Sergei Korolev

Hello, my name is Sergei. I was born a long, long time ago, in the year 1907. When I was a little boy, I loved to look up at the big, blue sky. I dreamed of flying with the birds. I did not have real airplanes to play with, so I built my own toy ones called gliders. I would watch them soar through the air and pretend I was flying with them, all the way up to the clouds.

When I grew up, I became an engineer, which is someone who builds amazing things. My dream of flying came true in a very big way. I got to design and build giant rockets. They were so tall and powerful. In 1957, my team and I sent the very first satellite into space. It was a little metal ball called Sputnik, and it orbited the Earth, going beep-beep-beep. A few years later, in 1961, we did something even more amazing. We helped a brave man named Yuri Gagarin become the very first person to travel into space and see our beautiful world from high above.

I spent my whole life helping people reach for the stars. I loved watching my rockets blast off. They opened up a new path for people to explore the universe. I lived to be 59 years old. Today, people remember me for helping start the wonderful journey into space. Every time you see a rocket launch or look at pictures of astronauts, you can think of my dream that started with a little boy who just wanted to fly.