The dream of being in space did not leave mankind for centuries, and on April 12, 1961 it was destined to come true - Yuri Gagarin made the first flight. Today at Cosmonautics Day, we want to recall an equally significant space expedition - flight of the first woman-cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova.
The first space flights took place in the face of tough competition between the USSR and the USA. Both superpowers worked hard to ensure that their ships roamed the vastness of the universe, but, as you know, the palm in this matter belonged to the Soviet Union. After the debut "male" flight, the Americans had only one trump card - to prepare a "female" flight, but even here the Soviet cosmonauts were ahead. As soon as information about the preparation of the American "women's team" arrived in the land of the Soviets, Nikita Khrushchev personally insisted that a competitive selection be held among Soviet women.
There were many applicants for the role of the woman who will be the first to go into space. Such a scale would be the envy of any modern beauty contests: out of 800 participants in the competition, 30 reached the "final". It was them who began to prepare for a decisive flight. In the process of preparation, 5 best candidates were selected, by the way, Valentina Tereshkova was by no means the first in this rating. For medical reasons, she took the last place at all.
The girls went through difficult tests: they were placed in extremely high temperatures and in rooms with high humidity, they had to try themselves in zero gravity and learn to ground themselves on the water, jumping with a parachute (training was needed for landing during the landing of the spacecraft). Psychological tests were also carried out: it was important to understand how comfortable women would be during their stay in space (by the way, Tereshkova's experience turned out to be unique in that she was in space for almost three days alone, all later flights were performed as a duet).
The decision about who will fly into space was taken personally by Khrushchev, the story of Valentina Tereshkova perfectly suited the ideal of a "girl from the people" who achieved everything with her own labor. Valentina had a simple family, she herself was born in the village and worked at a weaving factory, she never did parachute jumping professionally, she had less than 100 jumps in total. In a word, the heroine from the people fully corresponded to the desired ideal.
Tereshkova's ship was launched on June 16, 1963. She flew on the Vostok-6 spacecraft. Valentina Tereshkova can rightfully be called a heroine, since during the flight she faced a huge number of difficulties, but she survived all the trials with dignity. The main problem turned out to be feeling unwell: nausea, lethargy, drowsiness - all this had to be fought. There was even a case recorded that Valentina stopped responding to requests from Earth, it turned out that she simply fell asleep from overwork, only Valery Bykovsky, another Soviet cosmonaut, who was also in orbit, could wake her up. There was an internal communication between their ships, through which the astronauts could communicate.
However, the most terrible test, about which the official authorities were silent for a long time, was a malfunction in the mechanism of Tereshkova's ship. Instead of landing on Earth, she risked flying off into space and perishing. Miraculously, Gagarin, who followed the flight, managed to figure out how to fix the situation, and Valentina Tereshkova was still able to return.
Landing in the Altai Territory was not easy. Exhausted female astronaut literally fell on the head of the local residents. Tired and exhausted, she gladly changed into the clothes brought to her, exposing her body, which turned into a continuous hematoma from the spacesuit, and also tasted peasant food - potatoes, kvass and bread. For this, she later received a reprimand from Sergei Korolev himself, because by doing so she violated the purity of the experiment.
For many years after the flight of Valentina Tereshkova, Soviet women did not ascend into space, too many difficulties arose during the flight due to the "individual characteristics of the female body." But the name of the first Soviet female pilot is forever inscribed in world history!
It is interesting that today there are many versions regarding was Yuri Gagarin the first cosmonaut … According to some reports, he was the fourth cosmonaut, according to others - even the twelfth!
