14 minutes until start was written in autumn 1960 by vladimir voinovich, a relatively unknown soviet author at the time, during his six months working as a writer for all-union radio. in late 1960, the soviet government requested that a song be written to commemorate the vostok 1 mission, which was scheduled for launch in mid-1961. in his biography "design", voinovich claims that he was the only worker at the all-union radio to volunteer to write lyrics for the piece, and, with help from oscar feltsman, the song was completed within less than a week of the order. the song was not widely distributed in the soviet union until after the success of the vostok 1 mission, but became an almost obligatory addition to any space-related musical repertoire afterwards. the song peaked in popularity in summer 1962, when it was sung aboard the vostok 3 spaceflight by cosmonauts andriyan nikolayev and pavel popovich, as well as at when the crew of vostok 3 were received by nikita khrushchev after the mission