There are people whose names are inscribed in world history. They rightfully include the first woman who has visited space - Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova. After her there were other female cosmonauts, but V.V. Tereshkova will forever remain in first place.
Instruction manual
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Valentina Tereshkova was born March 6, 1937 in the Yaroslavl region in a peasant family. She early lost her father, drafted into the Red Army and died during the Soviet-Finnish war. The family, where apart from Valentina had two more children, had a hard time. To help her mother, after graduating from high school, Valentina went to work at the Yaroslavl Tire Plant, and then got a job as a weaver at a technical fabrics factory. At the same time, she studied at an evening school for working youth, at a technical school of light industry (in absentia), and was engaged in parachuting. As Tereshkova later admitted, it was not easy to withstand, she was very tired. And since 1960, she became the released secretary of the Komsomol committee of the plant, where she worked.
2
After the successful flights of Yuri Gagarin and his comrades in the cosmonaut corps, General Designer S.P. The Queen came up with the idea of sending a woman into space. It was approved by the political leadership of the USSR. The selection of pretenders to the squad began according to the following parameters: age up to 30 years, height up to 170 centimeters, weight up to 70 kilograms, experience in skydiving. Of course, a potential female cosmonaut should also be politically literate and morally stable. Of the many applicants, five were selected, including Valentina Tereshkova.
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After several months of intense preparation, in late November 1962, Tereshkova passed the final exams. And in March 1963, her candidacy as the first female astronaut was approved. In addition to good preparation, a number of factors played a role here: a suitable origin (from peasants), the ability to speak in front of a large audience, and conduct propaganda work (the experience of the secretary of the Komsomol committee). After all, the woman-cosmonaut had to travel the world, providing a living example of the triumph of the ideas of socialism.
4
On June 16, 1963, the Vostok-6 spacecraft with Valentina Tereshkova launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The flight lasted three days and was fraught with great difficulties due to an emergency. Tereshkova with honor coped with these troubles, although it cost her tremendous efforts and psychological overstrain. And she deservedly was awarded the highest state award - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Tereshkova’s achievement is all the more valuable because the flight was at the beginning of the era of space exploration, when the design of spacecraft was still very far from perfect, and the risk was especially great.
