The Guardian Interviews Valentina Tereshkova, the First Woman In Space (theguardian.com)

Oxygen99 writes: The Guardian published an interview today with the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, ahead of her forthcoming exhibition at the London Science Museum. An interesting and informal chat with perhaps the most visible and famous living face of the Soviet space program. Here's an excerpt from the interview: "Over 50 years ago, in 1963, Tereshkova became the first woman to go into space, and it was her parachuting experience that qualified her for selection. She was only 26 when she made her one and only space flight, but that feat has defined the rest of her life. It propelled her into the upper reaches of the Soviet elite, and gave her security for life. That elevation though came at a life-long cost: a treadmill of obligations that has lasted more than half a century. Public speaking, accepting honors, roving the world as a citizen-diplomat, being a very visible part of Soviet, and now Russian, public life, are roles that she continues to fulfill to this day. Hence her visit to London for the opening of a display of artifacts linked to her cosmonaut's life. It is one of a series of UK-Russia collaborations, following the hugely successful Russian space exhibition at the museum last year."

Comments

Interesting woman...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tereshkova had no training as a pilot prior to becoming a cosmonaut. However, as a young woman she did have a hobby as a skydiver, which made her an accomplished parachutist. This was an important consideration because cosmonauts at the time had to eject and parachute down a few seconds before the capsule "landed" on dry land.

Tereshkova's other important credential was that she was an avid member of the Communist Party

A long-held secret was that Tereshkova was in danger during the flight. An engineer got the calculations wrong and the thing started drifting away from earth, one orbit at a time. Mission control made corrections and she was able to land safely in the region near Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

Upon landing, Tereshkova was found by local villagers and immediately offered dinner, which she accepted
She married another cosmonaut (they divorced)

She never went to space again but in 2014 said she'd be happy to go if they needed a volunteer for the one-way Mars expedition.

Re:Interesting woman...

[Anonymous Coward]

Miss Tereshkova was not only the first female to fly in space on her Vostok 6 flight, but was also the first astronaut or cosmonaut to really suffer badly from what is now known as "SAS" (Space Adaptation Syndrome). This is a malady that we now know affects about 50-60% of all space travellers (both male and female), and is essentially akin to having a bad case of motion sickness here on Earth.

Unfortunately, Valentina had to deal with serious nausea and vomiting while on orbit, making her nearly 3-day mission quite a miserable experience for her. While the USSR reported to the world that her mission went off great and she had no problems while in space, American CIA listening posts around the globe that were monitoring the radio traffic between her Vostok spacecraft and the Soviet mission control knew that was not the case, having secretly intercepted radio comms of her actually even crying over the radio as she described how terrible she felt and how badly she just wanted to come home.
The CIA decided to keep that information classified for years however, not only because they did not want to reveal to the Soviets and the world the depth of their global Signals Intelligence gathering capabilities, but also because they realized that if they did go public with how sick Valentina really was while on orbit (which contradicted the official Soviet propaganda narrative), it would probably be seen globally by many as America just trying to undermine the Soviet achievement, particularly given the time period and sexist attitudes that were prevalent in the USA back then.

Valentina's flight was quite clearly led entirely by a Soviet propaganda motive, as there was simply no way the USA would have been willing to fly a female at the time. Propaganda and sexist attitudes, as well as training and spacecraft design, were the big reasons she got to fly that mission. The Soviets were very good at exploiting ways to beat the USA in being the first to do things in space, and realized that women in the USA in the 1960s would NEVER be considered to be allowed as active astronauts, even if they had the skills.

The USSR recognized that having the first man and first woman in space would forever be in the history/record books as a very big deal, and wanted to take advantage of that opening in the space race to score a propaganda victory that they could use to proclaim and show the toughness and sex equality of Soviet women to the world. Remember that it took the Soviets 19 years after Valentina to fly another female into space, which shows they really did not care about the "equality" issue all that much, but rather were just hunting for the propaganda victory.

The Soviets definitely made a huge deal of Valentina's flight though, and the reason the USSR were willing and able to fly Valentina was because of the design of the Vostok capsule system. The entire flight of the Vostok system was designed to be controlled from pre-programmed on-board systems and the ground if need be, without any cosmonaut intervention actually needed at all. Valentina by all accounts had an absolutely miserable flight (nothing to do with her sex BTW, it was just that she did not acclimate to the conditions due to inexperience and SAS). Her big and really only skill in her being selected for that Vostok 6 mission was that she was an experienced parachutist - a requirement because the Vostok spacecraft actually ejected the cosmonaut prior to the capsule impacting the ground, with the cosmonaut landing under their own personal chute rather than in the spacecraft itself.

The issue of putting a woman's life at significant risk in the USA during the 1960s was a big deal (and seen as a big cultural no-no) in the military/space arena, and due to prevailing sexist attitudes at the time, the USA was worried enough about the PR disaster of losing a man in space, let alone the utter calamity that would result in losing a woman's life. It took until the 1980s, when America's STS shuttle program (with its large passenger capability) began

Re:That poor woman!

[Oxygen99]

From what I've read, he became a virtual prisoner, developed severe depression and turned into an alcoholic. It might not have killed Gagarin but fame isn't always the easy pill to swallow the OP suggests.