Belarus: persons and events (Boris Kit)

4 april 2025

Interesting

World-famous scientist Boris Kit made a significant contribution to the development of astronautics. His name is listed in many encyclopedias and reference books around the world, and is also recorded in the list of outstanding contemporaries in the «time capsule» walled up in the Capitol (Washington, USA).

Boris Kit was born on April 6, 1910 in St. Petersburg. His father was an employee of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs in Moscow, a native of Novogrudok. In 1918, the family returned to his father's homeland in the village of Agorodniki (now part of the town of Karelichi, Grodno region). Boris Kit graduated from the local public school (1926), the Novogrudok Belarusian Gymnasium (1928) and entered the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of the Stefan Batory Vilnius University. Simultaneously with his studies at the university, from 1931 he worked as a mathematics teacher.

Returning to his native places, Boris Kit restored and headed the Belarusian gymnasium in Novogrudok (1939), was a district inspector of the Baranavichy educational district (1940), was engaged in the organization of primary and secondary Belarusian schools, taught mathematics at the Baranavichy Teachers' Institute (1940-1941). During the occupation of Belarus by the Nazi invaders, he taught for some time at a public school in the village of Lebedevo (now an agro-town in the Molodechno district of the Minsk region), was engaged in the organization of teacher training seminars in Molodechno and Pastavy, founded the Administrative and Commercial Institute in Molodechno. At the end of the war, Boris and his family left for Germany, where he studied at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Munich (1945-1948).

In 1948, Boris Kit emigrated to the United States. At first he worked as a factory worker, then as a chemist in pharmaceutical companies. He took an active part in the activities of Belarusian emigrant societies that helped immigrants find jobs. Later, he was invited to the company «North American Aviation», which was engaged in space projects. He was a research associate, researching the qualities of liquid hydrogen as a future fuel for space rocket systems. Since 1963, Boris Kit worked as a senior research associate in the astronautics department of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation and the US National Bureau of Standards, was engaged in the mathematical development of communication means in spacecraft projects, and prepared a mathematical calculation of spacecraft flights to the Moon. In 1968-1972. was a senior research expert at the National Institute for Systems Analysis of the US Department of Defense and Transportation. During this period, he gave many presentations, lectured on mathematics at the University of Maryland, and wrote the books «A Handbook on Rocket Fuel» (1960) and «The History and Current State of Soviet Astronautics» (co-authored, 1964).

In 1972, Boris Kit moved to Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and became Professor of Mathematics at the University of Maryland's European Division. In 1982, he received his Ph.D. in Mathematics and History of Science with a thesis on «Anthony Sigmund, His Life and Contributions to the Development of 20th-Century Mathematics».

Boris Kit was a member of many scientific societies around the world, an honored (1987) and honorary (1990) professor at the University of Maryland, an academician of the International Academy of Astronautics (France, 1991). He was one of the founders of the Hermann Oberth International Astronautical Society (Germany), an academician and vice-president of the International Academy of Sciences of Eurasia (Russia). The scientist was awarded many prizes and awards for his contribution to the development of astronautics.

Boris Kit visited Belarus in the 1990s, almost half a century after his departure. In 1994, he was elected an honorary doctor of sciences of the Yanka Kupala Grodno State University. He was an honorary citizen of Novogrudok, in connection with which a department dedicated to his life and work was opened in the local history and local lore museum. A documentary film was shot about the scientist at the Belarusfilm film studio (1995).

Based on materials of the National Library of Belarus

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