About the book: 2008 / From the late 50s to the early 60s, the Soviet Union experienced a period of turbulent economic and cultural uplift. In the foreign policy arena, equipped with the latest missile technology and a nuclear arsenal, the country was able to maintain a military balance with the West during one of the hottest phases of the Cold War, which instilled a sense of its importance on a global scale. At the same time, in the domestic political sphere, along the path of the then proclaimed scientific and technological revolution (STR), the USSR underwent processes of comprehensive modernization, which affected not only the growth of its military potential, but also in all spheres of public life. The symbol that most fully reflected the optimistic spirit of this time was astronautics - the first artificial satellites of the Earth and the first heroic space explorers, who heralded the beginning of a new, “space age of mankind.”».