Academician Boris Viktorovich Raushenbach is a Soviet and Russian scientist with a worldwide reputation, one of the founders of cosmonautics in the USSR. As a mechanical physicist, he was not limited to this specialization. Boris Viktorovich owns scientific works in the field of art history, the history of religion, as well as journalistic works on many contemporary issues, which have gained great fame throughout the world. He supervised the movement of the Germans of Russia for the revival of nationality.
Biography of a scientist
Boris Raushenbach was born in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) on January 18, 1905 in a family of Russian Germans.
After school, the young man got a job at an aircraft factory in Leningrad. The specifics of the plant played a role in its future fate: in 1932 he became a student at the Leningrad Institute of Civil Fleet Engineers, and began to get involved in gliding. Passion led to acquaintance with Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, and in the future to cooperation with him in the rocket and space field of Soviet science.
In 1937, Rauschenbach moved to the capital to work in the team of the Rocket Research Institute, led by Sergey Korolev. So Boris Viktorovich Raushenbach, whose photo and name subsequently remained a taboo for the public for a long time, joined the ranks of the founders of Soviet cosmonautics.
Then there was work at a defense plant in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), where in November 1941 the Rocket Research Institute (RNII) was evacuated.
In the spring of 1942, Rauschenbach was arrested and sent to the camp only because he was German. In the labor camp, Boris Viktorovich continues to work on a homing anti-aircraft projectile, and calculations of its flight. This was noticed by the famous aircraft designer Viktor Bolkhovitinov. Thanks to him, in 1945, Rauschenbach was transferred to Nizhny Tagil to the position of special settler.
In 1948, with the help of the new head of the RNII, Mstislav Keldysh, Raushenbach received the post of head of department at NII-1 of the Ministry of Aviation Industry.
In 1955, Rauschenbach transferred to Sergey Korolev, where he was the first in the world to engage in the orientation and movement of spacecraft in space.
Rauschenbach family and its origin
As Boris Viktorovich Raushenbach told, his family appeared in Russia in the 18th century. In 1766, Empress Catherine II organized a campaign to relocate the Germans to Russia. Thanks to such a policy, the ancestor of the scientist Karl-Friedrich Rauschenbach and his wife appeared in the Volga region.
The scientist's father, Viktor Yakovlevich (patronymic came from the name of Grandfather Jacob), was born in the Volga region, a region where at that time a colony was formed for Germans-immigrants. He was educated in Germany, after which he worked as technical manager at the Skorokhod leather factory.
According to the memoirs of Boris Viktorovich, his father was a very kind, all-forgiving man. When the boy grew up, Viktor Yakovlevich in every possible way instilled in him a sense of pride in German origin. At the same time, he did it excellently.
Rauschenbakh’s mother, Leontina Fridrikhovna (in Russian: Fedorovna) Gallik, was from Estonia (Saaremaa island), her Baltic origin was German. She knew four languages - Russian, German, French and Estonian, which subsequently contributed to her employment in Russia in a wealthy Bonn family. After marriage, she becomes a housewife.
Mother was a very strict, but fair educator, although by nature - a cheerful, energetic and cheerful person. She brought up in her children (Boris had a sister Karin-Elena) the ability not to lose her spirit in difficult everyday situations, which helped them in the future. Boris Rauschenbach, whose biography was full of such situations, was able to worthily live his vibrant life.
Boris Rauschenbach at the age of fifteen is losing his father: he dies at the age of sixty from heart failure.
Mother died after the war. Boris experienced the loss of his mother very hard, evidence of this is his letters to his sister, which she kept.
Personal life
Boris Viktorovich Raushenbakh met his fate, Vera Mikhailovna, in Moscow, where he moved in 1937, since the shipbuilding and marine industries in Leningrad did not interest him. At that time, a wave of arrests was rolling across the country, and the German Rauschenbach could easily end up in camps. These factors prompted the young scientist to move to the capital, where no one knew him.
Soon, the girl Vera was hooked up to Boris in the apartment where he lived with his comrades. Vera Mikhailovna was born in Kramatorsk (Ukraine). I came to Moscow to study. Before sharing, she lived with her uncle, who held a high post. However, on May 19 he was arrested, then shot, and the girl was evicted. So Vera ended up in the apartment where Rauschenbach lived.
