English: Vostok Launch by Richard Terry, 1978: Manned space flight began on April 12, 1961, with Yuri Gargarin's single-orbit mission. The liquid-fueled, two-stage Vostok rocket that lifted Gagarin into space was used to launched a variety of military and civilian spacecraft from 1959 to the 1980s. During the 1980s, several years after this illustration was made, the Soviets began using Vostok rockets to place commercial satellites in orbit for other countries. Vostok means "east" in Russian.