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. The most remarkable event in the history of cosmonautics took place on April 12, 1961, when 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.