Overview

It is of course difficult to imagine future space travel without manned spacecraft. Space cannot possibly be explored by automatic luniks and interplanetary probes only

Yuri Gagarin

The formative years of the Space Age set a hectic pace with the development of satellites for both scientific and propaganda purposes, and the parallel development of increasingly powerful rockets to place them in orbit. Although the low payload capacity and poor reliability of early launch vehicles meant that only relatively simple, unmanned spacecraft could be carried, it was only a matter of time before one nation or another attempted a manned launch.

The impetus for manned spaceflight was both cultural and political. Ever since the early poets and satirists dreamt of eagles flying to Venus and sailing vessels swept on a whirlwind to the Moon, the passengers had been human. So whether space was considered the next Everest or, later, The Final Frontier , it was inevitable that people would want to make that ultimate journey of exploration. It was equally inevitable, in the era of Cold War rivalry, that manned space exploration should be an integral part of the space race (Table 7.1).