Alexander Bolonkin

Alexander Alexandrovich Bolonkin (; 14 March 1933 – 25 December 2020) was a Russian-American scientist and academic who worked in the Soviet aviation, space and rocket industries and lectured in Moscow universities, before being arrested in 1972 by the KGB as a dissident. He served terms of imprisonment and exile for 15 years until 1987, when he emigrated to the US as a political refugee.

After that he lectured at American universities and worked as a researcher at NASA, U.S. Air Force, and for the National Research Council. He was a member of the board of directors of the International Space Agency; chairman of the Space Flights section; member of the advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation and its Space Settlement Board; the founding president of the International Association of Former Soviet Political Prisoners and Victims of the Communist Regime (IASPPV); and co-founder and co-chair of the board of directors of American Russian-speaking Association for Civil & Human Rights (ARA). Provided by Wikipedia