Physically and mentally, women have the right stuff for expeditions into deep space. So why send male astronauts at all?

Valentina Tereshkova, in full Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, (born March 6, 1937, Maslennikovo, Russia, U.S.S.R.), Soviet cosmonaut, the first woman to travel into space. On June 16, 1963, she was launched in the spacecraft Vostok 6, which completed 48 orbits in 71 hours. In space at the same time was Valery F. Bykovsky, who had been launched two days earlier in Vostok 5; both landed on June 19. Although she had no pilot training, Tereshkova was an accomplished amateur parachutist and…

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (born 6 March 1937) is the first woman to have flown in space, having been selected from more than four hundred applicants and five finalists to pilot Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. In order to join the Cosmonaut Corps, Tereshkova was honorarily inducted into the Soviet Air Force and thus she also became the first civilian to fly in space.

Who was the first woman in space? Valentina Tereshkova was born in 1937 in Central Russia. A skilled parachutist, she was selected as the unaccompanied pilot of the Vostok 6 mission. On the morning of June 16, 1963 at the age of 26 she blasted into space with the callsign of Chaika. She spent three days in space and orbited the earth 48 times. In 2000 she was awarded the Greatest Woman Achiever of the Century. “Once you've been in space, you appreciate how small and fragile the Earth…

Valentina Tereshkova orbited the Earth 48 times during her three day spaceflight in Vostok 6 in 1963. First woman in space!

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On June 16, 1963, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova launched solo aboard a Soviet Vostok 6 rocket, becoming the first-ever woman in space.