(Science Times)

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan — More than a half-century ago, the launch site here became the first place to send humans into space. It is still our main route to the heavens, at least for now.

Time has since put a wrinkle or two or three on the massive Baikonur Cosmodrome, some 1,300 miles southeast of Moscow.

It was at Baikonur that the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, shocking America and beginning the space race in earnest. The United States worked furiously to catch up to, and eventually surpass, the Soviet program. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin left Baikonur for a single orbit of the Earth.

Today, Russians, Americans and travelers from other nations team up on missions launched from the Baikonur site, described by Vladimir Putin six years ago as “physically aged.” Besides all the liftoffs, Baikonur serves as a tourist draw, offering a museum, tours and even an opportunity to take a zero gravity flight.

On Dec. 3, the crew of Soyuz MS-11 — with Anne McClain of the United States, Oleg Kononenko of Russia and David Saint-Jacques of Canada — took off for the International Space Station. On Thursday, two more Americans and a Russian will travel there. One of the Americans on that trip, Christina Koch, plans to join McClain in the first all-female spacewalk.

Since the final space shuttle flight in 2011, U.S. astronauts have had to hitch rides on Russian ships to get to the space station. NASA’s current strategy is to use private companies — Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Boeing — to carry Americans into space. Musk, fresh from a successful uncrewed launch this month, hopes this year to end Baikonur’s status as the exclusive provider of human travel to the space station.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.