This book is about how man, despite his biological nature, which did not give him wings, managed to rise above the earth in a daring quest. Legendary aeronauts of antiquity and inventors of balloons, heroes who tried to reach the North Pole on a fragile airship, the first pilots - without their feat there would not have been the current triumph of aviation and astronautics. The reader will learn how fearless space pilots reached the border with space even before Yuri Gagarin's flight, what legends surround the aviation of the Third Reich and the history of the first cosmonauts, what space stations and ships will be like in the already coming era of interplanetary flights.