Who Was The First Woman In Space?
Who Was The First Woman In Space?
Valentina Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut, became the first woman to travel in space. On 16 June 1963, she was launched on a solo mission aboard Vostok 6 and spent more than 70 hours orbiting the Earth, two years after Yuri Gagarin's historic flight. Tereshkova was born on 6 March 1937 in the village of Bolshoye Maslennikovo in central Russia. Her mother was a textile worker, and her father was a war hero who died when she was two years old.
Tereshkova worked at a textile factory after leaving school and joined a skydiving and parachutist club, which eventually led to her selection as a cosmonaut candidate. She underwent rigorous physical and mental training for 18 months before being inducted into the Soviet Air Force at the age of 24. Tereshkova remains the youngest woman and first civilian to have flown in space.
Her mission was a dual flight, and she communicated with fellow cosmonaut Valeriy Bykovsky, who launched on Vostok 5 two days before her. The two spacecraft came within three miles of each other, and the cosmonauts exchanged communications during their 48 orbits of Earth. Tereshkova was decorated with prestigious medals and held several political positions. She is currently the Deputy Chair for the Committee for International Affairs in Russia and is still active in the space community, expressing her willingness to go on a one-way trip to Mars.
Female astronauts and gender gap
In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova made history as the first woman in space, following Yuri Gagarin's groundbreaking mission two years earlier. However, the gender gap in space exploration widened as space programs continued to invest in human spaceflight. It took another 19 years until Svetlana Savitskaya became the second woman to travel into space, aboard the Soyuz T-7 mission in 1982. She made history again in 1984 by becoming the first woman to perform a spacewalk.
Out of the more than 500 people who have flown in space, only 11% have been women. Most of these women have flown with NASA, while the rest were in the Soviet/Russian and Chinese space programs. The U.S. has sent the most women into space in terms of numbers, with a total of 50 female astronauts flying with NASA since 1961. Peggy Whitson holds the American record for most consecutive days in space. However, women make up only 14% of all Americans sent to space, highlighting the male and female divide.
NASA selected its first class of astronauts including females in 1978, with Sally Ride eventually becoming the first American woman to fly to space. Her classmates, including Shannon Lucid, Judith Resnik, and Anna Lee Fisher, who became the first mother in space, also made significant contributions to space exploration.
