INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION, March 9. /TASS/. Yuri Gagarin's first space flight drastically changed our civilization and his spirit is still cherished by every space conqueror, NASA astronauts told Russian TASS correspondent on board of the International Space Station (ISS).
In an interview on board of the space orbital outpost, astronauts of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Loral O’Hara and Mike Barratt told TASS special reporter cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko that Gagarin’s first flight to the space changed the world.
March 9 marks the 90th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's birth and Barratt said in this regard that the feat of the Russian pioneer cosmonaut changed the "civilization forever."
"The flight of Yuri Gagarin both shocked and astounded the world, and most importantly changed civilization forever," he told Kononenko. "I was two years old at the time, and this meant that I grew up in a world with a whole new set of possibilities compared with all generations before."
"I have much savored my time in space doing humanity’s work and looking at our beautiful home world, and count myself immensely fortunate," the US astronaut continued. "But to be the very first, as Yuri Alexeyevich [Gagarin] was when so much was unknown and untested, evokes the greatest humility and respect."
"It is an honor to write these words from the International Space Station, only one of Yuri’s many legacies," Barratt added.
NASA astronaut O’Hara said Gagarin was the authentic pioneer of the space exploration.
"Yuri Gagarin epitomizes the spirit of an explorer: competent, confident, humble, brave," she told TASS correspondent Kononenko. "For a short time, he was the only human with the perspective of our planet from space, and his words about Earth’s beauty and fragility continue to resonate."
"His flight proved humans could fly in space, and in doing so, started a journey that led us to the International Space Station today," she said.
"It was an honor to get to walk in his footsteps during our preparation and launch from Baikonur. His spirit lives on today in the cosmonauts, astronauts, and other explorers of Earth and space," Loral O’Hara added.
On April 12, 1961 Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth. His spacecraft Vostok blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome to travel around the globe once. Gagarin successfully landed in Russia’s Saratov Region. His flight lasted 108 minutes.
The world’s first cosmonaut died in an air crash while performing a test flight on a MiG-15UTI training fighter jet together with instructor Vladimir Seryogin on March 27, 1968.