Cosmonaut Gierman Titov was the backup pilot to the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, and the pilot of the first manned spaceflight of more than a single orbit. He was named a Hero of the Soviet Union and received the Order of Lenin. Later, he became a deputy of the Supreme Soviet. This interview, which has been translated from the Russian, was conducted in March 1996.

On joining the first team of Soviet cosmonauts:

I was doing my army service in the division near Leningrad. My commander told me to go and meet some doctors who had arrived -- I didn't know what for. And the conversation was the usual one about my flights, about my health. I answered in a non-committal way, like when they asked me, "How are your flights?" I said, "Ask my commanders." "How is your health?" "Ask my doctors." And then they asked, "Would you like to fly a rocket?" And at that time, the first sputnik had been launched. "Would you like to fly sputniks?" I said, "I don't understand about it; I have to think it over" -- because my flying experience had been very successful, my commanders thought I was a good pilot, and I didn't see why I should change my job. Then they said, "Well, in theory, in general?" So I said, "Yes, in general I'm interested."

That was my first encounter of that kind. By the end of the year I went on leave, and when I came back I was curious about how it would be to fly a sputnik. And I was told that I had been called to Moscow, but because I had been on leave I wasn't around. ... But I got a second call, and went to Moscow, and I was enrolled into the cosmonauts' team. We all got together in Moscow on the 14th of March 1960, and that's when our training started, because there was little time and a lot of unclear questions. And that was when I met Gagarin and other cosmonauts. There was nothing especially romantic about it, but a normal professional interest to fly higher, to fly more modern vehicles. ...

You have to remember that we were all young people, and I entered the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest person in space. We were all volunteers, and we were all united by the idea of flying into space. And of course, that brought us all together.

On the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin:

Yuri Gagarin was a very interesting person, and his way in life was interesting. During the war, the family was on the occupied territory, near Smolensk. After the war, life was very hard. And after he left the sixth form at school, he went to Moscow and completed a course in a technical school, then joined a club, and then a pilots' school. I knew his parents very well, and his brother and his sister, and they were very outstanding: practical, calm, composed; and of course it showed on Yuri Alekseevich. I always envied him, in the sense that he could speak to any audience like an equal: with scientists, with students, with Pioneers, with Young Communists, with workers -- in every situation he would find a key to people. I'm a different kind of person, and I envied him -- in a good way.

On why Gagarin was chosen for the first spaceflight:

There were 20 of us in the first team, and during the first month it was clear that all of us couldn't be properly trained, because there were not enough training machines there. The equipment was still in the stage of preparation, and we had to study things from scratch. It became clear that only one person would be able to go. Six people were short-listed. Those were: Gagarin, then myself, Nikolayev, Popovich, Bukovsky and Nelyubov. ... Doctors had different opinions about when the candidate would have to be told who would fly and who would be the double, [or backup]. Some said that if you told them at the beginning, certain frictions, certain personality clashes can start. Others thought that the earlier you say who is the commander [and] who is the double, the more confident the person would be.

Why Gagarin and myself were chosen -- it's difficult to say why. The commanders chose us. But all the six of us were equally well-trained, and each could pilot the Vostok spacecraft. It was Gagarin's character that mattered most. You have to understand me correctly: The first man in space in the world had to be a nice, attractive person. [We were] told [it would be Gagarin] on the 9th of April, and journalists say that I was so glad for Yuri that I almost went to kiss him. I was disappointed, because I also counted that I would be the first man in space. But as the decision had been made, what was there to do?

I had to act as the double, [or backup pilot]. The word "double" didn't exist then. And the last night before the flight, Gagarin and I spent in the house -- which is now called "Gagarin's House" -- which was provided for the two of us and our commander, and a group of doctors who were looking after us. We were already on the space food. We played chess in the evening. It was a normal working atmosphere. A lot of people would probably not be able to take it in, but you have to understand that it was ordinary work for us. Of course, flying a rocket was not an ordinary thing to do, but for us it was our work.

We got the last instructions ... and we went to bed on time. We were woken up in the morning. Few people know that as it turned out, the medical people had their doubts about whether we would be able to sleep peacefully, and they put sensors under the mattresses so that they could see how much we tossed and turned. We didn't know about it. But at five o'clock in the morning we were woken up, and we did morning exercises and went [on with it]. Quite honestly, myself and other friends couldn't possibly be fully aware of what was happening. On the 14th of April, the people of Moscow were meeting Gagarin. There was about a six-hour parade, civil parade. Only then I felt what an important thing [had] happened. Before that meeting on the Red Square, we looked upon what we were doing as something ordinary.

