Alexei Tupolev
Engineer
Russian aircraft engineer who led the development of the world's first supersonic passenger jet.
He studied at the Moscow Aviation Institute, earning his professorship in in 1964.
His jet, the Tupolev Tu-144, made its maiden voyage in Moscow two months before the Concorde.
His father Andrei Tupolev designed aircraft that broke dozens of world records.
On the American end, test pilot Chuck Yager helped advance the science of supersonic flight.