On the history of the beginning of the space age. Tikhonravov’s memorandum

The collection of the Academician M. V. Keldysh Memorial Museum contains unique documents — reports and memoranda about Soviet space research before the first artificial Earth satellite was launched. One of them is a memorandum by M. K. Tikhonravov “On the artificial Earth satellite” (1954). This paper describes the history of the writing of this memorandum and explores the connections between the people privy to it. The full text of the memorandum is included.