Valentina Tereshkova

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova ( rus, Валентина Владимировна Терешкова, links=no, p=vɐlʲɪnʲˈtʲinə vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvnə tʲɪrʲɪʂˈkovə, a=Valentina Tereshkova.ogg; born 6 March 1937) is an engineer, member of the Russian State Duma, and former Soviet cosmonaut. She is known for being the first and youngest woman in space, having flown a solo mission on the Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. She orbited the Earth 48 times, spent almost three days in space, and remains the only woman to have been on a solo space mission.

Before her selection for the Soviet space program, Tereshkova was a textile factory worker and an amateur skydiver. She joined the Air Force as part of the Cosmonaut Corps and was commissioned as an officer after completing her training. After the dissolution of the first group of female cosmonauts in 1969, Tereshkova remained in the space program as a cosmonaut instructor. She later graduated from the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy and re-qualified for spaceflight but never went to space again. She retired from the Air Force in 1997 having attained the rank of major general.

Tereshkova was a prominent member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, holding various political offices including being a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet but twice lost elections to the national State Duma in 1995 and 2003. Tereshkova was later elected in 2008 to her regional parliament, the Yaroslavl Oblast Duma. In 2011, she was elected to the national State Duma as a member of the United Russia party and was re-elected in 2016 and 2021.

Early life

Valentina Tereshkova was born on 6 March in 1937 in the Bolshoye Maslennikovo, a village on the Volga River northeast of Moscow and part of the Yaroslavl Oblast in central Russia. Her parents had migrated from Belarus. Her father, Vladimir Tereshkov, was a former tractor driver and a sergeant in command of a tank in the Soviet Army. He died in the Finnish Winter War during World War II when Tereshkova was two years of age. He and her mother Elena Fyodorovna Tereshkova had three children. After her father's death, her mother moved the family to Yaroslavl, seeking better employment opportunity, and became employed at the Krasny Perekop cotton mill.

Tereshkova was first enrolled in school at age 10 and graduated at 17. She began working at a tyre factory, and later at a textile mill, but continued her education by taking correspondence courses and graduated from the Light Industry Technical School in 1960. Tereshkova also became interested from a young age in parachuting, and trained in skydiving at the local Aeroclub, making her first jump at age 22, on 21 May 1959. While still employed as a textile worker, she trained as a competitive parachutist, keeping this a secret from her family. Tereshkova also joined the local Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in Yaroslavl, serving as the secretary of the organisation in 1960 and 1961. She became a member of the Communist Party in 1962.

Soviet space program

Selection and training

Tereshkova had not had any desire to go into space before being recruited. Rather, her experience at skydiving contributed to her selection as a cosmonaut. After the flight of Yuri Gagarin in 1961, Nikolai Kamanin, director of cosmonaut training, read in the American media that female pilots were training to be astronauts. In his diary, he wrote, "We cannot allow that the first woman in space will be American. This would be an insult to the patriotic feelings of Soviet women." Approval was granted to place five female cosmonauts in the next group, which would begin training in 1963. To increase the odds of sending a Soviet woman into space first, the women cosmonauts began their training before the men. The rules required that the potential cosmonaut be a parachutist under 30 years of age, less than in height, no more than in weight. By January 1962, the All-Union Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Army, Air Force and Navy ( DOSAAF) had selected 400 candidates for consideration. After the initial screening, 58 of those candidates met the requirements, which Kamanin reduced to 23. On 16 February 1962, Tereshkova was selected, along with four other candidates, to join the female cosmonaut corps.

Since they had no military experience, they started with the rank of private in the Soviet Air Forces. Training included isolation tests, centrifuge tests, thermo-chamber tests, decompression chamber testing, and pilot training in MiG-15UTI jet fighters. Tereshkova underwent water recovery training at sea, as part of which several motorboats were used to agitate the water, in order to simulate the rough conditions of space travel. She also began studying at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy and graduated a few years after her flight. The group spent several months in basic training and, after they finished their training and passed an examination, Kamanin offered them the option to be commissioned as regular Air Force officers. With advice from the male cosmonauts, they chose to accept Kamanin's offer, as it would make it harder for the program to get rid of them after the first flight. All five women became junior lieutenants in the Air Force in December 1962. Tatyana Kuznetsova became ineligible for the first flight due to illness, and Zhanna Yorkina was performing poorly in training, leaving Tereshkova, Irina Solovyova, and Valentina Ponomaryova as the leading candidates.

Originally, a joint mission profile was developed that would involve launching two women into space, on solo Vostok flights, on consecutive days in March or April 1963. It was intended that Tereshkova would launch first, in Vostok 5, while Ponomaryova would follow her into orbit in Vostok 6. However, this flight plan was altered in March 1963. Vostok 5 would now carry a male cosmonaut, Valery Bykovsky, flying alongside a woman aboard Vostok 6, both to be launched in June 1963. The State Space Commission, at their meeting on 21 May, nominated Tereshkova to pilot Vostok 6. Kamanin called her "Gagarin in a skirt." Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was happy with the propaganda potential of her selection, since she was the daughter of a collective farm worker who had died in the Winter War; he confirmed her selection. Solovyova was appointed as her first backup. Tereshkova was promoted to lieutenant before her flight and to captain mid-flight.

