The New England Air Museum, the largest aviation museum in the Northeastern United States is pleased to announce that it will host a Speaker Program led by Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, son of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev on Saturday, April 28th at 6:30 P.M.
The topic of Dr. Khrushchev’s talk will be the “Space Race” – a competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Dr. Khrushchev was a youngster when his father became Premier of the Soviet Union, a position he held from 1957-1964. During that time, the Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national security and symbolic of technological and ideological superiority.
Dr. Khrushchev is currently a Senior Fellow at the Brown University Watson Institute for International Studies. An historian of the Cold War, one of his interests is the history of Soviet missiles and space development, in which he himself played an active role from 1958-1968. He was instrumental in the development of the Proton Rocket (UR-500) the world’s largest space booster which first went into service in 1965 and is still in use, deploying satellites and serving the International Space Station.
The lecture at the Air Museum will begin at 6:30 PM with the doors to the Museum to open at 6:00 P.M. Following the talk, one of Dr. Khrushchev’s books will be available for purchase and autographing at a cost of $32 each, cash only. The book title is Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower. Tickets to the event cost $35 for Museum members and $50 for non-members. They must be purchased in advance by calling the Museum at (860) 623-3305.
The New England Air Museum, www.neam.org, is located by Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Conn.
