This weeks Illustrated Woman in History was illustrated by @rozihathaway. 

Valentina Tereshkova is a Russian cosmonaut and the first woman to have flown in space.

Tereshkova was born in Maslennikovo, a small town in the Yaroslavl Region. She began school late, when she was eight years old and had to leave at 17 to help to support her family. She continued her education while working at a textile plant through correspondence courses and graduated from Light Industry Technical School. She developed an interest in sky diving and learnt through the DOSAAF Aviation Club in Yaroslavl, an auxiliary organization of the Soviet Air Force. She set up the Textile Mill Workers Parachute Club and became its first head. She also became the secretary of the local Komsomol (Young Communist League).

In April 1961 the Soviet Union sent the Yuri Gagarin into space, making him the first to accomplish this. Inspired by Gagarin, Tereshkova applied to join the Soviet space program, she was one of five applicants (along with Tatyana Kuznetsova, Irina Solovyova, Zhanna Yorkina, Valentina Ponomaryova) selected out of the four hundred who had applied. Her acceptance was largely based on the fact that she had completed 126 parachute jumps.

Tereshkova was put through 18 months of training that consisted of weightless flights, isolation tests, centrifuge tests, rocket theory, spacecraft engineering, 120 parachute jumps and pilot training in MiG-15UTI jet fighters. She was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Soviet Air Force and became a full member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Tereshkova was the only woman selected to go into space and on the morning of 16 June 1963, she became the first woman to be launched into space in Vostok 6. Tereshkova logged more than 70 hours in space and made 48 orbits of Earth, more flight time than the combined times of all American astronauts who had flown before that date. She kept a flight log and took photographs of the horizon which were later used to identify aerosol layers within the atmosphere. Celebrations were held in Moscow’s Red Square on the return of Tereshkova and Bykovsky (who went into space at the same time in Vostok 5). She was named a Hero of the Soviet Union and awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star Medal.

Tereshkova never went back into space, she graduated with distinction as a cosmonaut engineer from the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy and earned a doctorate in engineering. She also toured the world as a spokesperson for the Soviet Union, a symbol that they treated women equally but it was not the truth. It took 19 years for them to send another woman into space and women never received the same quality of flight assignments.

Tereshkova was a prominent member of the Communist Party during Soviet times and a representative of the Soviet government to numerous international women’s organizations and events. She was a member of the World Peace Council in 1966; a member of the Yaroslavl Supreme Soviet in 1967; a member of the council of the Union of the Supreme Soviet in 1966-1970 and 1970-1974. She was elected to the presidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1974 and was the Soviet representative to the UN Conference for the International Women’s Year in Mexico City in 1975. Through the 1980’s she continued as a Deputy to the Supreme Soviet, Vice President of the International Women’s Federation; and several other international positions.

In 2013 Tereshkova offered to go on a one-way trip to Mars if the opportunity arose. She is still thought of as a hero in post-Soviet Russia and an inspiration for ambitious women who wish to fulfill their goals.

Sources here, here, here and here

 

You can see more of Rozi Hathaway’s work on her website www.rozihathaway.com and follow her on Instagram @rozihathaway​