Vostok 6

After the successful launch of Vostok 5 on 14 June, Tereshkova began final preparations for her own flight. On the morning of 16 June 1963, Tereshkova and her backup Solovyova were both dressed in spacesuits and taken to the launch pad by bus. Following the tradition set by Gagarin, Tereshkova also urinated on the bus tire, becoming the first woman to do so. After completing her communication- and life-support checks, she was sealed inside the Vostok. After a two-hour countdown, Vostok 6 launched faultlessly, and Tereshkova became the first woman in space; she remains the only woman to have flown into space solo, and, at 26 years of age, the youngest. Her call sign on this flight was ''Chaika'' (russian: link=no, Чайка, lit=Seagull); in commemoration, this name was later bestowed on an asteroid, 1671 Chaika. After her launch, she radioed down:

Vostok 6 was the final Vostok flight and was launched two days after Vostok 5 which carried Bykovsky into a five-day mission. The two vessels spent three days in orbital planes 30° apart and, during Tereshkova's first orbit, approached each other to within . Although they were able to communicate by radio, neither could be sure if they saw each other. Cameras placed inside both the spacecraft transmitted live footage that was broadcast on Soviet state television. Tereshkova also maintained a flight log and took photographs of the horizon, which were later used to identify aerosol layers within the atmosphere.

In this single flight, she logged more flight time than the combined times of all American astronauts who had flown before that date. Her mission was used to continue the medical studies on humans in spaceflight and offered comparative data about the effects of space travel on women. Although Tereshkova experienced nausea and physical discomfort for much of the flight, she orbited the earth 48 times and spent 2 days, 22 hours, and 50 minutes in space. Among her other firsts, Tereshkova can also claim having made the first bowel movement in space, which occurred on the second day of her flight.

As planned in all Vostok missions, Tereshkova ejected from the capsule during its descent at about four miles above the Earth and made a parachute landing north-east of Karaganda, Kazakhstan at 8:20 am UTC on 19 June. Bykovsky landed three hours after her.

Later on, Tereshkova revealed that she had difficulty controlling the parachute due to strong winds. However, she landed safely but received a bruise on her nose, then she had dinner with some local villagers in the Altai Krai who helped her to get out of her spacesuit.

After the Vostok 6 flight

According to the Russian newspaper ''Pravda'', one million flowers were brought in to celebrate the success of the dual flights and greet the cosmonauts in Moscow. On 22 June 1963, Khrushchev greeted Bykovsky dressed in his uniform who saluted while Khrushchev hugged and kissed Tereshkova who was dressed in civilian attire. In front of the thousands in attendance, the Premier also announced that both the cosmonauts were awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal. All three made speeches from atop Lenin's Tomb on the Red Square; Tereshkova said, "my father perished defending our country and my mother brought up her three children. We know the bitterness of that war. We don't need war," referring to the anniversary of the German invasion of Russia that began 22 years ago that day. Sometime after her mission, she was reportedly asked how the Soviet Union should thank her for her service to the country; Tereshkova requested that the government search for and publish the location of where her father was killed in action. This was done, and a monument was erected at the site in the Lemetti, Karelia—now on the Russian side of the border. The evening of 22 June, a reception was held in the Kremlin in which both Bykovsky and Tereshkova were awarded the Order of Lenin.

Less than a week after her return from space, Moscow hosted the International Women's Congress on 24 June where Tereshkova and Bykovsky were greeted by a gathering of about 2,000 women from 119 countries. Of all the Russian cosmonauts, Tereshkova received the most requests to visit foreign nations. Her trips in particular required pre-approval from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, and the KGB and were ultimately authorized by the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the highest political bureau in the Soviet Union.

All the Vostok cosmonauts toured extensively, but Tereshkova most of all; she made 42 trips abroad between 1963 and 1970. On 1 October 1963, Tereshkova arrived in Havana, Cuba, and met Fidel Castro. She toured the country which at the time was dealing with effects of Hurricane Flora. The following month she presented a silver cup, which went to the team from the Soviet Union who won gold in all five boat classes, at the women's 1963 European Rowing Championships held in Khimki near Moscow. By February 1964, Tereshkova was pregnant when she visited Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom who was also pregnant at the time. Except for a few-months break that year, Tereshkova went on a continuous and exhausting world tour, returning to her public duties only two months after the birth of her daughter.

After her spaceflight, Tereshkova became a national and international role model. She received "congratulatory telegrams and letters... from around the world." These telegrams express the impact that Tereshkova had on other countries, outside the Soviet Union. Women were particularly excited about her flight. For example, in New Delhi, Tereshkova was a "feminist standard bearer bringing a message of hope for 'enslaved' Indian womanhood."

Tereshkova was a well-known representative of the Soviet Union abroad. She became a member of the World Peace Council in 1966 and a member of the Yaroslavl Soviet in 1967. She was also the Soviet representative to the UN Conference for the International Women's Year in Mexico City in 1975. She led the Soviet delegation to the World Conference on Women in Copenhagen and was "interested in socialist internationalism and women's roles in guaranteeing world peace". Tereshkova was also chosen for several political positions; she was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (1966–1974), a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (1969–1991), and a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet

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