one sec…" Those were his last words.

Born in Kropyvnia, Kyiv Oblast, he began working at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1973 and became a senior operator of the main circulation pumps (GCN) in the reactor shop of Unit 4. On the night of 26 April 1986, during a safety test, he was in the northern GCN pump hall when two explosions ripped through the reactor building; he was killed instantly, buried under the debris. His body was never recovered and is presumed entombed inside the Sarcophagus; a memorial plaque marks the dividing wall between Units 3 and 4.

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions 1951–1986 ✕ Accidental death

A commissioning engineer caught in the Chernobyl disaster

Colleagues carried him from the ruined instrument room, but he never regained consciousness and died at 6 a.m. in the Pripyat hospital.

Vladimir Shashenok was a technician who commissioned and tested instrumentation and automation systems at nuclear power plants. While taking part in tests at Chernobyl Unit 4, he suffered spinal and rib fractures and severe thermal and radiation burns in the explosion; colleagues rescued him and carried him to the Pripyat hospital, where he died without regaining consciousness. He was one of the two people who died on the day of the disaster, marking how technical work at the plant placed ordinary workers at its immediate front line.

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions 1953–1986 ○ Radiation exposure

Soviet nuclear engineer and Unit 4 shift supervisor who directed the response and died of radiation exposure

"I did everything correctly. I don't understand why it happened."

A Soviet nuclear engineer born in Novosibirsk, he graduated from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute in 1976, joined the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in September 1979 and became shift supervisor of Reactor Unit 4 on 10 July 1984. During the safety test on the night of 26 April 1986 he gave the order to shut down the reactor and the AZ-5 button was pressed at 01:23:39, though witness testimony differs on who physically pressed it. He remained at Unit 4 until about 8 a.m., calling the fire brigade and ambulance and having feedwater valves opened by hand, and absorbed a lethal dose of over 15 Gy. He died of acute radiation syndrome in Moscow Hospital No. 6 on 11 May 1986, aged 33, with some English-language sources recording 10 May; he was posthumously awarded the 3rd-degree Order For Courage in 2008.

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions 1960–1986 ✕ Radiation exposure

The 25-year-old senior reactor control engineer who pressed the AZ-5 button at Chernobyl's Unit 4

While studying control-rod documentation, Toptunov told his friend Sasha Korol that 'in certain circumstances, the rods could accelerate rather than slow the reaction': three months later, that insight became reality under his own finger on the AZ-5 button.

Leonid Toptunov was the Senior Reactor Control Engineer (SIUR) at Chernobyl's Unit 4, a 25-year-old technician at the control panel during the night of the 26 April 1986 disaster. Only three months into independent duty and facing his first shutdown, he pressed the AZ-5 emergency shutdown button under pressure from deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov, but a design flaw in the RBMK control rods caused a reactivity surge that triggered the explosion; he returned to the control room afterward to manually open water supply valves, absorbing a lethal 1,300 rem before dying in a Moscow hospital on 14 May.

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions 1962–1986 ✕ Acute radiation syndrome

The first firefighter at Chernobyl, who climbed onto the roof of Unit 3 without being told of the radioactive danger

'Everything turned out okay. We will live until we're a hundred'... from a letter to his wife, written from his Moscow hospital bed as radiation destroyed his body.

Volodymyr Pravyk was a Soviet firefighter and lieutenant in the MVD who commanded the Third Watch of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant's Fire Brigade No. 2 (ВПЧ-2). When Reactor 4 exploded on 26 April 1986, his unit was first to respond: within two minutes Pravyk was on the scene, and at 01:56 he led a team onto the roof of Unit 3 to prevent the fire from spreading to the still-operational reactor, working in fields later estimated at over 6,000 roentgens per hour. He received the highest confirmed radiation dose of any Chernobyl victim, 1,520 REM (nearly triple a lethal dose), and died of acute radiation syndrome in Moscow on 11 May 1986, never having been told of the radioactive danger.

Science and technology Soviet Union state institutions

The chief designer of the Volga inflatable airlock that made Leonov's spacewalk possible

On 18 March 1965, Alexei Leonov opened the hatch of the Volga airlock after it had inflated in orbit and stepped into space.

Boris Mikhailov was the chief designer at Engineering Plant 918 (later NPO Zvezda) in Tomilino near Moscow, where in mid-1964 he led the team that designed, built, and tested the Volga inflatable airlock in just nine months. A metal airlock would not fit the Voskhod spacecraft, so his flexible structure, folded for launch and inflated on orbit, was the only solution. On 18 March 1965, Alexei Leonov walked into space through this airlock in humanity's first spacewalk.