By mid-June 1963, only ten astronauts were in space. Four Russians and six Americans, although the total time the former had accumulated in orbit was four times that of the latter. The Mercury program had just finished; It was not known from Vostok what plans the USSR had in the beginning race to the moon.
So, on June 14, Radio Moscow, with the usual fanfare, announced the launch of another cosmonaut: Valery Bykovsky. His ship, another Vostok pod, number 5, almost identical to the one that had launched Gagarin and other companions into orbit. It wasn’t a very large or comfortable aircraft, but it had enough water and fuel to stay in flight for more than five days, which was a record at the time.
Bykovsky flew alone for two days until Radio Moscow announced a new launch, this time with a woman: Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova. This female intervention in a world that seemed to be reserved for men caused a sensation.
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The President’s Ban on Female Astronauts
In the United States, this was unthinkable, since one of the conditions Eisenhower made when selecting astronauts was that they be military personnel and have experience as test pilots. No woman met this requirement, although an unofficial panel of 13 candidates was formed who demonstrated the same ability as the men during training. Some have even surpassed them.
Of the 13, only Wally Funk came true when he flew in the summer of 2021 as a guest on a suborbital capsule operated by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company. She was 82 years old, making her briefly the oldest person to look into space. The brand lasted only a few months until actor William Shatner, “Captain Kirk” from Star Trek, also flew by invitation.
Aside from his skills as a pilot and parachutist, Yuri Gagarin was chosen as the model for the new Soviet man. Young, personable, outgoing, a worker in a steel foundry before joining the Air Force, an athlete and the owner of a smile that opened all doors. Tereshkova also responded to this plan: very young (27 years old), born into a modest family, daughter of a tank officer’s war hero, former worker in a textile factory, fond of parachuting, secretary of the Konsomol (communist youth group). and of course party member. He did not have a military career, but this detail was clarified by being awarded an honorary rank in the Soviet Air Force.
Flight of the “Vostok 6”
Valentina was selected (along with four other colleagues) from a pool of 400 applicants. It had to pass extremely rigorous testing, as was required at a time when the risks of space travel were somewhat overestimated. In the end, she and Valentina Ponomariova were chosen for a spectacular mission: to fly at the same time and both to pilot their own Vostok. But, apparently, Ponomariova did not pass the political-psychological tests sufficiently and was replaced by a man, Valery Bykovsky.
On the other hand, the “Vostok” program was in a restructuring phase, which ultimately led to the elimination of another seven flights in order to concentrate on “Voskhod”. The aim was to compete with the American “Gemini” by launching a capsule with three crew members and shortly thereafter making the first spacewalk. Valentina’s “Vostok” would be the last ship with that name.
Valentina Tereshkova’s flight lasted almost three days. His “Voskok” and Bykowsky’s came up to 5 kilometers, although they had no maneuvering engines: this was simply a consequence of the laws of celestial mechanics. Neither of them managed to see the other from that distance. The only contact between “Yastreb” and “Chaika” (“Halcón” and “Gaviota”, their in-flight callsigns) was by radio.
The main objective of the flight was to study the effects of the space environment on the female body. Tereshkova got through well, but according to some leaks, not “extraordinarily” as the escape of other colleagues had been described. When trying to eat, she suffered from dizziness and vomiting (although she attributed this not to an upset stomach but to the bad taste of the food). When he tried to rinse his mouth, he found the personal hygiene kit contained dish soap and toothpaste, but they had forgotten the toothbrush.
Like all cosmonauts, Tereshkova ejected before reaching the ground. He never flew through space again. At the end of 1963 she married another cosmonaut, Adrian Nikolayev, with whom she had her only daughter. The marriage broke up in 1982. For her part, she developed an important political career. Regardless of the success or failure of her mission, Valentina Tereshkova (who is still active today) became a world celebrity whose name is still known to people around the world sixty years later.
Svetlana Savitskaya, the second woman to go into space, in the Soyuz T-7 spacecraft with her commander Leonid Popov (left) and flight engineer Alexandr Serebrov (right). Alexander Mokletsov (RIA Novosti/TopFoto/Cordon Press)
The second astronaut, also Russian
The next woman (Svetlana Savítskaya, also Russian) would not reach space until 19 years later. Her astronaut career shone brighter than Tereshkova’s, as she participated in three long-stay orbital missions at the Salyut 7 station. In keeping with the political incorrectness of the time, her partner Valentin Levedev greeted her when she first entered the lab by handing her an apron and telling her, “Get to work, Sveta.”
On the American side, the first astronaut flew in June 1983, so there is a double anniversary these days. It was Sally Ride, a Stanford University physics grad, who applied to NASA’s call for specialists for the shuttle program. The agency chose only 35 of the almost 9,000 offers, eight of them women.
Sally Ride, the first American woman in space
Sally Ride flew into space twice, both times in the Challenger. The first time, he helped test the robotic arm he helped develop; The second, in 1984, was the first mission with a full crew (seven people), which included, as a novelty, two women.
Sally Ride was the first American to go into space.Bettmann (Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
She was training for her third mission when the Challenger, on which she had flown twice, exploded shortly after takeoff from Kenney Airport. Ride was part of the commission investigating the disaster but was later assigned to an executive position at NASA. He left the agency in 1987 to pursue his own projects, with a strong focus on promoting scientific careers in childhood.
He died of complications from pancreatic cancer in 2012 at the age of 61. Among the numerous awards and honors, some of which were awarded posthumously, Sally Ride’s likeness is featured on a 25-cent coin minted in honor of famous American women. He is the first LGBT person to appear on legal tender in the United States.
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