My grandmother knew names and personal details of first 60 or so cosmonauts, had a notepad with all launch dates and was generally a walking encyclopedia on all

My grandmother knew names and personal details of first 60 or so cosmonauts, had a notepad with all launch dates and was generally a walking encyclopedia on all things space. She was a housewife most of her life and a steam engine machinist in the 1930s. Not any sort of technical elite, nor even remotely interested in anything technical. Except for the space travel. So, yeah, to say that space travel was a big thing back in Soviet times would be a major understatement.