Valentina Tereshkova
A textile worker and amateur parachutist who spent three days alone in orbit in 1963
Valentina Tereshkova was born in a village in the Yaroslavl region. Her father, a tractor driver, was killed in the Winter War with Finland when she was two, and her mother brought up three children working in a textile mill. Valentina started school at eight and left at sixteen to work, first in a tyre factory and then at the same mill as her mother, studying by correspondence in the evenings. Her hobby was parachuting with a local aero club; by 1961 she had made over a hundred jumps.
That was what got her noticed. After Gagarin's flight the Soviet programme decided to put a woman in orbit, and because Vostok cosmonauts had to eject and parachute down, experienced jumpers were sought. Of five women chosen for training, she was picked to fly.
On 16 June 1963 she launched in Vostok 6 and spent almost three days in space, completing 48 orbits, more time than all the American astronauts up to then combined. It was not comfortable. She was sick, the capsule was cramped, and she noticed that the automatic programme was set to raise the orbit instead of lowering it, an error that was corrected from the ground. She landed by parachute in the Altai region, bruised, and was told to say nothing about the problems.
No other Soviet woman flew for nineteen years. Tereshkova became a public figure, a member of the Supreme Soviet and later of the Russian State Duma, where she has been a loyal supporter of the government.