The following sequence is from a booklet published by Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moskow 1977.
It was produced for the web by Sven Grahn at www.kosmonaut.se

to the book

Yuri Gagarin's 108-minute flight in space represented not only a triumph of science and engineering, but also a bursting of the "bounds of possibility", the breaking of a psychological barrier.

It was literally a flight into the unknown. Being a pilot, he had flown many demanding assignments, including flights at night and in blizzard conditions, and at home they would wait anxiously for his familiar step. Even so, he was never very far from the earth. But now... He had gone out into the unknown where no man had ever been before. Valentina, his wife, well understood all that this entailed but had agreed. And this, too, was an act of heroism for the mother of two small children.
It was quiet at his home. The children were asleep. The sky, washed by recent rain, was studded with stars. The night seemed to be waiting for something. The wet pines stood motionless, and the houses merged together in the stillness and bluish darkness. In only one of them shone a yellow rectangle of light... "Am I happy to be setting off on a cosmic flight?" said Yuri Gagarin in an interview before the start. "Of course. In all ages and epochs people have experienced the greatest happiness in embarking upon new voyages of discovery... I say 'until we meet again' to you , dear friends, as we always say to each other when setting off on a long journey. How I should like to embrace you all-my friends and those with whom I am not acquainted, strangers and the people nearest and dearest to me!"

| Top | Links | Diary |