Word: sagdeyev
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...left their imprint on humanity: leaders and saints. Sakharov was in the category of saints." One mournful colleague in Moscow summoned up a more scientific metaphor. "We've lost our moral compass -- the compass that showed us the way during these decisive years of perestroika," said space scientist Roald Sagdeyev. "He taught us to use simple words like conscience and humanity...
...procedure by which their slate of candidates was chosen had been widely criticized as both undemocratic and politically biased. In a series of "pre-electoral" meetings, the academy's ruling presidium had narrowed a list of 121 nominees to 23, eliminating such proponents for reform as space scientist Roald Sagdeyev and human-rights activist Andrei Sakharov...
...eastward, the rocket sent the craft off on an ambitious mission: to scout Mars and probe Phobos, one of its two tiny moons. Far below at the sprawling complex, technicians swarmed over a sister ship that is scheduled to be launched this week on a similar mission. Exulted Roald Sagdeyev, director of the Soviet Space Research Institute: "Now we can go and drink champagne...
Born in Moscow, Sagdeyev, 54, once planned to become a mathematician, like both of his parents. But as a student at Moscow University in the mid-1950s, he switched majors to study physics. "A physicist can still enjoy the beauty of mathematics and have a more intimate interaction with nature," he says. Sagdeyev also took up English, which he calls the "first necessity for a scientist." He passed along his appreciation of the language to his son and daughter, both computer scientists, and to his two small grandchildren...
...Sagdeyev increasingly found traditional Soviet science, influenced heavily by Communist Party politics, stifling. In 1961 he helped found Akademgorodok (Science City), an informal think tank located in the Siberian countryside, away from the intensely political atmosphere of Moscow. Sagdeyev was at first concerned about neglecting his research when he was asked to assume control of the struggling space-science program at IKI in 1973. The position offered a measure of independence (though hardly on a level enjoyed by top NASA scientists), but it was still part of the rigid Soviet scientific bureaucracy. Recalls Sagdeyev: "It meant a big change...