October 31, 2022
On 4 March 1961, a guided missile intercepted and destroyed the approaching warhead of an intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) SS-4 at the Saryshagan test site in the Kazakhstan desert. This event led to the emergence of a powerful political, military, scientific-technological, and industrial missile defense complex in the Soviet Union, a major factor in shaping U.S. defense programs and technologies during the Cold War. A new chapter in the eternal competition between protecting and avenging, between the sword and the shield, has begun. The lecture tells a little-known story, based on an AIAA-published book, of the first Soviet antiaircraft system SA-1 and the first intercept of an IRBM, leading to the birth of Soviet missile defense and deployment of the first operational missile defense system A-35.
Mike Gruntman is professor and chair of astronautics at the University of Southern California (USC). His life journey took him from a child growing on the Tyuratam (Baikonur) missile and space launch base during the late 1950s and early 1960s to an accomplished space physicist and engineer to joining USC in 1990 and founding a major educational program in space engineering. Today it is a nationally recognized unique astronautical engineering department at USC.
Dr. Gruntman is actively involved in R&D programs in space science and space technology. He served as a co-investigator (Co-I) on NASA missions and is a recipient of three NASA Group Achievement Awards. He has authored and co-authored 300 scholarly publications, including four books. His Blazing the Trail: The Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry (AIAA, 2004) won the International Academy of Astronautics book award. More than two thousand graduate students have taken Dr. Gruntman’s courses in space systems and rocket propulsion at USC. He also teaches short courses (AIAA and ATI) for government and industry.
Dr. Gruntman is an AIAA Associate Fellow and Member (Academician) of the International Academy of Astronautics.