This Thursday is Cosmonautics Day, a holiday commemorating the first-ever manned space flight by Yury Gagarin, one of Russia's most admirable and charming heroes.
On April 12, 1961, at the age of 27, Gagarin was buckled in the small Vostok capsule. As the spacecraft's designer, Sergei Korolyov, fussed like a mother hen during the prelaunch checks, Gagarin whistled tunes, cracked jokes about the hooch he hoped to be served at his post-flight meal, and famously declared "Poyekhali!" (Let's go!) at takeoff, as if he were heading off to the riverbank with friends instead of alone as the first man in space. |
