1957-10-07 USSR Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935)

Tsiolkovsky stamp canceled with a Khimki postmark on October 7, 1957, marking the first day of issue.

The earliest known suggestion for launching and utilizing an artificial satellite around the Earth appeared in the 1869 story "The Brick Moon," written by U.S. clergyman and author Edward Everett Hale. In this tale, the brick moon was placed in orbit to function as a navigational aid for ships at sea. While the story had other merits, the idea of an artificial satellite was a visionary concept that wouldn't come to fruition for nearly a century.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the notion garnered attention from pioneers in rocketry and astronautics, such as Konstantin Tsiolkovsky from the Soviet Union and Hermann Oberth from Germany. They highlighted the potential benefits of launching satellite payloads into orbit with rockets, especially if they carried humans.

In the 1890s, Russian mathematician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky explored the possibilities of rocket flight. Meanwhile, American physicist Robert Goddard advanced rocket development for upper-atmosphere exploration during the 1920s and 1930s, and a German team led by Hermann Oberth conducted studies on interplanetary travel during the same period.

(Reference from Konstantin Tsiolkovsky)