Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Just To Remind All You Sisters Out There That You Have Always Been Platinum



On this day we celebrate the accomplishments of one of the bravest sisters of all time. Comrade Sister Valentina Tereshkova She went into space, alone, in a piece of Soviet JUNK and spent more time in space than anyone else up until that time. She's the real deal and should be on every teen girl's wall as someone who reached for greatness and deserves to be emulated. She was a communist but a brave communist.


 
The magnificent Valentina Tereshkova - first woman in space.
 
Sister's just doing it for themselves? This woman invented it. She went from working in a parachute factory to being the first woman in space. She spend three days in space and orbited the Earth 46 times in her Vostok 6 spacecraft before having to parachute to safety upon her return. And this was in a Soviet made space vehicle in the 1960's.
 

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova is a retired Soviet cosmonaut and the first woman to have flown in space, having been selected from more than four hundred applicants and five finalists to pilot Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963.
 
 
PI-APN-8.4.73 Berlin Festival Demonstration Valentina Nikolaeva-Tereshkova (left) and Angela Davis, two great role models for the youth of the world were among the guests of honor at 080473 the great demonstration of the East German youth.
 
Valentina Tereshkova

Born March 6, 1937, Valentina is a retired Soviet cosmonaut, and was the first woman in space. She was selected out of more than four hundred applicants, and then out of five finalists, to pilot Vostok 6 on the 16 June, 1963, becoming both the first woman and the first civilian to fly in space, as she was only honorarily inducted into the USSR’s Air Force as a condition on joining the Cosmonaut Corps. During her three-day mission, she performed various tests on herself to collect data on the female body’s reaction to spaceflight.

Before being recruited as a cosmonaut, Tereshkova was a textile-factory assembly worker and an amateur parachutist. After the dissolution of the first group of female cosmonauts in 1969, she became a prominent member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, holding various political offices. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, she retired from politics, but remains revered as a hero in post-Soviet Russia.
 
 

4 comments:

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Cal, I'm bookmarking this post for future reference. I'm going to celebrate Valentina Tereshkova in my next International Women's Day post on March 8, 2016. Her accomplishments DO need to be better known among Western women. I'll give you a shout-out as the researcher and image collector.

msmariah said...

You know I'm always amazed by the cosmonaut program b/c of of how dangerous it was. The Apollo program was of course extremely dangerous too... I think Sam Shepherd said it best in 'The Right Stuff,' "Think a monkey knows he's sitting on top of a rocket that might explode? These astronaut boys, they know that, see? Well, I'll tell you somethin' - it takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that's on TV. Ol' Gus, he did alright."

Did you ever read about that one female cosmonaut who's transmission was picked up by radio enthusiasts, but she never made it? The Russians never acknowledged her existence. I think there were quite a few Russians who went into space, but never came back and who were never acknowledged.

Michael Lynn P. said...

There was a musician by the name of Kurt Swinghammer who had an entire album that was a tribute to her and it was called Vostok 6. I listened to the hell out of it in high school and always thought this woman was brave and cool. Obviously being American, I wasn't really learning about her in history class, but my friend introduced me to that album and I learned so much. She's just a very brave woman.

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

Many many people died in the Soviet space program. I am amazed they ever got anything to work. The pilots were just expendable unlike the US program with the media's fascination with the program. The US had to play it safe. Too many people watching. I love the Right Stuff. It got me into learning about the Space Program in a big way. Valentina deserves all her props.