I remember looking at the clouds while lying on the grass at our family farm near Cherkessk, a city in the Caucasus Mountains in the Soviet Union.
I'd lie there between my regular chores, and my father would say, "Alexei Samedov, you are a lazy boy."
But I wasn't lazy; I was planning my future.
I knew one day I would fly among the clouds, higher and higher—and maybe even reach the stars.
I needed to study hard and get in good physical shape to be a pilot.
So I made sure my grades were near perfect, and I ran fast around the boundary fence of our farm every day.
In the Soviet Union, our compulsory education lasts 11 years, and after that I was accepted at the Sarapul Air Force Academy.
For four years I learned about the physics of flight, airplane mechanics, aviation navigation, weather variability—
everything I would need to become a successful pilot.
And of course I actually flew planes—at first with an instructor and eventually solo.
In 1947, when I was twenty years old, I attended the Borisoglebsk Military Aviation School,
where I learned to fly the new Soviet fighter jets like the MiG-9 and the Yak-15.
I was taught how to make tight turns and eject from my plane in case of trouble.
After graduating I became a test pilot and flew one of the first MiG-15 fighter planes—
the most technologically advanced fighter in the world at that time.
After World War II, as rocket science developed, both the Soviet Union and the United States began a "space race,"
an exciting competition to put humans into space.
Both countries invested money and time into programs designed to pursue human spaceflight.
The U.S. program was called Project Mercury, and the Soviet program was called the Vostok Program.
In 1957 the Soviet Union put the first earthling into orbit around Earth—a dog named Laika—and the race really became serious.
In 1959 the Cosmonaut Training Center was created in Moscow to teach Soviet pilots how to fly the new spacecraft and survive in space.
The word "cosmonaut" means "sailor of the universe" in Russian, and I was one of the first to apply to become one.
Thousands of pilots, engineers, and scientists—men and women—applied for the Soviet space program,
and they had to pass extensive interviews with the director of the center.
I also had to pass very strict medical examinations and psychological tests
because it is extremely important the applicants be healthy and mentally able to withstand the stress and the loneliness of a space flight.
Fewer than one out of every hundred people that applied were actually chosen, and luckily I made the cut.
Our training includes working in many simulators, machines that mimic the environmental conditions a cosmonaut will experience in space.
For example, I train in a pressurized space suit to adapt my body to various altitudes—
first, I train at 5 to 6 kilometers and then, at 14 to 15 kilometers.
When the spacecraft re-enters Earth's atmosphere, cosmonauts have to eject at about 12 kilometers of altitude and descend to Earth with a parachute.
So I practice jumping from airplanes and landing with a parachute in water and on land.
I also train with a gimbal rig, a machine that has taught me how to control the spin of a tumbling space capsule.
My training in a centrifuge, a huge mechanical arm, helps me withstand spinning forward and backward,
and round and round at differing speeds for up to 13 minutes.
The centrifuge has accustomed my body to high g-forces,
the forces of gravity a cosmonaut experiences during the acceleration and deceleration of space flight.
Roller-coaster riders also experience g-forces, but at a much lower level.
The part of the training I like best is learning how to use the control panels in the capsule.
I've learned how to maintain communication with the space team back on Earth,
memorized every part of my spacecraft, and practiced what to do in case of an emergency.
The worst part of the training is being left totally alone for very long periods in an isolation chamber, sometimes up to ten days.
My instructors need to test my reactions to being alone and to the lack of outside stimulation.
I call it the cabin of silence, and being in there is really difficult.
At times I don't know if I am awake or asleep.
Sometimes I pound on the walls of the chamber, sing, or talk to myself, just to make sure I can still feel and hear.
While in isolation I think about a lot of things.
I ask myself, "What will happen to my wife and children if I do not come back from a mission?
Should I take this risk?" These are hard questions to ponder.
Recently Yuri Gagarin became the first man in history to go up into space.
On April 12, 1961, he spent 108 minutes in space and came back safely. Everyone in the world was amazed!
Quickly the Americans launched astronauts Alan Shepard in May and Gus Grissom in July; each mission was a mere 15-minute suborbital flight.
That August cosmonaut Gherman Titov bested the Americans when he took off and spent more than a day in space, circling Earth 17 times.
He was the first human ever to fall asleep in space!
Now I am waiting to hear, along with my fellow cosmonauts, who will be chosen to go on the next mission. I hope it will be me.
My father is proud and so is my wife, but they worry too because space is a very dangerous place.
But the galaxy is the last frontier and calls out to us on Earth to explore and discover what the universe holds for humanity.
Hopefully I will fly there, just as I dreamed so long ago lying on the grass at the farm and looking up at the stars.