VALENTINA TERESHKOVA
(Валенти́на Влади́мировна Терешко́ва)
In 1963, twenty years before America would send Sally Ride into space, Valentina Tereshkova orbited the earth 48 times.
Vostok 6, with Valentina aboard, was launched on June 16, 1963. Under the call sign "Sea Gull," she flew 48 orbits over a period of 70.8 hours, longer and farther than all previous American flights. She never flew in space again, but she became a prominent member of Russian politics, earning the United Nations Gold Medal of Peace while serving as spokeswoman for the Russian people.
She was born in the Yaroslavl Region of Russia in 1937, the daughter of a textile worker and a tractor driver. She entered school at the age of eight, but began working only eight years later, continuing her education through correspondence.
Valentina discovered a love and skill for parachute jumping at an early age. She became an expert jumper, which eventually contributed to her selection to the female cosmonaut program.
Vostok 6 was reported a successful flight, although Sergei Korolev, "Father of the Russian Space Program," was unhappy with Valentina's performance in orbit. She accomplished her flight's missions and landed successfully on June 19, 1963. As she put it, "Zero-G was pleasant, no problems and I enjoyed floating." Valentina was the only woman to fly during the early soviet space program (the next was Svetlana Savitskaya, 19 years later).
Images courtesy of
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/tereshkova.html
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