00:30In space, you will hardly be able to sleep if the radio is off.
00:36Valentina Tereshkova.
00:39Tereshkova was the first woman in space, orbiting the Earth 48 times in Vostok 6 in 1963.
00:47Valentina was born on March 6, 1937, in the Volga River village of Maslanikovo.
00:55Her father, Vladimir Tereshkov, was a tractor driver.
01:00Her mother, Elena Fyodorovna Tereshkova, was a worker at the Krosny Perikop cotton mill.
01:07In 1959, Tereshkova joined the Euroslavl Air Sports Club and became a skilled amateur, non-professional parachutist.
01:17Inspired by the flight of Yuri Gagarin, 1934 to 1968, the first man in space, she volunteered for the Soviet space program.
01:27Although she had no experience as a pilot, her achievement of 126 parachute jumps gained her a position as a cosmonaut, a Russian astronaut, in 1961.
01:40Tereshkova received a military rank in the Russian Air Force.
01:44She trained for 18 months before becoming chief pilot of the Vostok 6.
01:50All candidates underwent a rigorous, difficult course of training, which included tests to determine the effects of being alone for long periods,
01:59tests with machines made to create extreme gravity conditions,
02:03tests made to duplicate the zero-gravity weightlessness conditions in space and parachute jumps.
02:10At 12.30 p.m. on June 16, 1963,
02:15Junior Lieutenant Tereshkova became the first woman to be launched into space.
02:20Using her radio call sign, nicknamed Chaika Siegel, she reported,
02:26I see the horizon, a light blue, a beautiful band. This is the Earth. How beautiful it is. All goes well.
02:34Vostok 6 made 48 orbits, 1,200,000 miles, in 70 hours, 50 minutes, coming within 3.1 miles of the previously launched Vostok 5,
02:47which was piloted by cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky.
02:51Tereshkova's flight confirmed Soviet test results that women had the same resistance as men to the physical and psychological stresses of space.
03:01In fact, tests showed that women could actually tolerate G-forces, gravitational forces, better than men.
03:08Upon her return, Tereshkova and Bykovsky were hailed in Moscow's Red Square,
03:14a large plaza in Moscow used for official celebrations.
03:19On June 22, at the Kremlin, she was named a hero of the Soviet Union.
03:24Presidium chairman Leonid Brezhnev, 1906-1982, decorated her with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star Medal.
03:33Tereshkova, after her flight, continued as an aerospace engineer in the space program.
03:39She also worked in Soviet politics, feminism, and culture.
03:44She was a deputy to the Supreme Soviet between 1966 and 1989, and a people's deputy from 1989 to 1991.
03:54Meanwhile, she was a member of the Supreme Soviet Presidium from 1974 to 1989.
04:01During the years from 1968 to 1987, she also served on the Soviet Women's Committee.
04:09Becoming its head in 1977, Tereshkova headed the USSR's International Cultural and Friendship Union from 1987 to 1991,
04:20and later chaired the Russian Association of International Cooperation.
04:25Tereshkova summarized her views on women and science in an article titled Women in Space,
04:32which she wrote in 1970 for the American journal Impact of Science on Society.
04:38Valentina Tereshkova still serves as a model, not only for the women of her native country,
04:44but for women throughout the world who wish to strive for new goals.
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