Veterans of the Cosmos: A Unique Project on the History of Soviet Cosmonautics

摘要

This article will encompass a detailed account on a novel approach towards the history of Soviet cosmonautics, oral history of space veterans, and a celebration of the first 50 years of space exploration. More than 1.5 million citizens of Israel emigrated from the Soviet Union since 1990. Among them are many scientists, engineers, scholars and technicians who worked on various Soviet space programs. The initiative was to find ex-Soviet space experts, interview them for an oral history documentation and research, and to conduct an international space conference related to the first 50 years of the Space Age, a conference in which the space veterans will receive an honorary diploma on behalf of the organizers of the event. This chapter will portray the key issues of the project.