Roald Sagdeev

Roald Zinnurovich Sagdeev ( _ru. Роальд Зиннурович Сагдеев, born 26 December 1932) is a famous Russian expert in plasma physics and former director of the Russian Space Research Institute. _ru. [http://www.1000kzn.ru/article/ru/1313/383/ Biography] ] He was also a science advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev. Sagdeev graduated from Moscow State University. He is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 1989 he has worked in the University of Maryland, College Park. Sagdeev is married to Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of the late American president. He was the recipient of the 2003 Carl Sagan Memorial Award.

Life and work

Early years

Roald Sagdeev is ethnic Tatar. The father of his mother was a secular man teaching mathematics. He was born in Moscow in December 26, 1932, soon after the arrival of his young parents from Tatarstan. The family used to speak Russian at home. Nonetheless, the parents also communicated in Tatar between adults when secrecy was needed. He lived with them until the age of four near the Nikitsky Gates. His father was then a post-graduate student. He spent the following years in Kazan where he graduated from high school. The young Roald was not only a quite outstanding student who was awarded the Silver medal, but also champion of chess for boy of his city. His brother Renad Zinnurovich Sagdeev (Сагдеев Ренад Зиннурович ) was born on December 13, 1941 and would later study Chemistry. He returned to Moscow to study at the Moscow State University. Sagdeev was one of a few Lev Davidovich Landau's students, the best theoretical physicist in the Soviet Union. In the dormitory he lived next to Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev a law student and Raisa Maksimovna Titarenko a sociology student.

As a researcher

In 1955, after graduating from the Faculty of Physics in nuclear science, Doctor in Physics and Mathematics, he worked at the Institute of Atomic Energy as a member of the Controlled Fusion team, with Igor V. Kurchatov as director from 1956 to 1961.

From 1961 until 1970, he worked as head of the Laboratory at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk.

At the age of 35, he was the youngest person ever to be elected as a full Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. [cite web|url=http://www.peoples.ru/science/space/sagdeev/|title =Роальд Сагдеев|publisher= ЛЮДИ|date=2004-12-31|accessmonthday=July 14|accessyear=2008]

From 1970 until 1973, he worked at the Institute of Physics of high temperatures of the USSR Academy of Sciences. His work on the behavior of hot plasma and controlled thermonuclear fusion in both the Institute of Atomic Energy and later at the Institute of Nuclear Physics have won international recognition.

Director of the Space research institute

Upon his return to Moscow, he was appointed director of the Space Research Institute. He will stay at this post from 1973 until 1988. Then the USSR just lost the race for the Moon, with Yuri Gagarin and Sergei Pavlovich Korolev all dead.

There he supervised several research projects such as the Cosmos, Forecast, Intercosmos, Meteor, Astron programs.

He managed or was a principal participant in many space projects including the Venera probes to Venus, the joint Soviet-U.S. Soyuz Apollo Test Project and headed the International Space Project Venus-Halley (Vega) and Phobos projects. [cite web|url=http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missions/sagdeev_interview_010625-1.html|title =Roald Sagdeev: Russia Not Ready for Prime Time |publisher= Space.com|date=2001-06-26|accessmonthday=July 13|accessyear=2008]

He is the author of studies on plasma physics and magnetofluiddynamics. In 1984, he was awarded the most prestigious Lenin Prize for his outstanding achievements in the founding of neoclassical theory of transport processes in toroidal plasma. [cite web|url=http://www.tatar.ru/?DNSID=1fd37f3cc6c1c7c77f81a3d1a4eec492&node_id=1175&id=1934|title =Сагдеев Роальд Зиннурович |publisher= Департамент внешних связей Президента Республики Татарстан|date=2008-07-15|accessmonthday=July 15|accessyear=2008]

Role in politics

As Andropov became the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Sagdeev participated in the work of a think tank with Gorbachev as the head, which was mandated to find scientific justifications for the nuclear disarmament. Later, as Gorbachev became the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, following Reagan's SDI, Strategic Defense Initiative, they advised the Soviet leadership not to worry and not to respond by creating a similar program.

He was awarded the title of "Hero of Socialist Labor" for his role in the international research program of the comet Halley in 1986.

He was elected at the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1987 and worked until 1991 as an adviser on issues related to civil and military space for Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze on summits, which were held in Geneva (1985), Washington (1987) and Moscow (1988).

Sagdeev met Susan Eisenhower a step-grandmother and the twice divorced mother of three daughters in 1987 at a US-USSR forum in New York. She is the granddaughter of the 34th president of the US and a political scientist by profession. They rendezvoused later in Russia, the US and various European countries before they married in 1990. Thus, he moved to live in the US.

After the end of the Cold War

Today, Roald Sagdeev is a distinguished professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park, member of the US National Academy and Royal Scientific Academy of Sweden.

References