1963
USSR postage stamp depicting Valentina Tereshkova
Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (Russian: Валенти́на
Влади́мировна Терешко́ва; born 6 March 1937), is a retired
Soviet cosmonaut and was the first woman to fly in
space, aboard Vostok 6 on 16
June 1963.
She was born in Bolshoye Maslennikovo, a small village in the Yaroslavl Oblast. After school she worked in a coat factory, and then studied engineering. She also
trained in parachuting at the local Aeroclub, making her
first jump at age 22 on 21 May 1959. In 1961 she became secretary
of the local Komsomol (Young Communist League) and later joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Career in Soviet space program
After the flight of Yuri Gagarin in 1961, Sergey Korolyov, the head Soviet rocket engineer, came up with the idea of putting a woman in space. On
16 February 1962, Valentina Tereshkova was selected to join
the female cosmonaut corps. Out of more than four hundred applicants, five were selected: Tatiana
Kuznetsova, Irina Solovyova, Zhanna Yerkina,
Valentina Ponomareva, and Tereshkova. Qualifications included that they be
parachutists under 30 years of age, under 170 cm tall, and under 70 kg in weight.
Tereshkova was considered a particularly worthy candidate, thanks in part to her "proletarian" background, and also because her father, tank leader, sergeant Vladimir Tereshkov had died as a war hero in the Finnish
Winter War during World War II in the Lemetti area in Finnish
Karelia. Tereshkova was two years old at the time of her father's death. After her mission she
was asked about how the Soviet Union should thank her for her service to the country. Tereshkova asked the state to search and
publish the location where her father was killed in action. This was done and a monument is now standing at the site in
Lemetti—now on the Russian side of the border. Tereshkova has since visited Finland several times.
Training included weightless flights, isolation tests, centrifuge tests, rocket theory, spacecraft engineering, 120 parachute
jumps and pilot training in MiG-15UTI jet fighters. However, they were not truly
integrated into the cosmonaut detachment and considered for flight assignments on an equal basis with the male cosmonauts.The
group spent several months in intensive training, concluding with examinations in November 1962, after which four remaining
candidates were commissioned Junior Lieutenants in the Soviet Air Force. Tereshkova, Solovyeva and Ponomaryova were the leading
candidates, and a joint mission profile was developed that would see two women launched into space, on solo Vostok flights on
consecutive days in March or April 1963. The honour of being the first woman in space was to be given to Tereshkova who 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.[1] Vostok 5 would now carry a male cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky flying the joint
mission with a woman aboard Vostok 6 in June 1963. The Soviet leadership considered flights of women into space only to be for
propaganda purposes.[citation needed] The State Space Commission nominated Tereshkova to pilot Vostok 6 at their
meeting on 21 May and this was confirmed by Nikita
Khrushchev himself.
After watching 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 back-up Solovyeva were both dressed in spacesuits and taken to the
launchpad by bus. Solovyeva was present in case of any last minute nerves or technical problem, but in a display of considerable
bravery, the 26 year-old Tereshkova confirmed her readiness to be launched, and took her seat atop the rocket. Two hours later
Vostok 6 launched faultlessly, and Tereshkova became the first woman and first civilian to fly
into space. Her call sign in this flight was Chayka (English: Seagull; Russian: Ча́йка). She orbited the earth
48 times and spent almost three days in space, which was more than the combined flights times of all American astronauts at the
time. Tereshkova maintained a flight log and took photographs of the horizon, which were later used to identify aerosol layers within the atmosphere.
Throughout the flight Tereshkova was in the state of nausea.[1] It was later reported that Korolyov was unhappy with Tereshkova's performance
in orbit and she was not permitted to take some manual control of the spacecraft as had been planned. His deputy Vasily Mishin claimed she was "on the edge of psychological instability".[citation needed] During the landing she was injured
and was immediately transported to the hospital. Her landing with a smile was staged next
day.[1]
Vostok 6 was the final Vostok flight and was launched only two days after Vostok 5 which carried Valery Bykovsky into orbit for five days,
landing only three hours after Tereshkova in Vostok 6. The two vessels were at one point only
5km apart and established a radio link.
Even though there were plans for further female flights it took 19 years until the second woman, Svetlana Savitskaya, flew into space, with the pressure of impending American Space Shuttle flights with female astronauts. None of the other four in Tereshkova's cosmonaut group ever
flew.
