50 Years Later, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's Secret Last Words Revealed

Fifty years ago today, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to experience outer space. Beforehand, he wrote a poignant letter to his wife, telling her to remarry if he didn't survive. But his last conversation before liftoff, according to secret recordings only now released by Russia, was decidedly less sentimental, peppered with swears and talk about ... sausage.

Russian Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space on April 12, 1961.

At the height of the Cold War, Gagarin's feat as the first man in space was heralded as a victory for the Soviet Union and a humiliation for America. It spurred tit-for-tat one-upmanship that pushed NASA to put a man on the moon eight years later. Gagarin, then 27, became a national hero, and details of his flight and even his personal life were considered Soviet state secrets for decades. Until now.

Russia released more than 700 pages of never before seen material linked to Gagarin's life and times this week, ahead of today's 50th anniversary. Among the documents are transcripts of radio transmissions that recorded Gagarin's final words before taking flight. In such a serious and historic moment, the exchanges between Gagarin and Soviet technicians -- who later acknowledged that they feared for his life -- were surprisingly calm and even funny.

One of the last things Gagarin did before liftoff was check his supply of food. His flight planners were concerned about him having enough to eat after his voyage, once he'd landed in barren fields near the Volga River, 450 miles from Moscow. They joked about his food supply over a radio transmission, once the hatch on his Vostok space capsule was shut.

"There in the flap you have dinner, supper and breakfast," the father of the Soviet rocket program, Sergei Korolyov, told Gagarin, according to a transcript first published Monday on the Russian news website lifenews.ru.

"You've got sausage, candy and jam to go with the tea," Korolyov explained. "Sixty-three pieces -- you'll get fat! When you get back today, eat everything right away."

Gagarin joked back: "The main thing is that there is sausage -- to go with the moonshine."

Both men laughed, and then Korolyov realized their radio transmissions were being recorded for posterity. "Damn. This thing is recording everything, the bastard," he said.

Until now, Gagarin's most famous utterance has been "Poyekhali!" -- or "Off we go!" in Russian -- which he shouted as his space capsule took flight.

Yuri Gagarin, First Man In Space

Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin, shown here at right with his parents and siblings, was born March 9, 1934. Raised on a Soviet collective farm, Gagarin and his family survived the Nazi Germany occupation during World War II.

Yuri Gagarin, First Man In Space

Gagarin, as a teenager during the early 1950s at left, and during flight training at right. Gagarin attended a technical high school and completed military flight training to become a MiG-15 pilot in the Soviet Air Force, where he was selected to become a cosmonaut with 19 other pilots in 1960.

Yuri Gagarin, First Man In Space

Yuri Gagarin, shown here in June 1960 with his wife Valentina and daughter Elena. Gagarin's second daughter, Galya, was born in March 1961, just a month before his Vostok 1 flight. The original group of 20 cosmonauts was narrowed to six by January 1961, and subsequent testing and training - as well as Gagarin's small 5-foot-2 frame - made him an ideal candidate to be the first man to explore outer space.

Yuri Gagarin, First Man In Space

April 12, 1961. Yuri Gagarin and his backup Gherman Titov (rear) ride a bus to the Vostok 1 launch site at Baikonur Cosmodrome, located in the desert steppes of Kazakhstan. The Soviet space program's final Vostok test flight in March with a dog aboard was successful, setting the stage for a manned spaceflight attempt.

Yuri Gagarin, First Man In Space

At 9:07am Moscow time, Vostok 1 lifts off from the launch pad. The manned flight beat the United States into space by a month; the Mercury program would only launch two suborbital flights in 1961 and would not be able to make an orbital flight until 1962.

Yuri Gagarin, First Man In Space

This mockup of the Vostok spacecraft shows the silvery, spherical descent module containing the cosmonaut attached to the third stage of the launch vehicle. While Soviet rocketry was ahead of their American counterparts, their spacecraft were far more limited. The Vostok spacecraft had limited maneuverability in orbit, and most of its systems were operated by ground control, bypassing the man in orbit.

Yuri Gagarin, First Man In Space

After one orbit, Vostok 1 reentered the Earth's atmosphere and landed safely, although separately from Gagarin. Gagarin ejected from the module from about 20,000ft in altitude and parachuted safely to the ground by design. The spacecraft, which was not designed to land with a cosmonaut inside, impacted the ground hard enough to create an impact crater, bouncing several times before coming to rest covered in soil. The flight took 1 hour and 48 minutes.

Yuri Gagarin, First Man In Space

Gagarin, shown here during a 1961 visit to London, became an instant worldwide celebrity. The Soviet Union sent Gagarin abroad on goodwill tours for propaganda purposes, promoting their historic first in space flight. Much like John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, Gagarin was deemed to valuable to risk on another mission, and never returned to outer space.

Yuri Gagarin, First Man In Space

Despite banning him from further space missions, Yuri Gagarin died during a routine training flight in a MiG-15 jet March 27, 1968. Investigations over the years have pointed to turbulence from other jets, or faulty weather reports, or a bird strike, but the exact cause of the crash has never been conclusively determined. Gagarin's ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin on Red Square as a public funeral was held for the cosmonaut. He was 34 years old.

Yuri Gagarin, First Man In Space