Georges Sourine, who also signed himself "Youri Sourine", was a French science journalist and writer of Russian origin, with Russian as his mother tongue. At home in Soviet scientific circles, he travelled several times to the USSR and could read Soviet journals, Academy of Sciences communiqués and Radio Moscow statements at first hand. A science commentator for Radio Monte-Carlo, he followed space affairs from 1957 onward. His works include Soviet Fighter Aviation in the Second World War (1956), Mon dossier Spoutnik (1958), in which, as early as 1955, he anticipated the launch of the first Soviet satellite, the "Aviation" chapter of the Encyclopédie des Sciences et Techniques (1961), the editorship of the encyclopedia La grande aventure de l'espace (1967-1968, two volumes), and Vivre dans l'espace (1969), his most widely read book.