To be the first to enter the cosmos, to engage, single-handed, in an unprecedented duel with nature-could one dream of anything more?
Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!
Looking at the earth from afar you realize it is too small for conflict and just big enough for co-operation.
I see Earth! It is so beautiful.
The earth was blue but there was no god.
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.
I could have gone on flying through space forever.
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!
I see no god up here.
I looked and looked but I didn’t see God.
If all those people are getting wet to welcome me, surely the least I can do is get wet too!
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.
I am watching the Earth. The visibility is good. I feel well and cheerful. The machine is functioning normally.
I feel fine. How about you?
I don’t see any god up here first man in space, while in space.