Gorbachev, Mikhail S

Russian politician. Leader and disassembler of the Soviet Union, 1985-1989. He cancelled the Soviet Star Wars program. But as a result of the disintegration of the USSR, all Russian space development had ended by 1992.

Mikhail S. Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union in 1985 and restructured the nation, presiding over the demise of the communist state and the end of the Cold War in 1989. He stopped work on the ambitious Soviet star wars program and ordered that nuclear reactors not be orbited. He began negotiations with the United States for significant international cooperation in space exploration.