Valentina Tereshkova
Valentina Tereshkova, Russian cosmonaut and engineer, is the first and youngest woman to have flown in space and the only one to have done this in a solo mission.
Featuring artwork & words by Dr. Eleonora Adami, Sci-Illustrate Stories. Set in motion by Dr. Radhika Patnala.
Early Life
Valentina was born in 1937 in a village near Moscow.
After graduating from high school, she started working at a tyre factory and later was employed as a textile worker. Valentina continued her education by correspondence courses offered by the Light Industry Technical School. Meanwhile she also developed an interest in skydiving and trained almost every weekend — and in secret — as a competitive parachutist.
And it was precisely her intrepid experience as a skydiver that qualified her for the Soviet Space Program; the space race against the USA was full on!
The Cosmonaut Corps
After Yuri Gagarin’s mission in 1961, Kamanin, the Russian director of cosmonaut training (Americans used the word “astronaut”, Soviets “cosmonaut”), was determined not to allow the first woman in space to be an American. The ideal candidate would have been a parachutist, be 30 years old or younger, shorter than 170cm in height, no more than 70kg in weight.
By January 1962, 400 candidates were selected for consideration; after the initial screening Valentina and four others were selected to join the female cosmonaut corps. As they had no military experience they were assigned the rank of “private” in the Soviet Air Forces and started rigorous pilot training and were subjected to isolation and centrifuge tests for months.
All 5 women became junior lieutenants in the Air Force by the end of the year, but Valentina was chosen as the leading candidate and finally nominated to launch aboard the Vostok 6 capsule on a solo mission. Kamanin called her “Gagarin in a skirt” and her life until then had great propaganda potential. She was the daughter of a farmer who died in the Winter War, so her selection received thumbs up by the Soviet Premier Krushev too.
The launch
On the morning of 16 June 1963, Vostok 6 launched faultlessly and at the age of 26 Valentina became the first and youngest woman to fly to space solo. It was a sensational event and cameras placed inside the vessel “streamed live”, we’d say today, on national TV.
Valentina, the seagull (Chaika, i.e. seagull, was her radio call sign), orbited the Earth for almost three days and the mission was instrumental for acquiring more data on the medical studies on humans in spaceflight. Valentina also took photographs of the horizon, later used to identify aerosol layers in the atmosphere.
“It is I, Seagull! Everything is fine. I see the horizon; it’s a sky blue with a dark strip. How beautiful the Earth is … everything is going well.”
After the spaceflight: a heroine is born
After her spaceflight, Valentina was elected as a national hero and an international role model.
She was awarded several prizes and received several honors, such as the Hero of the Soviet Union medal and the Order of Lenin. She toured the world, meeting world leaders such as Fidel Castro and Queen Elizabeth II, among others. In India, she was regarded as a “feminist standard bearer bringing a message of hope for enslaved Indian womanhood.”
In 1977 she earned a doctorate in aeronautical engineering and re-qualified for spaceflight in 1978, but never went to space again.
A career in politics
Over time and because of her notoriety, she was persuaded into pursuing a career in politics, against her initial wishes. A treadmill of obligations and public-speaking engagements was beginning.
She was a prominent member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and over time held various political offices. Valentina remained politically active even after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and retired from the Air Force in 1997 with the rank of Major General. She was elected in 2008 to her regional parliament. In 2011, she was elected to the national State Duma with the United Russia party and then re-elected in 2016.
Valentina is currently 83 years old and keeps dreaming about space — she had publicly said she would wish to go to Mars on a one-way mission — and advocating for looking after our only planet Earth.
Americans, Asians, everyone who has seen it says the same thing, how unbelievably beautiful the Earth is and how very important it is to look after it. Our planet suffers from human activity, from fires, from war; we have to preserve it.
TIMELINE
1937 — Born in a village near Moscow.
1962 — Selected among 400 candidates for consideration to join the female cosmonaut corps
1963 — Flies to space aboard Vostok 6.
1977 — Earns a doctorate in aeronautical engineering.1978 Re-qualifies for spaceflight.
1997 — Retires from the Air Force with the rank of Major General.
2008 — Elected to her regional parliament.
2011 & 2016 — Elected to the national State Duma with the United Russia party.
REFs / If you want to know more:
About the author and artist
DR. ELEONORA ADAMI
Content editor and contributing artist
Women in Science, Sci-Illustrate Stories
Eleonora is a proud descendant of ancient Romans. Besides that, she is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Duke-NUS in Singapore, working in the cardiovascular and metabolic diseases area. She has a biotechnology (BSc) and functional genomics (MSc) background, and has obtained her PhD in molecular biology and genetics in Germany before going to the far east.
Eleonora thinks of herself as a carrier pigeon, always on the go, trying to find new adventures and challenges. Ok, maybe pigeons are not very adventurous, but they were once useful to deliver important messages. One of the messages she likes to bring across is that we need more art in scientific practices. Creative thinking benefits both disciplines.
A passion for illustration has always accompanied her and percolates in her scientific work. She started the collaboration with the Sci-Illustrate team after attending their course on scientific illustration.
About this series:
Not enough can be said about the amazing Women in Science who did and continue to do their part in moving the world forward.
Every month, through the artwork & words of the Sci-Illustrate team, we will bring to you profiles of women who touched our hearts (and brains) with their scientific works, and of many more who currently hold the flag high in their own fields!
-Dr. Radhika Patnala, Series Director
