Vladimir Barmin

Vladimir Barmin was a Soviet engineer who designed the Soviet Union's first rocket launch complexes, most notably Site 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, known as Gagarin's Start, along with the surrounding launch infrastructure built for the R-7 rocket family that carried Sputnik and every early Soviet crewed mission into orbit. He trained originally in mechanical engineering with a specialty in thermodynamics and refrigeration, and after a research trip to the United States in the mid-1930s helped establish Soviet industrial compressor and refrigeration plants before the Second World War redirected his career toward weapons development, including rocket propellants and the Katyusha rocket launcher system. From the postwar period onward he dedicated the remainder of his career to designing space launch facilities at Baikonur, work that made him one of the Soviet space program's principal chief designers alongside figures such as Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko, though like many senior Soviet space officials his role was not publicly disclosed for decades. He was named a Hero of Socialist Labour and received the Lenin Prize and multiple USSR State Prizes; an asteroid, 22254 Vladbarmin, is named in his honor.