Valentina Tereskova, 60 years ago was the first woman in space

60 years ago Valentina Tereskova She became the first woman to go to space: Codename The seagullThe Soviet cosmonaut completed orbits around the Earth 48 times.

Unusual story

It was June 1963: 60 years later, we’re celebrating the anniversary of the first woman’s landing in space. To accomplish this feat was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Terekhova, Left June 16, 1963 From the Baikonur Cosmodrome, it orbited the Earth for three days Back on the nineteenth.

The flight continued 2 days, 22 hours and 50 minutesfor a total 48 laps around the Earth, allowed the Russian cosmonaut to get another record, exceeding the length of stay in space of all Americans combined up to that point. Terekhova was a master of records: at 26, she was the youngest female cosmonaut to enter orbit.

Svetlana Savitskaya

And also the last one about twenty years ago. In fact, after that mission, the female space project was postponed and only 19 years later, another Russian female cosmonaut, Svetlana Savitskayareturned to space.

Terekova later became symbol of feminism She has also devoted herself to politics – many have followed in Valentina Terekhova’s footsteps, starting with the second woman to travel to space, Svetlana Savicaga, who began the mission in August 1982 as an engineer on board.

Russian cosmonaut Made history in 1984 When she left the orbiting laboratory Salgut-6, she became the first woman to take a spacewalk. Between the first flight and the Savicaga spacewalk, the first American woman entered orbit: Exactly twenty years after the first woman in space, America sent Sally Ride.

Sally Ride

The vehicle launched into orbit on June 18, 1983, and has participated in two shuttle missions Challenger. In 1986, she also served on the commission investigating the Challenger accident, in which two other women, a civilian and an astronaut, died. the first, Christa McAuliffewas a teacher from Ohio who boarded the space shuttle to become the first civilian to land in space.

The other was called Judith Resnick He was a NASA astronaut. That mission ended after 73 seconds, due to the Challenger’s explosion, in which the entire crew died. In everything in the history of astronauts 4 women died on a missionAt least according to the official news.

The other two victims are also Americans and were flying aboard the Columbia space shuttle that exploded during re-entry between Texas and Louisiana 16 minutes before the scheduled landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida: they were Kalpana Chawla and Laurel Clark, who perished together. with all the crew.

31 years after the first cosmonaut set the record for time in space, it is the turn of the third Russian cosmonaut, Elena Kondakova, to create another record: it was the first to carry out a long-term mission that stayed in orbit, on the Russian space station, MIR, for 178 days. I left with the Soyuz TM-20 in October 1994, and worked on various science, biomedical, and technology experiments.

Eileen Collins

On the other hand, the United States boasts the first female astronaut to lead a space mission. Eileen Collins She took off into space, first in 1995 as the co-pilot of the shuttle Discovery, then the co-pilot of Atlantis in 1997, the commander of Columbia in 1999 and finally Discovery in 2005.

Helen Sharman

The first woman outside of the two superpowers to go into space was a British citizen Helen Sharmana researcher in chemistry, stayed on the Russian space station Mir for a week in 1991, with the intention of conducting scientific experiments.

Claudie Andre Dechaise

In Europe, the first professional astronaut was the French for the European Space Agency (ESA), Claudie Andre Dechaise.

Samantha Cristoforetti

As for Italy, she was the first woman to cross the borders of space Samantha Cristoforettiwhich after 5 years of selectionEuropean Space Agency (ESA), precisely on November 23, 2014, she became the first female astronaut of Italian nationality to make a space flight. Cristoforetti has spent 369 days in orbit, directing multiple missions.

Upon his return to Earth from a mission by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the astronaut helped discover a huge, unique coral reef off the coast of Tahiti. Samantha Cristoforetti He is, in addition to being an astronaut, a very active figure in scientific publishing, through the press, television and social networks.

female primate

Historically, she was the first Russian female cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya, It emerged from the USSR’s Salyut 7 spacecraft in 1984.

Shortly thereafter it was imitated by the American company Cathy Sullivan.