in Novosibirsk. At the age of 35, he was one of the youngest persons ever elected as a full academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. From 1970 until 1973, he worked at the Institute of Physics of High Temperatures of the USSR Academy of Sciences. His works on the behavior of hot plasma and controlled thermonuclear fusion in both the Institute of Atomic Energy and later at the Institute of Nuclear Physics have won international recognition. Director of the Space Research Institute Upon his return to Moscow, he was appointed the director of the Space Research Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He stayed at this post from 1973 until 1988. There he supervised several research projects such as the Cosmos, Forecast, Intercosmos, Meteor, and Astron programs. He managed or was a principal participant in many space projects including the Venera probes to Venus, the joint Soviet-U.S. Soyuz Apollo Test Project and headed the International Space Project Venus-Halley (Vega) and Phobos projects. He is the author of studies on plasma physics and magnetofluiddynamics. In 1984, he was awarded the most prestigious Lenin Prize for his outstanding achievements in the foundations of the neoclassical theory of transport processes in toroidal plasma. Role in repressions against dissidents In 1968 a few dozens of Soviet citizens signed a number of letters addressed to the Soviet government in which the authors protested against human rights violations by the authorities in connection with the trials of Soviet dissidents. The authorities initiated repressions against the signatories, including those who worked at the research establishments of Akademgorodok in Novosibirsk. Then 36-year-old Sagdeev suggested that these persons should be dismissed from Akademgorodok and sent to "load chunks of lead". Role in politics As Yuri Andropov became the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Sagdeev participated in the work of a think tank with Gorbachev as the head, which was mandated to find scientific justifications for the nuclear disarmament. Later, as Gorbachev became the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, following Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), they advised the Soviet leadership not to worry and not to respond by creating a similar program. He was awarded the title of the Hero of Socialist Labor for his role in the international research program of the Halley Comet in 1986. He was elected at the Supreme