Sergei Korolev spacecraft designs. Handwritten notes and early spacecraft designs by the Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer Sergei Pavlovich Korolov (1907-1966). Korolyov was the chief Soviet rocket designer in the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. He worked on several spacecraft including the Vostok 1 used by Gagarin, and is considered by many as the father of practical astronautics. Photographed in Korolev's house, which is now a museum, in Moscow, Russia.