June 16, 1963, Tereškova is the first woman in Space: 70 years ago the flight of the Seagull
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On June 16, 1963, a “commoner”, fatherless and humble worker, became “Miss Universe”. This was the nickname that many newspapers around the world used for Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, the first woman in space, upon her return after almost three days in space. Cajka, “the Seagull”, was instead her code name while she was up there, for an experience that changed her life and made her a Soviet hero, but which was half a disaster in making her. But this was only known later. Also celebrated by Putin, she continues to support the homeland, the president, and the invasion of Ukraine.
Before becoming a “Seagull”, Valentina Tereškova was a worker in a textile company with a passion for flying. Her father was a tankman who died in the Second World War when Valentina was just two years old, despite the precarious economic conditions, she still managed to graduate and continued her studies by correspondence while she was a worker in a textile company. She also starting to practice skydiving. This was the first of the requirements that opened the gates of heaven for her when, in 1961, she wrote a letter to the space center to volunteer as a cosmonaut. Her enthusiasm and pride ignited the Soviet Union for the primacy of Gagarin and after the second flight, that of German Titov. Little did she know that Soviet officials were considering forming a women’s team to launch the first woman into space and beat the Americans once again.
The anniversary
The day of man’s travels in space, from Jurij Gagarin onwards
by Matteo Marino
She was called to Moscow for tests, in 1962, after a selection among hundreds of candidates, together with four others who had the minimum requirements: experience as a paratrooper; they were under the age of 30; they were unmarried; they were less than 170 cm tall and weighed less than 70 kg. All in perfect health, and with solid socialist faith. Tereshkova was secretary of the local branch of the Komsomol, the league of young communists.
The perfect Soviet heroine
Apparently, the selection of just one name, among the five candidates, was not a peaceful choice. What weighed was probably Tereshkova’s social extraction, her humble origins, the fact that she was the orphan of a war hero, all important requirements, especially in terms of communication, which also overshadowed her preparation. From the diaries of the head of the program Nikolaj Kamanin, a great esteem for Tereshkova emerges, for her strong and decisive but sociable character. I respect, for example, one of her reservations Valentina Ponomarëva, an “arrogant, self-centered” middle-class woman. Although she also enjoyed Gagarin’s support, her detractors, including her excluded colleagues, say that her recent engagement to Andriyan Nikolayev, the third cosmonaut to reach space, also had something to do with it. In addition to harboring a solid resentment for a poorly trained “commoner” that she would have achieved a glory destined for a few. Above all, a few, given that, it was the inkling, it would be an exclusive race.
But she was the perfect heroine of Soviet propaganda, and perhaps Khrushchev was also the one who guided the choice. And so on June 16, 1963, she boarded what would be the last takeoff of a Vostok capsule. It was a joint mission. Two days earlier, Valery Bykovsky had left aboard Vostok 5, Valentina Tereškova’s Vostok 6 joined him in orbit at a distance of a few kilometers, the two also managed to communicate via radio. But for the “Gabbiano” it was a troubled experience. As she later told herself, tied to her seat for over 70 hours, with the helmet always on, she suffered from space sickness (which happens to about half of the people who land in orbit) she vomited, fell asleep deeply and stopped to answer the radio. Problems that could not be revealed openly in radio conversations, because potentially the whole world was listening.
His mission was extended up to almost three days to remedy an incorrect orientation of the capsule, noticed by the cosmonaut herself who was evidently not so badly trained. But even the story of those 70 hours is controversial, in the USSR of the 60s it is difficult to get across the message that your superiors have made a mistake. Kamanin continued to defend her from officials who wanted to discredit her, even publicly. For example, emphasizing aspects such as her return, during which she, having deployed her parachutes, opened her helmet to better look at the ground (which she had been ordered not to do) and she injured her face .
The Return of the Seagull
She distributed the food left in the shuttle to the onlookers who surrounded it a few minutes after landing, ruining the body weight experiment that was supposed to count the calories eaten based on the remaining rations. And because of her bruised and swollen face, she had to be treated in the hospital and brought back to the landing site for photos of her days later, made up to mask the marks of her. But all this was happening while on the other side of the world the women of Mercury 13, who for a while cherished the idea of being able to undergo training and fly into space, stood by and watched. The first American to “pierce” the atmosphere will be Sally Ride, only in 1983, aboard a Space Shuttle, two decades later. But after the flight of the Seagull, aspiring Soviet cosmonauts fared no better. The poor performance of the Vostok 6 mission ended the women’s program. Almost two decades passed before another woman set foot in orbit: Svetlana Savitskaya, who also became the first woman to fly aboard a space station (the Salyut), the first to perform a spacewalk and the first to fly in the space twice.
The anniversary
The day of man’s travels in space, from Jurij Gagarin onwards
by Matteo Marino
But the honor and glory were above all for Cajka. She was erected as an idol of the Soviet Union, a title that Russia still recognizes today, at the age of 86. And she reciprocates. Tereshkova is in fact a member of the Duma for President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. In support of the president, she is also a staunch supporter of the invasion of Ukraine, so much so that she is the subject of international sanctions. She is the amendment to the Constitution that, after the 2020 referendum, “reset” the clock allowing Putin to remain in power, hypothetically, until 2036.
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