Valentina Tereshkova and Sally Ride made their mark on history. Despite the camaraderie between astronauts and cosmonauts even during the height of the Cold War and the thaw afterwards, there’s no indication that the two ever met. In their own unique ways, the two were trailblazers for women who followed their footsteps in the conquest of space.

Valentina Tereshkova, in full Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, (born March 6, 1937, Maslennikovo, Russia, U.S.S.R.), Soviet cosmonaut, the first woman to travel into space. On June 16, 1963, she was launched in the spacecraft Vostok 6, which completed 48 orbits in 71 hours.