50 Fun Facts About Valentina Tereshkova

Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman to do what?

She flew a solo mission aboard Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963, orbiting the Earth 48 times.

Which spacecraft carried Tereshkova into orbit?

It was the final flight of the Vostok programme, and she is its last surviving cosmonaut.

In what year did Tereshkova fly in space?

Her flight came just over two years after Yuri Gagarin's, and 20 years before Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.

How many times did Tereshkova orbit the Earth on her flight?

She spent 2 days, 22 hours and 50 minutes in space, more than all the American astronauts before her combined.

How old was Tereshkova at the time of her spaceflight?

She remains the youngest woman ever to orbit Earth.

What was Tereshkova's job before she was selected as a cosmonaut?

She worked in a tyre factory and then a textile mill while studying by correspondence, and skydived in secret from her family.

Which hobby contributed most to Tereshkova's selection as a cosmonaut?

Vostok cosmonauts ejected from the capsule and parachuted to the ground, so the rules required candidates to be parachutists.

What was Tereshkova's call sign during her flight?

An asteroid, 1671 Chaika, was later named in commemoration.

In which Russian oblast was Tereshkova born?

Her village, Bolshoye Maslennikovo, sits on the Volga about 270 km northeast of Moscow; her parents had migrated from Belarus.

In which conflict was Tereshkova's father killed when she was two?

After her flight she asked the state to find where he fell; a monument was erected at the site in Lemetti, Karelia.

How old was Tereshkova when she made her first parachute jump?

She jumped on 21 May 1959 at the local Aeroclub and went on to train as a competitive parachutist.

Which US programme prompted Nikolai Kamanin to push for a Soviet woman in space?

He wrote in his diary that letting the first woman in space be American would insult the patriotic feelings of Soviet women.

How many candidates did DOSAAF initially select for the female cosmonaut group?

Fifty-eight met the requirements, Kamanin cut that to 23, and five were finally chosen on 16 February 1962.

What was the maximum age allowed for female cosmonaut candidates?

Candidates also had to be parachutists under 170 cm tall and no heavier than 70 kg.

How many women were selected for the first female cosmonaut corps in 1962?

With no military experience, they began as privates in the Air Force and were all commissioned junior lieutenants in December 1962.

Which jet did the female cosmonauts train to fly?

Their training also included isolation, centrifuge, thermo-chamber and decompression tests plus water recovery at sea.

What nickname did Kamanin give Tereshkova when nominating her to fly?

Khrushchev liked her propaganda value as the daughter of a collective-farm worker killed in the war and confirmed the choice.

Who served as Tereshkova's first backup for her 1963 flight?

Both women were dressed in spacesuits and driven to the pad by bus on launch morning.

Which male cosmonaut was in orbit at the same time as Tereshkova?

The two ships came within 5 km of each other on her first orbit and could talk by radio.

How close did the two Soviet capsules approach each other during her first orbit?

Their orbital planes were 30 degrees apart, and neither cosmonaut could be sure of actually seeing the other.

What did her horizon photographs from orbit later help scientists identify?

She also kept a flight log, and cameras in the capsule beamed live footage to Soviet state television.

How did Tereshkova return to the ground at the end of her flight?

All Vostok cosmonauts ejected at about four miles up; she struggled with violent gusts and bruised her nose on landing.

Near which Kazakh city did Tereshkova land on 19 June 1963?

She came down 620 km north-east of it, then had dinner with villagers who helped her out of her spacesuit.

Which honour did Khrushchev announce for Tereshkova at the Moscow homecoming?

She and Bykovsky spoke from atop Lenin's Tomb on Red Square, and were given the Order of Lenin at a Kremlin reception that evening.

How many trips abroad did Tereshkova make between 1963 and 1970?

She toured more than any other Vostok cosmonaut; each trip needed sign-off from the foreign and defence ministries and the KGB.

Which leader did Tereshkova meet in Havana in October 1963?

Cuba was recovering from Hurricane Flora at the time of her tour.

Which monarch, also pregnant at the time, did Tereshkova visit in February 1964?

Tereshkova's daughter was born that June; the Queen's son Prince Edward arrived in March.

Which fellow cosmonaut did Tereshkova marry in November 1963?

Khrushchev presided over the wedding party; the space authorities encouraged the match as a 'fairy-tale message to the country'.

What distinction does Tereshkova's daughter Elena, born in 1964, hold?

Her parents grew apart later, refusing to stand together in photos, and divorced in 1982.

Where did Tereshkova graduate with honours in 1969?

A few months later the women's cosmonaut team was disbanded; no woman flew again until Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982.

How many years passed before another woman went to space after Tereshkova?

Svetlana Savitskaya flew in 1982; Sally Ride followed for the US the next year.

Which body was Tereshkova appointed to lead in 1968, against her wishes?

After Gagarin's death the programme would not risk losing another hero, so her superiors steered her into politics.

In which field did Tereshkova earn a doctorate in 1977?

She then passed the medical exams to requalify for spaceflight, but never flew again and stayed on as an instructor.

What rank did Tereshkova hold when she retired from the Air Force in 1997?

She left on reaching the compulsory retirement age of 60, having been promoted to the honorary rank in 1995.

To which body was Tereshkova elected in December 2011?

She had lost national elections in 1995 and 2003, won a regional seat in 2008, then entered the lower house for United Russia.

Which planet did Tereshkova say she would fly to even on a one-way trip?

She said it at her 70th-birthday celebration at Putin's residence in 2007; the 2015 short film Valentina's Dream is based on that wish.

What did Tereshkova propose during the 2020 Russian constitutional amendments?

The proposal allowed Vladimir Putin to run again after 2024.

Where on the Moon is Tereshkova crater?

In August 1970 she was among the first living people to have a lunar crater named after them.

Which fashion designer's Space Age styles were inspired by photos of Tereshkova in her spacesuit?

He visited the Soviet Union in 1963, the year of her flight.

Which band's 2015 album The Race for Space includes a track called 'Valentina'?

The track features Smoke Fairies; Komputer had released their own 'Valentina' single back in 1997.

Which sanctions list did the US Treasury add Tereshkova to in September 2022?

The listing followed her vote for the invasion of Ukraine; the EU imposed its own sanctions that December.

For which Games did Tereshkova carry the torch in Sochi?

She had also been a torchbearer in Saint Petersburg for the 2008 Beijing relay.

Before becoming a cosmonaut, Tereshkova graduated by correspondence from which institution in 1960?

She had left school at 16 and worked first in a tire factory and then a textile mill while studying.

In the original 1963 plan, which woman was to follow Tereshkova into orbit on a second solo flight?

The two-woman profile was dropped in March 1963 and Valery Bykovsky took the Vostok 5 seat instead.

How long did Tereshkova spend in space on her 1963 flight?

That single mission logged more flight time than all the American astronauts who had flown before her combined.

What minor injury did Tereshkova suffer on landing after violent gusts troubled her parachute?

Local villagers in the Altai Krai then helped her out of her spacesuit and fed her dinner.

Where did Tereshkova represent the USSR at the 1975 UN International Women's Year conference?

She later led the Soviet delegation to the World Conference on Women in Copenhagen.

What was the profession of Yuli Shaposhnikov, whom Tereshkova married after divorcing Nikolayev?

She met him during the medical examinations she took to re-qualify as a cosmonaut; they stayed married until his death in 1999.

Tereshkova sat on the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet during which period?

She was also a Central Committee member of the Communist Party from 1969 to 1991.

In which year was Tereshkova among the first living people to have a lunar crater named after them?

A sculpture of her had already been placed on Moscow's Cosmonaut Alley in 1967.