Scientist, Cosmonaut. He was Russia's first civilian space explorer, and the only non-member of the Communist Party to ever fly in the Soviet space program. Feoktistov was born in the city of Voronezh, in the Oblast region near the Ukraine. Wounded in the Second World War while serving as a reconnaissance and intelligence officer, he eventually went on to earn a doctorate degree in physics in 1949. Trained as an engineer, he was one of the Soviet Union's principle designers of the Voskhod, Vostok and Soyuz spacecrafts, and the Salyut, Mir and Progress space stations. In 1955 he joined the Sputnik program, where he helped develop the world's first artificial satellite which was launched into space in October 1957, giving the Soviet Union an early lead over the United States in the space race. On October 1, 1964, he joined Vladimir Komarov and Boris Yegorov as the world's first three man crew to fly in space. The space mission which only lasted slightly longer than 24 hours, was conducted to test the design and the internal workings of the Voskhod 1 spacecraft which he helped to design. Within weeks of his historic space flight, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and a previously unnamed crater on the far side of the moon was renamed the Feoktistov crater and dedicated in his honor. He retired from the Russian space program in October 1987, before beginning a new career as a professor at the Moscow State Technical University. He was a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, and was the recipient of several national and international awards including the Order of Lenin, two Orders of the Patriotic War, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, Hero of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, honorable citizen of Kaluga, the Lenin Prize, and the USSR State Prize awarded in 1976. He was the author of more than 150 scientific works and professional journals during his career, and also wrote numerous books and articles on the history of the Russian space program.