To the 50th anniversary of the first manned flight into space! The true story of the greatest breakthrough of the 20th century. “Everything about the development of astronautics from the first gunpowder rockets to the Proton and Buran, from Tsiolkovsky to Korolev, from the German Fau to the Soviet Vostok, from the first Sputnik to the Moon Race.” Unknown details of Yuri Gagarin's flight: what problems were there during the orbital orbit and landing, who was the first to meet the cosmonaut on the ground, where and how did he spend the first hours after returning from orbit? Finally, what is manned space exploration today and why did the great hopes of the 1960s, when S.P. Korolev dreamed that soon “people will fly into space on trade union vouchers,” and science fiction writers confidently predicted that by the beginning of the 21st century, humanity would at least reach Jupiter, and perhaps explore the entire solar system (just rewatch 2001: A Space Odyssey year”, re-read Arthur C. Clarke or the early Strugatskys). But no matter how cosmonautics develops in the future, no matter what heights it reaches, nothing can change the fact that our compatriots stood at its origins, our country was the first in space, The 20th century will forever remain in human memory as the century of Gagarin and Korolev, and the Russian word “sputnik” has entered all major languages, just like Gagarin’s legendary “Let’s go!”, which opened the way to the stars.