Young people got married on the eve of the war, May 24, 1941. According to the memoirs of Rauschenbach himself, their registration was exactly described in "12 chairs" by Ilf and Petrov. It was funny ... Since that time, they have not parted, even when Boris Viktorovich was in a labor camp (his wife often visited him).
According to Boris Viktorovich Raushenbach, personal life was successful, despite the troubles of life. They have wonderful children and grandchildren. It was surprising to some that for so many years he had Vera Mikhailovna - the only wife.
Way to space
As a scientist, Raushenbakh Boris Viktorovich proved himself at the Leningrad Aviation Plant No. 23, where he was engaged in the construction and testing of gliders. The work contributed to the writing of the first scientific articles, the topic of which was the longitudinal stability of tailless aircraft. Boris Raushenbakh was engaged in the same topic at the Korolev Research Institute, only now this work related to cruise missiles.
In 1938, the project was closed due to the arrest of Korolev, and Rauschenbach redirected to jet engines, the theory of their combustion.
The Gulag did not become an obstacle for the scientist: in the camp he was working on a homing anti-aircraft projectile, which in the future helped him to leave the camp, become a special settler and continue his work for the RNII.
In 1948, thanks to the new leader of the Rocket Research Institute, Mstislav Keldysh, Raushenbach returned to Moscow, where he was engaged in direct-flow engines at the NII-1, namely, vibration combustion and acoustic vibrations in this type of engine.
In 1955, Boris Viktorovich went to work with the Queen, where he, as a scientist, had a unique opportunity - for the first time in the world to carry out work related to the orientation and movement of vehicles in space. Subsequently, thanks to his work, a photograph was taken of the back of the moon by the Soviet spacecraft Luna-3. In 1960, the merit of Rauschenbach was awarded the Lenin Prize.
In 1958, Boris Viktorovich defended his doctoral dissertation (the candidate was defended in 1948).
It took the scientist less than ten years to implement the flight orientation systems of the interplanetary stations Venera, Mars, Probe, and spacecraft in automatic and manual mode.
Raushenbakh Boris Viktorovich, whose biography was firmly connected with space, also took an active part in the preparation and implementation of the flight of the first cosmonaut of the planet Yuri Gagarin.
In 1966, Boris Viktorovich was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (AN), and twenty years later he became a full member of the Academy of Sciences.
Iconography and Rauschenbach
Once, a scientist jokingly said that he cannot deal with a scientific topic if more than a dozen other scientists are already working on it. And in parallel with his work in space, he began to be interested in everything that was fraught with something new, not yet known, for example, art, iconography.
Boris Rauschenbach, whose passion for history manifested as a child, liked to travel a lot, especially in cities with ancient history. Gradually, but thoroughly in the scientist, interest in icons began to appear. The fact is that he was confused by the way of transferring space into them, called the “reverse perspective”, illogical and contrary to the known rules of photography.
Interest in the reverse perspective was also associated with solving the problems of docking vehicles in space.
The scientist began to explore this phenomenon. At the same time, he took into account the work of the eyes, the brain. To do this, he had to make a mathematical description of brain activity. As a result, Rauschenbach came to the conclusion that all these oddities of icons are natural and inevitable.
According to Boris Viktorovich Rauschenbach, iconography represents a different reality than the one that a person sees due to a certain arrangement of the eyes. As a result, the icon makes us believe that in reality the world is much more perfect and better.
Rauschenbach was sure that it was impossible to understand the icons without knowing theology. And he began to study theology, even wrote something in this area, in particular about the Trinity (“The Logic of the Trinity”).
The road to Orthodoxy
Boris Raushenbach, when baptized in 1915, was recorded according to his father’s faith as a reformist. At that time, about 20% of Russian Germans belonged to this faith.
It should be noted that the reforms, unlike the Lutherans, do not recognize the icons, do not use the sign of the cross. But later, by decrees of emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I, the reformates and Lutherans were united into one church, and Boris went with his mother to the Lutheran church, although there was also a Reformed church in the city. However, for unknown reasons, Rauschenbach did not become a member of the Reformed Church, although he respected her and preserved her image.
Boris Viktorovich felt a craving for religion after the camp. He began to attend an Orthodox church, took out the appropriate literature, began to monitor the services in the church, but the baptism took place only shortly before his death.
Rauschenbach recalled that with the successful development of his system during the launch of the next spacecraft, he always got up and made the sign of the Cross.
During the ceremonial receptions in the Kremlin on the occasion of the launch of the first spacecraft, Boris Viktorovich was the only person present who approached the invited representatives of the Orthodox Church, which, of course, did not fit into the protocol of the event.
