How the space race starting gun was fired

Heroic example

Cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky said, "Gagarin's legendary 108-minute flight became an example of heroism for his successors, including us."

This month, Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to the southern city of Engels on the banks of the Volga River, visiting Gagarin's landing site, where a memorial stands to honor the historic flight. Putin was accompanied by Valentina Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut and the first woman in space.

After laying flowers on a monument to Gagarin near the site, Putin said: "This is without a doubt a great event that changed the world. We will always be proud that it was our country that paved the road to outer space.

"In the 21st century, Russia must properly maintain its status as one of the leading nuclear and space powers, because the space sector is directly linked to defense."

Putin said Russia should not abandon its advantages in space－although in recent years the country has experienced a number of setbacks, including a lost spacecraft and an aborted takeoff during a manned mission in 2018.

Russia's Soyuz rockets are reliable and allow Moscow to remain relevant in the modern space industry, but the country faces key players in addition to NASA.

A major blow came last year when Russia lost its monopoly for manned International Space Station launches after reusable rockets from entrepreneur Elon Musk's Space X, carrying NASA astronauts, successfully docked at the space station.

Despite funding cuts, Dmitry Rogozin, head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, has set a series of ambitious goals for the space program in recent years.

On April 12, the US State Department issued a Facebook post marking 60 years since the first manned space flight, along with "technological progress and international cooperation, which are facilitated by space exploration".

The short post, in Russian, did not mention Gagarin by name.

In a post on Twitter, Rogozin used strong language to criticize the State Department for failing to refer to Gagarin, stating, "Superpowers do not behave that way."

In a video message recalling Gagarin's achievement, Rogozin stressed that Russia is "on the cusp of very important changes "that will see next-generation spacecraft and lunar missions.

"We believe in our space, in Russian space," he said.