“I would like to dedicate this first space flight to the people of Communism, a society which our Soviet people are already entering, and which, I am confident, all people on the Earth will enter. It is a minute now before the start. So, I say to you good-bye,
dear friends, just as people say to each other when setting out
on a long journey. I would like to embrace you all — people
known and unknown to me. See you soon!”
Yuri Gagarin, April 12, 1961
