Before you is a book of memoirs of a talented design engineer, scientist and teacher who devoted his entire life to working in the space industry. Anatoly Petrovich Abramov was one of the closest associates and deputies of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, and after his death, both Vasily Pavlovich Mishin and Valentin Petrovich Glushko. Initially, the book was conceived by the author as a collection of memoirs exclusively for family reading and, for convenience, consisted of two volumes, the first of of which this is a family story, the second is work with S.P. Korolev. This explains the confidential - private style of narration, similar to a leisurely story about life, full of touching details.