AIRFIX VOSTOK ROCKET PART 3 - SPUTNIK OR LUNIK?
Mat Irvine discusses Vostok's background To finish this three-part appraisal of the reissued Airfix Vostok launcher, it’s worth pointing out that you don’t just get the version that launched the Vostok spacecraft. Because 2011 is the 50th year of humans in space, the kit has been issued with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s orbital version to the forefront, but other options have included Soyuz and Sputnik - or have they? The first satellite First, a bit of background. Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite to be launched, on October 4, 1957, and so began the ‘Space Age’. The launcher as a whole, usually called the A-type in the west, or R-7 or Semyorka (‘Seven’) by the Soviets, was based on the SS-6 Sapwood ICBM. Airfix Vostok, Luna version. After World War II The SS-6 resulted from Cold War enmities, when the USSR (having been our ally during World War II) retreated behind the so-called ‘Iron Curtain’. However, this was not before it shared in the spoils of victory over Germa...