The eccentric engineering [Time Out Columnist]

THE NAMES of most of the pioneers of the Space Age are writ reasonably large and rightly celebrated. Even Werner von Braun managed to step out of the shadow of his Nazi past to take his place as one of the men who got us to the Moon. But this was not the case for the American team´s Cold War counterparts in the Soviet Union. The Soviet regime always took the view that its pioneers should remain anonymous during their lifetime, nominally to protect them from enemy agents but also handily ensuring they didn´t get too big for their boots and enabling them to be ´reassigned´ if they did. So while von Braun became known in his lifetime as one of the great rocket men, his counterpart in the Soviet Union remained known even to many in the industry simply as `The Chief Designer´.