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

Posted by BeauHD on from the fifty-years-later dept.

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."

12 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why do we have to listen to this commie by loonycyborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The only requirement they tweaked was "being a man" :P

  2. This comment section: petty envious Americans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Russia had the first craft in orbit. The first man in space. The first to have landers on other planets. And they had the first woman in space, and whenever someone pays tribute and attention to it, you just gotta troll the whole thread and find ways of diminishing Russias victory in the space race. Get over it.

    1. Re:This comment section: petty envious Americans by umghhh · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually I suffered under commies although that was nothing like a prison for my pa for having wrong nationality - I just got bad notes for some subjects at school and could not make any hobby rockets 'because' commies...
      Whether the US reactions to communism were not as bad - I am not sure. They surely supported some nasty killers because of democracy of course. I must say however that I have this warm feeling last couple of years because I feel like back in my youth - the media are as skewed and biased as they were there. Not much changed one may say. Not sure if that is good. Some of these changes are what I percieve as Russia bashing - there is a lot that can be used but bashers are usually very lazy. I digress however - Russians built few amazing things and did it albeit they should not have been able too judging on their backwardness. I acknowledge that not because I like them but because these were great feats in history of mankind. Werner von B.'s achievements and eventual landing on the moon (a big step for mankind etc) were based on his works with the nazis. Does this make his achievement less remarkable?

    2. Re:This comment section: petty envious Americans by k6mfw · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That period of time of Soviet space firsts defined our space program for decades, and in many ways it still does. NASA was created as a direct result of Sputnik. Apollo Program was created as a direct result of Gagarin. ISS became as a direct result of bringing Russia in as partners (US was working on space station but to make it a reality, all them post Soviet guys had to be brought onboard). etc. etc. Well it's been a half century and those achievements still influence us! i.e. SLS and Orion are Apollo 2.0. Soyuz, the only craft that can put people into space these days (please don't give me news others can do it until they actually do it) was created to beat the Americans to the Moon.

      --
      mfwright@batnet.com
    3. Re:This comment section: petty envious Americans by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      Russia had the first craft in orbit. The first man in space. The first to have landers on other planets. And they had the first woman in space, and whenever someone pays tribute and attention to it, you just gotta troll the whole thread and find ways of diminishing Russias victory in the space race. Get over it.

      I'm not an American, but the fact remains that that the first satellite and the interplanetary probes were amazing technical achievements, the first man in space was an amazing technical achievement as well as a dangerous stunt for its time (perhaps a bit too dangerous, but Vostoks were ultimately as lucky as the first Shuttle flights), but Tereshkova's flight was mostly a political stunt with much less of an achievement of any meaningful kind (except perhaps for the demonstration of quick launch ramp cycling, which didn't require her presence, however, and even so was also achieved even faster during the previous joint Vostok 3&4 flight). It was an achievement for Tereshkova, of course, who greatly personally benefited from it. The first meaningful flight of a Russian woman into space was Savitskaya's flight. That would still be a first for the Soviet Union, anyway, and Savitskaya was much more of a respectable peer to the other Soviet spacemen than the hastily recruited civilian in question with next to no piloting experience or technical qualification.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  3. That poor woman! by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "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."

    How has she managed to survive this burden for this incredibly long time?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:That poor woman! by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You do understand that being a representative of the Soviet Union (and to a slightly lesser extent Russia) carries a very large risk of a long and unpleasant internment or 'accident' if you say the wrong thing?

      Here in the West you get 'disgraced' and might have trouble finding work if the employer thinks of themselves as a patriot. There it's jail or death.

      You can read it in the interview (between the lines). She's still afraid, which is why she's kissing Putin's ass. She's a state asset for life.

    2. Re:That poor woman! by Oxygen99 · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      --
      I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
  4. Interesting woman... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Interesting woman... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      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

    2. Re:Interesting woman... by dbIII · · Score: 2

      Tereshkova had no training as a pilot prior to becoming a cosmonaut

      The US space program had very close links to a series of aircraft test programs and that's really why the Mercury astronauts were test pilots despite nearly everything being controlled from the ground. They didn't really need to be pilots (apparently) until Gemini and Apollo. The Russians didn't really need trained pilots for their early capsules either.

      in danger during the flight. An engineer got the calculations wrong

      There was a lot of that with most of the early NASA flights since mistakes sometimes don't become obvious until they contact reality. The Mercury, Gemini and even some Apollo missions had a long list of serious problems solved one after the other. Neil Armstrong came very close to blacking out in a Gemini mission when a faulty thruster kept putting the craft into a spin.

    3. Re:Interesting woman... by dbIII · · Score: 3, Interesting

      which shows they really did not care about the "equality" issue all that much

      I think you are putting far too modern a "spin" on it. There was apparently a bit of a long term plan (or more like a dream really) to have large space stations some day equivalent to a small town, so there was some curiousity to see if anything unexpected would happen with a woman in space. File it with the much later missions where they kept cosmonauts in space for over a year to see what would happen.