In 1966, the Soviet chief designer behind Sputnik, Gagarin's flight, and the entire early space program died during routine surgery, and only then did the world learn his name was Sergei Korolev — for a decade Moscow had referred to him in print only as the Chief Designer, because the KGB feared the CIA would have him killed

In 1966, the Soviet chief designer behind Sputnik, Gagarin's flight, and the entire early space program died during routine surgery, and only then did the world learn his name was Sergei Korolev — for a decade Moscow had referred to him in print only as the Chief Designer, because the KGB feared the CIA would have him killed

On 14 January 1966, a 59-year-old man died on an operating table at a Moscow hospital during what had been scheduled as a routine procedure to remove a bleeding polyp from his intestine. Two days later, the Soviet newspaper Pravda ran an obituary with a photograph, and hundreds of millions of readers learned, for the first time, the name of the man who had built Sputnik, launched Yuri Gagarin, and beaten the United States to almost every early m…