| Description: | Astronomers are no strangers to very large and very small numbers. For professional life within the framework of gigantic dynamic ranges, astronomers were perhaps the first among all science workers to use a logarithmic scale. But even among astrophysicists, able to think routinely on a logarithmic scale, some minds are outstanding. For forty years I was fortunate to work together with Nikolai Semenovich Kardashev, for whom such a scale was an absolutely natural habitat. He achieved breathtaking results in this ‘logarithmic environment’, and therefore in astrophysics as a whole. Here is a brief list of his achievements: the prediction, and then the observational discovery of the radio recombination lines of interstellar atoms and molecules, the evolution of synchrotron radiation from cosmic radio sources, the prediction of the existence of a neutron star in the supernova remnant in the Crab nebula (before the discovery of pulsars!), the idea of radio interferometry with very long baselines, the “Kardashev scale", which classifies cosmic civilisations by the level of their energy consumption, with a "step" of 10 (ten!) orders of magnitude! How difficult was it for him to translate an unlimited flight of his mind into dry and meticulous technical formulations, which directed engineers in designing and building his scientific brainchild – the international Space VLBI mission RadioAstron! It took more than thirty years of work to bring RadioAstron into orbit, where it worked brilliantly for 7.5 years, more than twice exceeding its guaranteed lifetime.
It will be immensely difficult for us, colleagues and friends of Nikolai Semenovich Kardashev, to maintain the professional height determined by the flight of his thoughts. Nikolai Kardashev will be truly missed and remembered by generations of astronomers.
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