For thousands of years
man dreamed of flying to the stars. At the beginning of the century the
great Russian scientist Tsiolkovsky predicted that "mankind will not
remain on Earth forever". Half a century later his words came true, the
dream became a reality. It happened on October 4, 1957, when the 1st
artificial satellite, the sputnik, was launched. The Russians were the
1st in the world to fly into outer space. Then the most remarkable event
in the history of cosmonautics took place. On April 12, 1961 the
spaceship "Vostok", piloted by Yuri Gagarin went up. He orbited the
Earth only once, staying in space for 108 minutes. Mankind will always
remember him. A new era of man's exploration of outer space began. Many
space rockets went up by our cosmonauts. Among them were Titov,
Nikolaev, Leonov, Tereshkova, Savitskaya and others. Today Russia wants
the exploration of space to be based on broad international cooperation.
Many international crews went up in space. This is the best example of
the possibility of peaceful cooperation.
