Konstantin E. Tsiolkovskii, deaf due to a childhood complication of scarlet fever, was barred from Moscow schools. He was also denied elementary school because he was deaf. He was educated by his parents and then taught himself. He became the father of cosmonautics. After his death, he was referred to as the father of Soviet cosmonautics. The great rocket designer Sergei Korolev took up his ideas and developed them further.
