On April 12, we celebrate the diamond jubilee — the 60th anniversary — of the first human space flight in 1961. The day is still commemorated in Russia as Cosmonauts’ Day. And on June 16 1963, the Soviet Union (Russia) also launched the first woman to orbit the Earth — Valentina Tereshkova, a skydiving champion. It was to be two decades before the US would match this Soviet feat.
The economics of space flight have, however, so far proven to be rather different from the history of aviation. Within two decades of the first flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, airlines were flying scheduled flights between London-Paris, London-Amsterdam and London-Manchester...
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