Valentina tereshkova

Early life Valentina Vladimirovna "Valya" Tereshkova was born on March 6, 1937, in Maslennikovo, a village near the Volga River about 170 miles (277 kilometers) northeast of Moscow. Her parents worked on a collective farm, and her father was killed during World War II. Valentina left school when she was 16 and worked at a textile factory, but continued her education through correspondence courses, according to the Tereshkova joined the factory's Young Communist League (Komsomol) and soon advanced to the Communist Party. She became interested in parachute jumping after joining the Yaroslavl Air Sports Club. Tereshkova was chosen to pilot Vostok 6. It was to be a dual mission. Cosmonaut Valeriy Bykovsky launched on Vostok 5 on June 14, 1963. Two days later, Tereshkova launched. The two spacecraft took different orbits and came within 3 miles (5 km) of each other. The cosmonauts exchanged communications. Tereshkova logged more than 70 hours in space and made 48 orbits of Earth. Soviet and European TV viewers saw her smiling face and her logbook floating in front of her. They did not realize that the flight almost turned into tragedy, a fact that was classified for about 40 years. Tragedy averted An She landed in the Altay region near today's Kazakhstan-Mongolia-China border. Villagers helped Tereshkova out of her spacesuit and asked her to join them for dinner. She accepted, and was later reprimanded for violating the rules and not undergoing medical tests first. However, Ter...