Tuesday 8 March 2016

Happy International Women's Day!

This year to celebrate International Women's Day, I'd like to honour the accomplishments of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.


[Tereshkova in 1963]

In 1963, as a 26-year-old Soviet cosmonaut, she was the sole occupant and pilot of Vostok 6, spending 3 days in space and orbiting the earth 48 times.


Before becoming a cosmonaut, Valentina was a textile factory worker and amateur skydiver. Her space flight made her a hero in the Soviet Union and other Communist countries of that era.




After her space career, Valentina attended the Air Force academy and became an engineer, ultimately earning a doctorate. She also became prominent in the Communist Party and held many high political posts. She is much decorated and honoured.


[Tereshkova in 1969]

According to Wikipedia:

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tereshkova lost her political office but none of her prestige. To this day, she is revered as a hero, and to some her importance in Russian space history is only surpassed by Yuri Gagarin and Alexey Leonov. In 2011, she was elected to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature, where she continues to serve.


[Tereshkova in 2014]

Now 78, she appears to be as feisty as ever, with an ongoing sense of adventure. She has offered to resume her cosmonaut career in order to participate in the first one-way space flight to Mars. And wouldn't that be a fitting way for Valentina Tereshkova to cap her lifetime of achievement?

[I owe a big shout-out to Cal at Cal's Canadian Cave of Cool for teaching me about Valentina Tereshkova via his regular posts about her. Many of these photos and much of this info come from his blog.]

36 comments:

The Cranky said...

Thank you for sharing this; I've learned something new today, fittingly.

anne marie in philly said...

beautiful woman; the russians were so far ahead of the USA in space travel back then.

Unknown said...

Wow, Valentina is a really cool and strong woman! I just forgot the Woman's Day O.o

LL Cool Joe said...

Happy International Woman's day to you! There are so many amazing women out there kicking butt. Here's to all of them!

Marie Smith said...

Incredible to think that her flight was 1963. The Russians were ahead of the times for sure. Thank you for the information and the inspiration and for the source blog info.

DEZMOND said...

we learn of her in our schools as kids :)
Happy International Women's Day, Debs, in my country ladies get flowers today and get free parties in factories and companies :)

Jeanne said...

Bravo for Valeniina! And for Russia in letting woman participate like men.

baili said...

i really love such stories dear which reveal the effort and honor of a woman,thank you sooo much for wonderful sharing ,she is very brave strong and cool personality .and happy woman day to you too dear

MrsDuncanMahogany said...

I have not heard of her before today. What an accomplished lady! :)

Snap said...

Wonderful! Marvelous way to celebrate International Women's Day!.

Adam said...

It seems international women's day is getting a good bit of getting the word out this year.

bj said...

Boy.....she has made her life here on Earth mean something.
Thanks, dear heart, for this interesting post...I could never have gone into space, by myself, and do the things she did..I have always been scared of my shadow...

Miss Val's Creations said...

What an amazing, colorful life Valentina has led! Such an inspiration. I am way too boring compared to her.

Martha said...

What an amazing woman. I hope she gets to go to Mars. That would be something. Happy International Women's Day, Debra!

Toni said...

Thank you for sharing this. I love the adjective "feisty" when describing her at 78!

Dixie@dcrelief said...

Impressive!

Guillaume said...

Oh I forgot to pay homage to a woman today! I think I would have done Simone de Beauvoir or Mary Shelley.

Ol'Buzzard said...

Strong women have always been among us, they were just not allowed to compete.
the Ol'Buzzard

Jim said...

Thanks for this, Debra....very informative.

Rawknrobyn.blogspot.com said...

I'm still stunned that she was only 26 when she started all this. And she wants a one way ticket to Mars. I kinda don't want her to do that. I like her.

Hindustanka said...

Yes! She is so famous... And it's great she is still among us :) I guess that's an honour for all of us...

miruspeg said...

What an interesting life Valentina has lived, and great to hear she is still going strong.
Thanks for sharing her story Debra.
Peggy xxxx

Anonymous said...

How amazing would it be if she went to Mars!?! I'm surprised she made it back to Earth alive. Back in the day, the Russians (and to an extent, the Americans) were just shooting all manner of creatures into space for funsies without any consideration of returning them home. And by the look on her face in those 3 cosmonaut outfit photos, she wasn't doing so great. The best part, she never stopped having fabulous hair.

Magaly Guerrero said...

One way flight! The lady has ovaries of steel. Yay! ♥

yellowdoggranny said...

wow...I knew some of that but not all and far as I'm concerned..they should make a movie about her..wouldn't that be fabulous?

e said...

Quite a few years ago, I was in Washington DC with my daughter and my sister-in-law's mom. When we toured the National Air and Space museum, Babushka was so excited to see a display about Valentina Tereshkova! She kept exclaiming 'Tereshkova! Tereshkova!' making sure we understood that this woman was so, so important. (She didn't have a lot of English at the time, so the communication was often a challenge.)

This N That said...

Interesting..Important lady..quite a career..thanks for sharing..

Rommy said...

Very cool! I'm glad for the opportunity to learn more about her.

Jono said...

Finally a real Russian woman. All I get is emails telling me about all the Russian women that want to marry me. I would much rather spend time with Ms. Tereshkova. I really hate never hearing about such people, so thanks for her story.

laughingwolf said...

hi deb, wonderful woman

facebook locked me out, saying they think my account MAY contain malware, yet their link to "fix" it does not work for me... despite me telling them many times, they ignore me - on the other hand, they invite me to various facebook happenings; obviously one hand not knowing what the other is doing *sigh* ... if i start a new fb account, i lose all 2300+ friends; don't wanna do that... so it just sits, accumulating tons of posts i can't reply to :(

gonna start using blogger more, i guess

Magic Love Crow said...

Wow, what a brilliant woman!! Thanks for sharing Deb!

Riot Kitty said...

How awesome! And of course we never read about her in school, probably because of the fucking cold war.

The Dancing Crone said...

This is amazing! So glad you posted, I didn't know a thing about her! And she's still going strong! Wow!

The Happy Whisk said...

I am so clueless, that I didn't even know it was women's day.

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

My most very favorite Comrade Sister girl of all time.

baili said...

thank you for marvelous post Debra!

LOVED THIS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we knew this through readings that Russia was first country to reach on moon