Later career
After her flight she studied at the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy and
graduated with a distinction as cosmonaut engineer in 1969. The same year, the female cosmonaut
group was dissolved. In 1977 she received a doctorate of engineering. Due to her prominence she was
chosen for several political positions: From 1966 to 1974 she was a
member of the Supreme Soviet, from 1974 to 1989 in the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, from 1969 to 1991 she was in the Central Committee of the Communist Party. In
1997 she was retired from the air force and the cosmonaut corps by
presidential order.
After the Vostok 6 flight a joke began circulating that she should marry Andrian Nikolayev (1929–2004), the only bachelor cosmonaut to have flown. There have been various
rumors about this marriage, e.g., about the pressure from Nikita Khrushchev, in
several versions, one of them alleged that medical researchers wanted to perform an experiment with sex in space.[2][not in citation given] Nikolayev and Tereshkova
married on 3 November 1963 at the Moscow Wedding Palace.
Khrushchev himself presided at the wedding party, together with top government and space program leaders.
She gave birth to their daughter Elena Andrianovna (who is now a doctor and was the first
person to have both a mother and father who had travelled into space) in 1964. She and Nikolayev
divorced in 1982, though their marriage collapsed long before.[citation needed] Her second husband, Yuri
Shaposhnikov, died in 1999.
Valentina Tereshkova visiting
Finland in 2002
Valentina Tereshkova later became a prominent member of the Soviet government and a well known representative abroad. She was
made a member of the World Peace Council in 1966, a member of the Yaroslavl Soviet in 1967, a member of the Soviet of the
Union of the Supreme Soviet in 1966–1970 and 1970–1974, and was elected to the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1974. She was also the Soviet
representative to the UN Conference for the International Women's Year in Mexico City in
1975. She attained the rank of deputy to the Supreme Soviet, membership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central
Committee, Vice President of the International Woman’s Democratic Federation and President of the Soviet-Algerian Friendship
Society.
She was decorated Hero of the Soviet Union, the USSR's highest award. She
was also awarded the Order of Lenin, Order of the October Revolution, numerous medals, and foreign orders including the
Karl Marx Order United Nations Gold Medal of Peace and the Simba International
Women’s Movement Award. She was also bestowed a title of the Hero of Socialist Labor of
Czechoslovakia, Hero of Labor of Vietnam, and Hero of
Mongolia. In 1990 she received an honorary doctorate from the University of
Edinburgh. A crater on the far side of
the Moon is named after Tereshkova.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tereshkova lost her political office but none of her prestige. To this day, she is
still revered as a Russian heroine, and to some her importance in Russian space history is only surpassed by Yuri Gagarin and Alexei Leonov. Since her retirement from politics,
she appears infrequently at space-related events, and appears to be content with being out of the limelight.
Tereshkova was invited to President Vladimir Putin's residence in Novo-Ogaryovo for the celebration of her 70th birthday. While there she said that she would like to fly to
Mars, even if it meant that it was a one way trip. [3]
Pop culture
In the early 1960s a popular song in the Soviet Union was "Valushka" about Valentina Tereshkova.
In Peter F. Hamilton's novel The
Reality Dysfunction, Vostok 6 (the capsule which launched Tereshkova into
space) is owned by Ione Saldana, the
Lord of Ruin.
The electropop band Komputer's CD The World of Tomorrow has a melancholy song "Valentina" dedicated to Tereshkova.
The Chilean composer and singer Violeta Parra has a song
dedicated to her, "Ayudame Valentina" ("Help me Valentina").
In 2000, Canadian singer-songwriter Kurt Swinghammer
released a 17 track prog rock concept album as a
tribute to, and romanticization of, Tereshkova and her flight aboard Vostok 6 entitled "Vostok
6". The album purportedly examines "space travel, the cold war, feminism, and unrequited love",[4] as viewed through the lens of the artist's fascination with Tereshkova.
A 2000 album Musique by Theatre of
Tragedy features a song Space Age, dedicated to space pioneers. Song lyrics recite Tereshkova.
In Allen Steele's novel Coyote Frontier the
leader of the EASS Columbus is called Tereshkova and is said to be a descendant of Valentina Tereshkova, even naming a creek
after Valentina on an expedition.
On Star Trek Voyager. there was a shuttlecraft named after her
References
- ^ a b "Valentina Tereshkova: the Woman who Conquered the Space" (Russian)
- ^ Valentina Tereshkova (Russian)
- ^ Reuters. First
woman in space dreams of flying to Mars. Retrieved on 2007-03-08.
- ^ Kurt Swinghammer's "Vostok 6" Album Press Kit Web Page
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