American space entrepreneur, Elon Musk, met the son of a lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer, Sergey Korolev, in California. Andrey Korolev visited SpaceX’s facilities in Hawthorne together with his son Pavel, RT reports.
It is noted that Musk is an open fan of the Soviet school of space engineering and repeatedly expressed his admiration with the chief designer Korolev. Last weekend, the US entrepreneur had an opportunity to pay a tribute to the iconic Soviet figure during his relatives’ visit to SpaceX’s facilities in California (the company’s headquarters already have a conference hall named after Sergey Korolev).
Andrey Korolev shared some pictures from the event on his Facebook page and expressed his gratitude to Musk for an “unforgettable” friendly conversation and the “extremely impressive tour”.
It is mentioned that Andrey Korolev is a prominent Moscow surgeon, and was in California for a medical congress. His son Pavel lives in London but flew in for the tour, as did Musk, who resides in Texas since moving out of California last year in a display of displeasure with the state’s Covid-19 restrictions.
“Musk has repeatedly said that he has the deepest respect for the name of Sergey Korolev, and stressed that it should be understood that the achievement of SpaceX corporation is based on the work of titans, among whom is the Soviet general designer,” Andrey Korolev told the Russian newspaper ‘Vzglyad‘.
It is reminded that Korolev’s legacy is cherished in modern Russia: the entire city northeast of Moscow is named after him, the same as the leading Russian rocket builder Energia, the successor to Korolev’s rocketry lab, the full name of which is the Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation.
Ru-Main, 10.09.2021
