Cosmonaut Quotes

Gagarin flew into space, but didn't see any god there.

I was only in second grade when the Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. The night of his launch - April 12, 1961 - I went out onto the front porch and stared up at the stars, trying to see his capsule passing overhead. Like millions of others, I was enthralled by the idea of space exploration and have been ever since.

I lived at Star City for more than a year ahead of my trip to Mir on May 18, 1991 in Soyuz TM-12. My life at Star City was so remote that learning Russian became my greatest priority.

Since I was 18, I have swum for 50 minutes every day, missing less than one day a year except for a two-week stint when I was training as a cosmonaut in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, in March 2009.

Finally my dream came true in that there was a possibility that I could travel to the International Space Station. I've gone through the medicals and the training and now I'm officially, by the Russian Space Federation, a cosmonaut in training.

I see Vostok-6 quite often in the centre for cosmonaut training. And every time I pass it by, I stroke it and say, 'My lovely one, my best and most beautiful friend, my best and most beautiful man.'

I've been lucky enough to fly to space twice.

Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, may have had his charms, but he really couldn't be considered hip.

I've completed half of my space training at Space City in Moscow. I love adventure, and I've been training in a centrifuge and MiG Fighter with a view to going into space and being a spokesman for space exploration!

After I graduated Star City school, I entered to the Tambov Military School of Pilots because I really wanted to be a pilot, and in Russia, it's one of the steps of how you make a career as a cosmonaut. You have to be a military pilot or an engineer.

There weren't any astronauts until I was about 10. Yuri Gagarin went into space right around my 10th birthday.