Buzz Aldrin, in his memoir, also expressed the wish that a poet, or someone with a creative background had been sent to the moon; vs the scientific/concrete minded test pilots like himself. FWIW - I think he did pretty well with the phrase “Magnificent desolation” (a phrase he spoke to to Mission Control and the title of the aforementioned memoir ) 
Not merely a phrase, but I believe it was his first words upon standing on the surface of the moon.
An unattributed claim says that “Sergei Korolev, chief designer and scientist behind the whole Soviet space adventure, once remarked, they ‘should have sent a poet not a pilot’.” — http://justadandak.com/we-should-have-sent-a-poet-not-a-pilot/
Korolev died in 1966.
Please note that this thread began in 2003.
The closest lines in the short story “Disappearing Act” are these:
You need a poet . . . an artist who understands the creation of dreams.
Send a poet into Ward T.
A poet is half doing it anyway.
Send a poet to Ward T.
He waited for them to find a poet, not understanding the endless delay, the fruitless search
Bumped.
I’m now reading Robert Harris’s 2005 historical novel Pompeii, and the Roman admiral and naturalist Pliny the Elder, struggling to describe the awful majesty of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius as he watches from a distance, says, “They should have sent a poet.” A little Googling suggests he is not recorded as having said that at the time.