The First Woman in Space

June 16, 1963 

the first spacecraft ever launched are on display in the space museum in Kaluga. When you look at them, your first thoughts are, “How on Earth could you even get inside such a tiny thing? And how could you lie motionless inside it for an hour, much less several days?” 

In June 1963, Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova spent 70 hours inside just such a tiny spacecraft, where she experienced an overwhelming force of acceleration and had to contend with a variety of bodily functions, including vomiting, all before recent advances in the science of astronaut diapering. Of course she had long dreamed of space flight and approached it with great determination and energy, enduring a punishing training regimen. But did she really know what she was getting into? Did the first astronauts tell one another everything they went through during orbit, the dismal solitude and horror that a person experiences when they are catapulted from Earth? Or were such recollections securely concealed behind the shroud of secrecy that surrounded everything associated with space travel in the 1960s?

Of course Tereshkova, like the other young women who had been selected as cosmonauts, understood that she was subjecting herself to great risks and that she would have to undergo difficult trials. Yet she is unlikely to have imagined that her craft, due to a programming error, would begin to move farther away from Earth instead of closer to it after the launch. It was a situation that has been described in many science fiction novels – the astronaut who cannot return home. And what is it like to live through that, considering the prospect of death by asphyxiation in the vast stellar expanse? 

Today, Tereshkova cheerfully recalls how she immediately reported what was happening to Sergei Korolyov, head of the Soviet space program, and by the next day the error had been corrected. By the next day! What must those hours of expectation have been like for her, looking out her window at Earth as it gradually receded into the distance and having absolutely no control over the movement of her spacecraft?

Tereshkova did not, in fact, have any responsibilities on board the spacecraft. Much has been written about the fact that Valya Tereshkova worried because she was the only one of the five female candidates for the flight with only a high school education and no flight training – just 163 parachute jumps at the Yaroslavl Air Club. But, after all, no university degree or piloting ability was needed. 

The ideal kosmonavtka was a woman who was in excellent shape and could give all the right answers on the questionnaire about her personal background. Tereshkova satisfied both criteria. She successfully underwent her training on Earth with enthusiasm, and her answers to the questionnaire were just what was needed to demonstrate the superiority of the Soviet way of life. She was born into the family of a collective farmer and she herself had been a factory worker, first in a tire factory and later in a textile plant, before becoming secretary of her local factory’s Komsomol organization. Right before becoming a cosmonaut, she was hastily admitted into the Communist Party. Perfect. 

Did it occur to the 26-year-old Komsomol activist and skydiving enthusiast that she might become a human version of Belka and Strelka, two of the many dogs who had been sent into space (and to their deaths) several years before? Probably not, considering the exaltation and adoration that was accorded anything having to do with space at the time. Every Soviet child or adolescent dreamed of a career as a kosmonavt or kosmonavtka. And the fact that these brave trailblazers were not only turned into human guinea pigs, but also captives of ideology, did not seem to worry anyone. 

As soon as Valentina Tereshkova returned to Earth after her harrowing flight, she became the most famous woman on the planet, and over the succeeding decades she was saddled with an onerous responsibility. It was the dawn of the 1960s, and sleek, long-haired beauties were donning miniskirts or weird, brightly-colored clothing. They were dancing dances their parents thought to be “savage,” listening to bizarre music, practicing birth control, and basically cutting loose in every way they could. 

Of course, in the Soviet Union this process was unfolding much more slowly than in the West, but here too skirts were getting shorter, hairstyles were changing, and new idols  were appearing. Brigitte Bardot was smiling down from movie screens and Edith Piaf was singing in Russian with a charming accent – she was one of the first to let her hair down and behave in an easy, unaffected manner on stage. Some hoisted heavy packs on their backs and headed for the forests or the mountains; others, after a few drinks, would pick up their guitars and sing songs that may not have been illegal, but were not exactly permitted either. And intellectuals were coming into fashion. The newspapers were full of arguments over who had done more for the country – physicists or poets, and the movie Nine Days in One Year (Девять дней одного года) suddenly made science one of the most fashionable professions and endowed the rather odd life of the scientist with a certain stylishness. 

Amidst these tempests, Valentina Tereshkova, calm and unperturbed, appeared behind many tribunes, looking unattractive in her severe, unfeminine jackets, with a hairstyle befitting a party stalwart. She read from a prepared text about the outstanding achievements of Soviet women, fought for world peace, and traveled the planet as part of official delegations. She finally earned a post-secondary degree and claims to have written close to 50 scientific papers. 

She rose to the rank of general, becoming the only Soviet woman to do so. Everybody knew her, everybody had heard of her, but nobody liked her. Unlike Gagarin, who immediately captivated people not only because of the feat he achieved, but because of his charm and his amazing smile, Tereshkova did not elicit particular public sympathy. 

They say that the real Valentina Vladimirovna is nothing like the image we saw on our television screens and on the front pages of our newspapers for many years. They say that she is a kind and considerate person, always ready to lend a sympathetic ear or a hand to someone in need, that she supports hospitals and orphanages. Alas, this is a Tereshkova that nobody knows. 

There was always plenty of gossip about Tereshkova, but this was probably just because the first woman in space was something of a curiosity. Many unappetizing details of her time in space are in circulation. Whether or not they are exaggerations, we may never know. There was talk about her marriage to fellow cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev, the result of something close to an order by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It was not a happy union, but it nevertheless lasted a very long time, because it was unseemly for the symbol of Soviet womanhood to get a divorce. It was alleged that after her spaceflight, she gave birth to an ailing child, although the daughter of Tereshkova and Nikolayev appears to live a normal life and has given her high-flying parents two grandchildren. 

It has hardly occurred to anyone to pity a woman who paid for the honor of being a part of the Great Conquest of Space by being transformed from an ordinary person into a strange official mask. That, in fact, was really all she was ever needed for, and is still needed for, although now her glory shines on Putin’s United Russia Party instead of the Communist Party. For many years Tereshkova dreamed of returning to space, but was never given the opportunity. She had fulfilled her function, demonstrating the success of Soviet womanhood, and there was nothing left for her to achieve in space. Furthermore, she would not have been up to the complexities the next generation of cosmonauts faced. It would be almost 20 years before another woman was launched into space from Baikonur, in 1982. The Tereshkova experiment was a one-shot deal.  ◗