The first human in space took off from Kazakhstan
Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin both launched from Baikonur, on the Kazakh steppe. Today Russia rents the cosmodrome, and the town around it, from Kazakhstan.
In the 1950s, the Soviet Union needed a launch site for its new intercontinental missiles: flat, remote, and far from prying eyes. They chose the steppe near the railway station of Tyuratam in southern Kazakhstan.
Firsts
From there:
- 4 October 1957: Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, went into orbit;
- 12 April 1961: Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, in Vostok 1.
Later came the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova (1963), and many crews to the Mir and International space stations. For years after the Space Shuttle was retired, the only way for astronauts to reach the ISS was a Russian Soyuz from Baikonur.
A rented cosmodrome
When the USSR broke up in 1991, Baikonur ended up in independent Kazakhstan. Russia now leases the cosmodrome and the town that serves it. The current agreement runs until 2050, at about US$115 million a year. The town of Baikonur is administered under Russian arrangements, an unusual case of a city in one country run by another.
A misleading name?
There is a mining town called Baikonur, about 320 km from the launch site. A popular story says the Soviets borrowed its name deliberately, to send Western intelligence looking in the wrong place. NASA’s history office disagrees, saying Baikonur was already the name of the wider region. It’s a good story, but treat it as disputed.
The world’s space age began on the Kazakh steppe, a fact many people don’t know.
Bring it up
“Gagarin’s flight, the first human trip to space, launched from Kazakhstan, and Russia still rents that cosmodrome today.”
Follow the thread
- RelatedThe Pale Blue Dot The space age that began on the Kazakh steppe led to the first photographs of Earth from deep space.
- RelatedThe mixtape we sent to the stars Two sides of the space race: Soviet firsts from Baikonur, American messages on Voyager.
- RelatedThe country that gave up the world’s fourth-largest nuclear arsenal Both are Soviet-era sites on Kazakh land that shaped the Cold War.
