Soviet Space Posters

About Our Soviet Space Propaganda Posters

We have over 30 space race propaganda posters on Soviet Posters Prints. Space exploration was an area of fierce competition between the Eastern and Western blocs. Enormous resources, both financial and scientific, were poured into the space race.

Needless to say one of the main reasons was that this was regarded as the ultimate frontier in scientific and technological development - mainly because unlike most of the rest it could be televised and photographed for print circulation. It became a source of national pride, inspiration and a proof of the leadership of the respective great power. The Russian propaganda poster with Yuri Gagarin in particular would feature proudly on the walls of millions upon millions households in the entire Easter Bloc.

Therefore poster artists and propagandists in the Soviet Union were eager to capitalise on the propaganda value - thus the USSR space poster became a favourite of the masses. Needless to say there were many Leninism posters and Communist posters that credited the monumental successes to the superior ideological framework of the USSR.  

We ship Soviet space posters internationally to North America and Europe. We offer canvas, lux paper and framed options.

 Very Brief History of the Soviet Space Program

Yuri Gagarin in Finland, 1961	Mir space station

The overall Soviet space program can be summerised in the 6 separate space programs that were implemented consequently until the end of the USSR since the 1950s. 

1. The Soviet Union were the first nation in the world to successfully launch a satellite that reached space - the Sputnik I. This took place on 4th of October, 1957 and needless to say was news of gigantic propaganda proportions. USSR "conquered" space first;
2. The Vostok program to achieve the first human spaceflight, that of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. Overnight he became a national hero and sensation and was travelled (paraded really) all over the Eastern bloc. There are still Yuri Gagarin posters hanging on thousands and thousands of walls over the world. My grandad for example had one until he passed away.
3. The Voskhod program, which consisted of only two missions, followed on the success of Vostok. Voskhod 1 carried the first multi-person crew into space. Voskhod 2 achieved the first spacewalk;
4. The Soyuz Program had many successes, including for example introducing Soyuz spacecraft that still flies today, but also some cosmonauts lost their lives during its many missions. It's credited with establishing the foundations for the first space station;
5. The Salyut Program operated between 1971 and 1982 and included 7 missions. It is credited with establishing world's first space station;
6. The Mir Space Station started in 1986, outlived the USSR and operated after the fall of the Soviet Union until 2001. Mir's achievement was an unprecedented stretch of continuous human presence in space - over 10 years of space habitation;