Background
The world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, had been put into orbit by the Soviets in 1957, and this could be considered the beginning of the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States. Both nations wanted to develop their spaceflight technology quickly, and in particular, both wanted to be the first to launch a successful human spaceflight. The Soviet programme for doing this was the Vostok programme. Prior to a manned spaceflight, the Soviets launched several precursor unmanned missions between May 1960 and March 1961, to test and develop the Vostok rocket and Vostok spacecraft technology. These missions had varied success, but the final two unmanned missions—Korabl-Sputnik 4 and Korabl-Sputnik 5—were outright successes, opening the door for a manned flight.
Read more about this topic: Vostok 1
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)