From the First Manned Mission into Space to the Permanently Manned Orbital Station

The paper provides a brief history of preparations for and carrying out of the world's first manned mission onboard Vostok spacecraft. It discusses the key tasks and problems, the solution of which made this historic event possible. The legendary intercontinental ballistic missile R-7, which made the humanity's first step into space possible, was developed by the Special Design Bureau No.1 headed by Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. It describes the subsequent achievements of our country's manned space flight, which made it possible, among other things, to develop and put into orbit 50 years ago, on April 19, 1971, the world's first orbital station Salyut. It analyses the role of a human in carrying out a space mission. It describes the in-orbit tasks, which, when solved with participation of the crew, improve the reliability and efficiency of the space mission. To illustrate this, examples are provided of crew activities during the missions of orbital stations Salyut, orbital complex Mir, International Space Station. It points out the need of and provides examples of positive results of crew involvement in carrying out research and experiments onboard orbital stations.