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On This Day: Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space
Her achievement is underlined by the fact that the U.S. did not put a woman in space for another 20 years
June 16: Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space on this day in 1963.
The then 26-year-old, who had been selected from more than 400 applicants, had been working on an assembly line in a textile factory just 18 months earlier.
The amateur parachutist, who was also ten years younger than any American in space, instantly became a Russian hero after piloting Vostok 6 during a three-day mission.
Her achievement is underlined by the fact that the U.S. did not put a woman in space for another 20 years, until Sally Ride entered orbit in 1983.
A British Pathé newsreel shows huge crowds greeting Tereshkova as she arrived at Moscow airport following a flight back from her landing zone 2,400miles away.
Others lined the streets of the Soviet capital as she was driven around in an open top car.
Tereshkova then joined Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and male cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky as thousands more gave her a hero’s welcome in Red Square.
Her fame grew when, five months later, she married cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev in a ceremony attended by Khrushchev and other top Communist Party figures.
Her achievement, celebrity marriage and the fact she came from a ‘proletarian’ background ensured she had a successful political career afterwards.
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She served on the Supreme Soviet, the USSR’s parliament for many years, and on various committees.
Yet, despite her staunch Communist views, she kept secret the fact that spaceship designer Sergey Korolev had made an error with the control panel.
Korolev, who feared he would barred from the space programme if senior engineers found out, helped her solve the problem of ascending rather than descending.
Tereshkova, whose father was a tank hero during World War Two, is now 76 years old and lives in Moscow.
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She remains a hero even in post-Soviet Russia and in the past has been invited to President Vladimir Putin’s official residence.
She also ran with the Olympic torch ahead of the 2008 Beijing Games.
