The Vostok programme (Russian: Восто́к, Orient or East) was a Soviet human spaceflight project that succeeded in putting a person into Earth's orbit for the first time. The programme developed the Vostok spacecraft from the Zenit spy satellite project and adapted the Vostok rocket from an existing ICBM design. "Vostok" was a classified word before the first release of the program's name to the press.
There were six manned spaceflights in the Vostok programme, all of which took place between 1961 and 1963. The programme preceded the Voskhod programme, which used modified Vostok capsules. By the late 1960s, those programmes were superseded by the Soyuz programme, which continues as of 2011.
Read more about Vostok Programme: Background, Cosmonaut Selection and Training, Missions
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“The idealist’s programme of political or economic reform may be impracticable, absurd, demonstrably ridiculous; but it can never be successfully opposed merely by pointing out that this is the case. A negative opposition cannot be wholly effectual: there must be a competing idealism; something must be offered that is not only less objectionable but more desirable.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)