Prelude before Tsiolkovskii: Russian rocketry from Peter the Great to the nineteenth century -- Introduction envisioning the cosmos: K. E. Tsiolkovskii, Russian public culture, and the mythology of Soviet cosmonautics, 1857-1964 -- Beginnings, teaching science in a provincial context: Tsiolkovskii's years in the Russian locale, 1857-1917 -- Dreaming of the cosmos: early scientific and technical experimentation in pre-1917 Kaluga, Russia -- Getting serious about rocket flight in revolutionary Russia, 1917-1928 -- Cross-fertilizing futuristic literary genres: utopian science fiction or didactic popular technology in revolutionary Russia, 1890-1928 -- Stalin, Khrushchev, and the spaceman: technology, Soviet national identity, and the memorialization of a local hero in the dawn of Sputnik, 1928-1957 -- Epilogue and conclusion: chudo (wonder) or chudak (crank), the legacy of Tsiolkovskii in the Khrushchev era and beyond 1964. |