Raushenbakh Boris Viktorovich, whose books and articles were widely distributed, did not share in them the existing systems of cognition of the world - religious and scientific. He believed that their synthesis had matured.
In 1987, in the journal "Communist" academician Rauschenbach published an article dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia. In it, the scientist pointed out the significance of this event for the Russian state. The August issue of "Communist" was instantly sold out, even at the kiosk of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
A few years later, another academician work comes out - “The Logic of Trinity”. The article caused a certain reaction, the echoes of which are still heard.
Rauschenbach about the Trinity
Boris Rauschenbach about the Trinity had his own judgment, which he cites in the book “The Logic of the Trinity”. In his opinion, the church in its teaching gave an impeccably correct solution to the problems it faced - an expression of God simultaneously in the form of a triad and a monad.
The scholar draws attention to the fact that the modern exposition of the foundations of the Orthodox faith looks like a departure from the creed, since it says that in the Trinity every person is God. Prayers also speak of this.
Boris Rauschenbach, whose “Logic of Trinity” is an attempt to understand the discussion of Father Florensky and E.N. Trubetskoy about the trinity of God, approaches this from the standpoint of science. It should be noted that the scientist, even under Soviet rule, began to be interested in theological subjects, despite militant atheism that reigned in those years.
He wonders if it is possible to directly accept the concepts of the creed given by Father Florensky, but to tie them to a certain logical model. If this is possible, then the person will believe in God, and not in the existing absurdities, although not devoid of some logic.
Surprisingly, Rauschenbach found a mathematical model explaining the logic of the creed, its trinitarian dogma. This model turned out to be a vector and its three components in a three-dimensional coordinate system.
The problem was solved: the doctrine of trinity (Trinity) began to conform to formal logic. This event can be compared to a bomb explosion. Of course, the “Logic of Trinity” is fundamental, but even it did not put an end to the knowledge of God, since knowledge of God is essentially infinite.
Citizen of his country
Raushenbakh Boris Viktorovich, books whose articles were often riddled with anxiety for the fate of his country and the whole world, could not calmly watch what was happening around him. Today's poverty of the Russian people, the poverty of science caused him pain and internal indignation. He did not understand the lack of funds from the state to finance education, science, while in the country there was an overt enrichment of a certain category of people.
The Gaidar “shock therapy” for Boris Viktorovich, the highest professional in science, art, economics, became an example of a lack of professionalism in the country's leadership. Rauschenbach believed that Russia should look for a way out of the impasse, minimally painful for the Russians.
"Dark Thoughts" by Rauschenbach
In his last article, Gloomy Thoughts, Boris Rauschenbach reflects on the future of all mankind, manifesting himself as not only a citizen of Russia, but also a citizen of the entire planet Earth.
The title of the article itself speaks of the nature of these reflections. In it, Rauschenbach separates the concept of democracy from the democratic chatter that prevails in the modern world. And for Russia, he makes no exception.
The author draws attention to the fact that all the greatest crimes were committed under democratic slogans, while democratic talkers often did not understand by their stupidity that they represent the interests of forces far from the people.
In his work, the academician suggests returning to traditional human values, namely the family, the community. He believes that the responsibilities of people should be higher than their rights. Rauschenbach believed that only this path would save humanity from death. No other is given. In addition, the scientist believes that a government of the entire planet should be created, the policy of which will be tough, but highly professional.
Throughout the past century, according to Rauschenbach, humanity has moved in the opposite direction, remaking itself and nature. And, unfortunately, there are very few personalities who can open people's eyes to the mistakes of the past and present, which so far have no end in sight.
Conclusion
Boris Rauschenbach passed away on March 27, 2001. His grave is located at the Novodevichy cemetery.
The scientist died on the Day of the Theodore Icon of the Mother of God. The funeral service took place in the St. Nicholas-Kuznetsk church. Such was the will of an outstanding Soviet and Russian scientist.
In his face, humanity has lost one of its geniuses, a citizen of the planet Earth.
The titles and awards speak of the value of the scientist's contribution to the science and culture of Russia. Rauschenbach was a full member of three academies (RAS, the International Academy of Astronautics and the Tsiolkovsky Academy of Cosmonautics). He was awarded the Lenin and Demidov Prizes, as well as the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. Led the Scientific Council "History of World Culture" of the Russian Academy of Sciences.