Gagarin was the first man to orbit the Earth in outer space, with his Vostok spacecraft on April 12, 1961. This sculpture bust of a young Gagarin was found at a Soviet military compound in East Germany. Launched on October 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 was the first satellite to orbit Earth, and its successful mission truly kicked off the space race. It broadcast radio signals and was tracked by radio operators all over the world before its battery died 21 days after launch. Sputnik 1 was destroyed while reentering Earth’s atmosphere on January 4, 1958.
Anonymous, Yuri Gagarin, undated, Soviet Union
Lukashevich was one of the stage designers for Mikhail Karyukov and Alexander Kozyr’s 1959 science-fiction movie The Sky Calls (Nebo Zovyot). Two of these works are designs for the film sets, the other five are painted after the original designs. The Sky Calls was released between two pivotal moments in the Space Race: the launch of Sputnik I (1957) and Yuri Gagarin’s historic space flight (1961). In this movie, Soviet and American spaceships are racing to reach the planet Mars, although the plans are thrown off track when the US team, desperate to reach the red planet first, sets out on their voyage prematurely and under-prepared. The Americans become stranded and need to be rescued by the Soviets. Out of fuel due to the unexpected rescue mission, both US and Soviet teams are stranded on an asteroid, where they are eventually saved by a self-sacrificing Soviet cosmonaut. In the end, the astronauts return to Earth and the film advocates for greater cooperation between the superpowers. This Soviet film was dubbed and re-released in East Germany in 1960; two years later, young Francis Ford Coppola directed and edited a re-dubbed American version of this film titled Battle Beyond the Sun that removed all references to the Soviet Union and to anti-American propaganda. Georgi Lukashevich, Seven scenes from The Sky Calls, 1957-1960, Soviet Union
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