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A key advance was the invention of the first liquid-fuelled rocket in 1926 by the American Robert Goddard in Auburn, Massachusetts. Goddard is considered to be one of the fathers of the modern rocket era.
The first human in space: Yuri Gagarin, a cosmonaut from the USSR, was launched into space on April 12, 1961 aboard the Vostok 1. His flight lasted one hour and forty-five minutes, orbiting the Earth one time.