April 12,1961–Cosmonautic Day!

[Moroz.ru]

April 12, 1961: SPACE AGE HAS BEGUN The Soviet Union launches the first manned space vehicle, Vostok 1, which completes a single orbit of the Earth. "The Earth is blue" - the words of cosmonaut Yuri GAGARIN, the first human to travel in space, became globally famous. His flight was the culmination of many years of experimentation by the Soviet space program under the leadership of Sergei KOROLEV

1879: Konstantin Eduardovich TSIOLKOVSKY (1857-1935)-RUSSIA, the father of space travel establishes the basics of rocket science. His 'Rocket Equation', which determines flight velocity, is still used in the design of modern rockets. He also wrote the first theoretical description of a man-made satellite.

More info:
http://www.energia.ru/english/energia/history/gagarin/gagarin-01.shtml
http://www.energia.ru/english/energia/history/gagarin/gagarin-02.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/03/98/gagarin/72182.stm

PS That was most romantic age. Better purpose for ICBMs is been converted to space rockets.

 

[Rich]

Happy "C-Day". You are right to be proud of Russia's space exploration history

 

[Moroz.ru]

Thanks
By the way at April 12, 1981 NASA has launched first space shuttle. That was “Colambia”…
Died heroes are in space exploration history forever.

PS Congratulation to Brazil has joined to space club just!

 

[Black Legion]

The main reason why CCCP launched a man into space first was because their Germans were better then America's...

 

[Moroz.ru]

The main reason why CCCP launched a man into space first was:
1) The USSR have had to build powerful ICBM to assure the USA that nuking of the USSR will be revenged. An R-7 ICBM was “ease” to upgrade to Vostok rocket.
2) President Khrushchev was enough romantic and flexible to be convinced by Russian General designer Sergey Korolev to waste* expensive ICBM to science purposes. * By the way, government of USSR didn’t await worldwide excitement of Sputnik. But Gagarin’s launch was of course participant of space race.
3) American chief designer ex-nazi Verner Von Brawn was unable to convince US Army to use American’s ICBM to world first orbital space launch.

USA have got whole German V-missile design team leaded by Von Brawn, all blueprints of V-2 and equipment to produce V-2. USSR has got a few semi conducted missiles and one of jet engine designer.

Learn history, buddy!

 

[Black Legion]

The main reason why CCCP launched a man into space first was:
1) The USSR have had to build powerful ICBM to assure the USA that nuking of the USSR will be revenged. An R-7 ICBM was “ease” to upgrade to Vostok rocket.
2) President Khrushchev was enough romantic and flexible to be convinced by Russian General designer Sergey Korolev to waste* expensive ICBM to science purposes. * By the way, government of USSR didn’t await worldwide excitement of Sputnik. But Gagarin’s launch was of course participant of space race.
3) American chief designer ex-nazi Verner Von Brawn was unable to convince US Army to use American’s ICBM to world first orbital space launch.

USA have got whole German V-missile design team leaded by Von Brawn, all blueprints of V-2 and equipment to produce V-2. USSR has got a few semi conducted missiles and one of jet engine designer.

Learn history, buddy!

Oh aren't you a smart fellow ......first of all, my first post was a joke. And that joke wasn't invented by me, one of SSSR's official in your space program said it, not I, look it up dude.

Second,the USSR captured the entire V-2 production sites and several hundred technicians, along with several rockets. Under the direction of Dimitri Ustinov, the designer and engineer Sergei Korolev inspected the rockets; aided by the German scienntist and technicians and then they built a replica of the V-2 called the R-1.

But of course, you Russians are always overly proud and touchy about everything you made and accomplished....but one thing stands, the V-2 program was the foundation and a milestone for the US and SSSR's development of ballistic missiles and without that program and the genious of German scientists and engineering there is no way you would have launched in 1961 but rather very much late and the whole space race would have taken place years and years later then it did.