Aleksandr Yakovlevich Orlov
Aleksandr Yakovlevich Orlov was a Russian astronomer and pioneer of geodynamics.
Orlov studied at Saint Petersburg University, graduating with distinction in 1902. He subsequently developed his scientific background through study at the University of Sorbonne, Paris, at University of Lund under Carl Charlier then at the University of Göttingen under with Johann Emil Wiechert.
He contributed the essay “Astronomic Utopias” to the 1928 book Life and Technology of the Future in which he discussed the possibility of settling on Mars and the Moon.
Orlov played a major role in the creation of the Main Astronomical Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, based in Golosseevo outside Kiev. He was appointed as the first director in 1944, a position he held until 1948, and again from 1951 to 1952.
