Editing Baikonur Cosmodrome (section)

====Importance====
Many historic flights lifted off from Baikonur: the first operational [[ICBM]]; the first man-made satellite, [[Sputnik 1]], on 4 October 1957; the first spacecraft to travel close to the Moon, [[Luna 1]], on 2 January 1959; the first crewed and orbital flight by [[Yuri Gagarin]] on 12 April 1961; and the flight of the first woman in space, [[Valentina Tereshkova]], in 1963. 14 cosmonauts of 13 other nations, including [[Czechoslovakia]], [[East Germany]], [[India]] and [[France]] have launched from Baikonur under the [[Interkosmos]] program as well. In 1960, a prototype [[R-16 (missile)|R-16]] ICBM [[Nedelin catastrophe|exploded before launch]], killing over 100 people. Baikonur is also the site from which [[Venera 9]] and [[Mars 3]] were launched.