Gagarin Quotes & Sayings

I looked and looked but I didn't see God.
[Speaking about, in 1961, becoming the first human to enter space.] — Yuri Gagarin

The earth was blue but there was no god. — Yuri Gagarin

I don't see any god up here. — Yuri Gagarin

The joy of seeing Yuri Gagarin flying in space is only superseded by the joy of a good penalty save. — Lev Yashin

What beauty. I saw clouds and their light shadows on the distant dear earth ... . The water looked like darkish, slightly gleaming spots ... . When I watched the horizon, I saw the abrupt, contrasting transition from the earth's light-colored surface to the absolutely black sky. I enjoyed the rich color spectrum of the earth. It is surrounded by a light blue aureole that gradually darkens, becoming turquiose, dark blue, violet, and finally coal black. — Yuri Gagarin

Going to Mars is a bunch of baby steps, and it started off with the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin. — Scott Kelly

I am watching the Earth. The visibility is good. I feel well and cheerful. The machine is functioning normally. — Yuri Gagarin

I feel fine. How about you? — Yuri Gagarin

British astronomer royal Richard Woolley, who in 1956 said, "All this talk about space travel is utter bilge, really."10 Yuri Gagarin was the first human to orbit the earth just five years later. — Massimo Pigliucci

Yuri Gagarin had a much more reliable and safe ship than I do. And Soviet ships were death traps. — Andy Weir

I could have gone on flying through space forever. — Yuri Gagarin

Rays were blazing through the atmosphere of the earth, the horizon became bright orange, gradually passing into all the colors of the rainbow: from light blue to dark blue, to violet and then to black. What an indescribable gamut of colors! Just like the paintings of the artist Nicholas Roerich. — Yuri Gagarin

Looking at the earth from afar you realize it is too small for conflict and just big enough for co-operation. — Yuri Gagarin

When I orbited the Earth in a spaceship, I saw for the first time how beautiful our planet is. Mankind, let us preserve and increase this beauty, and not destroy it! — Yuri Gagarin

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

Scientists constantly get clobbered with the idea that we spent 27 billion dollars on the Apollo programs, and are asked "What more do you want?" We didn't spend it; it was done for political reasons ... Apollo was a response to the Bay of Pigs fiasco and to the successful orbital flight of Yuri Gagarin. President Kennedy's objective was not to find out the origin of the moon by the end of the decade; rather it was to put a man on the moon and bring him back, and we did that. — Carl Sagan

This is the band Radical Posture, and my name is Alexei Yuri Gagarin Siege of Stalingrad Glorious Five-Year Plan Sputnik Pravda Moscow Dynamo Back Four Balowski. Me Dad was a bit of a Communist, know what I mean? — Alexei Sayle

The Earth is blue ... how wonderful. It is amazing — Yuri Gagarin

Space travel is the only technology that is more dangerous and more expensive now than it was in its first year. Fifty years after Yuri Gagarin, the space shuttle ended up being more dangerous and more expensive to fly than those first throwaway rockets, even though large portions of it were reusable. It's absurd. — Burt Rutan

Circling the earth in the orbital spaceship I marvelled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world!! Let us safeguard and enhance this beauty-not destroy it — Yuri Gagarin

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

There were protocols to meet for the historic occasion. On the lunar dust they placed mementoes for the five-deceased American and Soviet spacemen, Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee, Vladimir Komarov, and Yuri Gagarin (who died in a plane crash in 1968). They unsheathed a metal disc on the descent stage with engraved messages to future moon visitors. As Neil Armstrong read the plaque's words, his voice carried throughout the world. "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969, AD. We came in peace for all mankind." There was yet another small cargo - private and precious - carried by Neil Armstrong to the moon. It was not divulged at the time, but he carried the diamond-studded astronaut pin made especially for Deke Slayton by the three Apollo 1 astronauts and presented to him by their widows after that dreadful fire. — Alan Shepard

I see Earth! It is so beautiful. — Yuri Gagarin

I saw for the first time the earth's shape. I could easily see the shores of continents, islands, great rivers, folds of the terrain, large bodies of water. The horizon is dark blue, smoothly turning to black ... the feelings which filled me I can express with one word-joy. — Yuri Gagarin

When they saw me in my space suit and the parachute dragging alongside as I walked, they started to back away in fear. I told them, don't be afraid, I am a Soviet like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow! — Yuri Gagarin

The path of a cosmonaut is not an easy, triumphant march to glory. You have to get to know the meaning not just of joy but also of grief, before being allowed in the spacecraft cabin. — Yuri Gagarin

Since Yuri Gagarin and Al Shepard's epoch flights in 1961, all space missions have been flown only under large, expensive government efforts. By contrast, our program involves a few, dedicated individuals who are focused entirely on making spaceflight affordable. — Burt Rutan

Nothing will stop us. The road to the stars is steep and dangerous. But we're not afraid ... Space flights can't be stopped. This isn't the work of one man or even a group of men. It is a historical process which mankind is carrying out in accordance with the natural laws of human development. — Yuri Gagarin

I don't see any god up here first man in space, while in space. — Yuri Gagarin

In Star City, where Yuri Gagarin trained, I worked as NASA's Director of Operations in Russia from 2001 to 2003, and I learned to live the local life, really embrace it, in order to understand the people I worked with and be more effective in the role. That experience came in handy when, a decade later, I wound up living and working closely with Russian cosmonauts. Not only did I speak their language, but I knew something about myself: it takes me longer to understand when the culture is not my own, so I have to consciously resist the urge to hurry things along and push my own expectations on others. — Chris Hadfield

Gagarin's death was shameful not just because of the loss of a national hero in muddled circumstances, but because of the dangerous flaws revealed in the Soviet military technology of his time. Obviously their radar systems were not capable of simultaneous mapping of aircraft heights and positions, nor of positively identifying one target from another. The implications of this were highly alarming. — Jamie Doran

To be the first to enter the cosmos, to engage, single-handed, in an unprecedented duel with nature-could one dream of anything more? — Yuri Gagarin

If all those people are getting wet to welcome me, surely the least I can do is get wet too! — Yuri Gagarin

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