One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for the Proletariat: Soviet Space Program, 1966
Comrades, Soviets, Countrymen,
Since our glorious 1957 launch of Sputnik, the Americans have been deluded into challenging the great Union of Soviet Socialist Republic in the domain of space. To the outside world, we are winning that race. Under the leadership of the brilliant Sergei Korolev, we have beaten the Americans by launching the first satellite, dog, man, and woman into space, as well as the first flybys of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, the first crash landing on the Moon, and the first spacewalk. However, Korolev, the great leader of the program has died after surgery complications, and much organizational and engineering knowledge died with him. Meanwhile, the Americans appear to be well on their way to meeting late President Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the moon before the decade is out. Comrades, General Secretary Brezhnev and the Soviet Union need you to win the space race once and for all!
By the 1950s, the soviet bureaucracy has recovered from the Great Purge. In fact, it’s downright bloated. The administrators work in a system so slow, inefficient, and absurd, it’s a wonder anything gets done at all! But things do get done. While lost paperwork creates food shortages and slow action creates environmental disasters, somehow, the Soviets are leading the Space Race. This committee is aimed squarely at this tension, and hopes delegates question their assumptions about the conditions that produce scientific insight and technological advancement. Each member will play a vital role in ensuring that all the components, cosmonauts, mission plan, and leadership are the right stuff to land a man on the moon and bring glory to the workers and the Soviet Union.
Greg Caesar
Chair
Greg is a fourth year in the College majoring in data science and computer science, specializing in machine learning. He hails from Westchester, New York. ChoMUN XXVIII will be the fourth MUN conference he has staffed alongside Leon. Last year, he served as Chair for the Creation of Wells Fargo, 1852 committee at ChoMUN XVII. The year before, he chaired the Nothing Gets Past(a) Mother Mother committee at ChoMUN XVI, and was an AC at ChoMUN ChoMUN XV and MUNUC his first year.
He is an avid aviation enthusiast and runner. In his spare time, he enjoys flight simming and reading. Outside of MUN, Greg works as a part-time bioinformatics developer and does podcasts for UChicago’s oldest student-run newspaper.
Greg is thrilled to be Chair of the Soviet Space Program Committee, and is especially excited to see how delegates collaborate and leverage their unique backgrounds to advance the USSR’s space exploration goals. You can reach him by email at gregoryc25@uchicago.edu.
Leon Gold
Crisis Director
Leon is a third year (rising fourth year) at the University of Chicago majoring in physics and geophysics, with a specialization in planetary science. He is from Pasadena, California making him very familiar with the set of Parks and Recreation and the Big Bang Theory.
He has staffed three conferences for ChoMUN and served as Crisis Director for The Creation of Wells Fargo, 1852 at ChoMUN XVII, and EAC for the Ethiopia committee for ChoMUN XVI. He is also part of the Chicago Debate Society and regularly competes in collegiate debate, and is also part of the UChicago Robotics Club where he builds battlebots and drones, the Chicago Space Program where he is building a satellite, and a physics research group investigating Bose-Fermi interactions investigating atoms at resonance in near absolute zero conditions. Additionally, he is working as a NASA engineer this summer, working on processors and component simulation for spacecraft.
In his free time, he likes to read, cook, launch weather balloons, bike along Lake Michigan, and watch/play basketball (go Lakers!). Leon is excited to be Crisis Director for the Soviet Space Program Committee, and is excited to see how delegates advance the USSR to its next phase of space exploration.
andy Cheng
CRISIS DIRECTOR
Andy is a third-year at the college majoring in Public Policy (and maybe in PoliticalScience/History). He was born in Shanghai, China, which makes him proudly trilingual – English, Mandarin, and Shanghainese.
Within MUN, Andy served as an Admin Exec for ChoMUN XVII, as well as both frontroom and backroom Assistant Chair for The Creation of Wells Fargo, 1852 at ChoMUN XVII. For MUNUC, UChicago’s high school conference, Andy is the co-chair for EPA, 1977-1980 for MUNUC 37, and an Assistant Chair for ICJ, 1948.
Outside of MUN, Andy is engaged in various activities around campus. He attends badminton training, and sometimes rugby practices; he is an amateur photographer, DJs for friends at parties, and maintains his own electronic music blog (even though sometimes he goes on a political spiel in the middle of the blog). He also is a fanatic fan of F1, WRC and WRX, as well as anything simracing.
Andy is very excited to be the Crisis Director for the Soviet Space Program, and cannot wait to see how delegates will navigate the internal politics of the Soviet Union and decide key fields of Soviet technological advances, all while staying ahead of the US in the space race.
Secretariat oversight:
Daniel Zhang, Under-secretary-general