Валентина Терешкова



VALENTINA TERESHKOVA

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova.

The selection of candidates for the mission began in early 1962. The first female astronaut had to meet certain criteria: Be a parachute jumper, younger than 30, less than 170 cm (5 feet 7 inches) tall, and under 70 kg (154 lbs) in weight. Finally, out of several hundred candidates, five were selected, including 26-year-old Valentina Tereshkova – a regional champion in skydiving who had 90 jumps under her belt.    RT

On June 16, 1963 Tereshkova became the first woman in space. She spent almost 3 days (70 hours 50 minutes) on the Vostok-6 spacecraft which was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, presently Kazakhstan. She orbited the earth 49 times. Another Soviet spacecraft, Vostok-5 piloted by Valery Bykovsky was in space at the same time. 




Climbing aboard Vostok 6 (East, Orient, Dawning 6)

With Valery Bykovsky (left), and Yuri Gagarin.

On Lenin's mausoleum rostrum in Red Square, with left to right,  Pavel Popovich, German Titov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Yuri Gagarin, Valentina Tereshkova, Nikita Khrushchev and Valery Bykovsky.

At age 76, Valentina has a dream of going to Mars, her "favorite" planet.  She recently applied for a one-way trip to Mars.