On Gagarin's flight:

There had been about five or six launches [before Gagarin], and one of the spacecraft didn't come back because the brakes didn't work properly: instead of braking, it sped up. But other spacecraft came back safely. And there was a dummy in the last-before-us spacecraft, and also dogs had been to space. When we went to see another launch which exploded, we knew that technology and equipment is something that can fail, because not every fighter flight was successful. So I always hoped that things would go well; but there can be some complications. And when Yuri and I came to the spacecraft, he went in, and I went into the minibus and drove away, and I had a short [snooze] in the van.

He landed in the Saratov area, on the left bank of the Volga. And after the launch, [I was told] to get on the plane and to fly to meet Gagarin. When we arrived in Kuybyshev, where Gagarin was brought, I had one question I wished to ask: "How did the state of weightlessness feel?" All those vibrations, that was obvious; but weightlessness was a mystery. And as he was coming down, I saw on the ladder a group of scientists, of military people, people from the plant. And I was senior lieutenant, and I started to push my way through the crowd to Gagarin. They were staring at me: "What is that senior lieutenant doing here?" [They] thought I was an impudent, cheeky person; they thought I was very disrespectful. I came up to Yuri, and we hugged each other, and I asked, "How is weightlessness?" He said, "OK." And I immediately left, because that was the only thing I was interested in. And then there was the press conference; and his schedule was so packed that we had no time to talk properly. But I didn't want anything else, I just wanted to know about weightlessness.

On his own spaceflight:

As soon as the third stage split, I felt as [if] I was turned upside down. I couldn't understand why I felt this way. Then I saw that the Earth began to turn slower in my eyes. And three or four minutes later, this feeling of being in the upside-down position went away. And when I was reporting about it later, the doctors said that when we are here on Earth, in the state of gravitation, we gravitate to the Earth, and our lower part of the body feels heavier. And when there is no gravitation, that's how this feeling [of being] heavy in the head can be explained. The other feeling I had was, "How small our Earth is!" -- even though I had flown fighter planes.

During my space flight, flying over North America, I sent my greetings to the people of America, and 80 minutes later I sent my greetings to the people of the Soviet Union; so it takes an hour and a half to circle the Earth. It's very impressive. And that was the brightest impression. I had the feeling that our Earth is a sand particle in the universe, comparable to a particle of sand on the shore of the ocean. And here we live, and used to threaten each other with nuclear bombs, and I thought that no matter to what society you belong and what your relation is, you have to understand that we are all spacemen, and the Earth is our spacecraft, and we have to work here like spacemen do.

On the U.S.-Soviet space and arms race:

That competition, that race with America, existed because such was the time. Regarding the mood of the people at that time -- I was asked at [a] press conference: "Could the Vostok spacecraft carry a nuclear bomb?" Somehow the mood was conducive to this [type of question]. No nuclear charges could be carried by Vostok; it was not made for that, it was made for carrying a man into space. After Gagarin's flight, people on the Earth began to understand each other better. The sputniks with dogs had been to space before Gagarin, but Gagarin was the first person, the first man in space, and there was not a single country which wouldn't be extremely excited. Southeast Asia or South America or the United States of America, Africa -- no matter on what continent, Yuri Gagarin was the most welcome guest. And it illustrates the feeling that people had; and I'm convinced that it improved the political climate.

As a professional, I felt let down [when the United States landed on the moon]. I was upset, because I would have also wanted to go to the moon. But our situation was such that we had overlooked something, and you can't produce the equipment, create technology all of a sudden. Every discovery is preceded by dozens of years of work, and it's my point of view [that] we lagged behind, in the beginning. We overlooked something.

We had the N-1 spacecraft, which didn't work the first time it was launched. And initially we planned that without landing, the spacecraft would circle around the moon, because it didn't have enough weight to land. [Only later would] we land on the moon and come back, like Apollo did. ...

I know a lot of American astronauts, and as a professional I am very respectful of them, especially the first ones. We had meetings both in America and in the Soviet Union. I have to say that even at that time we didn't have any dislike of each other. We knew that some of us worked better than others, but it was all work, and we took calmly all the American flights. When there was an Apollo accident -- something went wrong, the fuel elements exploded -- all of us, all the people on Earth hoped that it ended successfully. ...

Of course, I am a military person, I am a fighter pilot, and I knew what conventional warfare was, and I could imagine what nuclear warfare could lead to. I don't want to sound original, but I always said that a nuclear war should not ever be allowed. And when some specialists said that we had such stockpiles which would be enough to destroy the Earth several times, I asked the question: "What for?"