Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to journey into space on 16 June 1963, on the spaceship Vostok 6. The glory of her single impeachment into space took only two years after Yuri Gagarin’s feat of flying with a human crew into space.

Born on 6 March 1937, in the Central Russian village of Bolshoye Maslennikovo, Tereshkova’s early life was spent in rather modest surroundings. Her mother worked in a textile factory, while her father was a tractor driver, honored posthumously as a war hero after his death on the Finnish front in World War Two. She was two years old when her father died.

Following her mother’s steps, Tereshkova worked at a textile factory right after graduation. Her first experience of flying came through sport parachuting, which she took for recreation with a local club. Her bold leaps from the airplanes impressed the Soviet space program committee. She was shortlisted out of more than 400 applicants to the cosmonaut corps as a cosmonaut candidate.

She underwent 18 months of training with the Soviet Air Force, whereupon she faced every sort of extreme condition associated with space travel: high-gravity forces, management of emergencies, and the psychological challenge of isolation. Only 24, she was inducted into the Soviet Air Force with honors—the youngest woman and the first civilian to fly in space.

While Tereshkova remains the only woman to fly solo, her mission fit in closely with that of fellow cosmonaut Valeriy Bykovsky, who launched two days earlier on Vostok 5. Both spacecraft flew different orbits, coming within three miles of each other, constantly in radio contact with each other during their missions. Tereshkova, as “Chaika”, relayed messages to both Bykovsky and even had a conversation with the Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev over the radio during a live broadcast on air.

Legacy Inspiring, Accomplished

The total duration for Tereshkova’s milestone flight was well over 70 hours and completed in 48 orbits. This did not only break barriers for women but made a way for the next generation to follow suit into space. Upon completion and success of her mission, Tereshkova was awarded numerous prestigious medals and went ahead to play several other important political roles within Russia and overseas. The first woman in space, she was an official head of state before the collapse of the Soviet Union and was elected to the World Peace Council in 1966. Indeed, today she holds the position of Deputy Chair for the Committee for International Affairs in Russia and seems to be still active within the general space community, having expressed interest in undertaking a one-way trip to Mars.

 The Progress of Women in Space Exploration

Although Tereshkova realized the final frontier rather earlier, that gap in space explorations was never really narrowed down. Nineteen years would elapse before another woman, Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya, launched into space aboard Soyuz T-7 in 1982. She returned to space in 1984 to become the first woman to fly twice and do a spacewalk.

Since Tereshkova’s flight, over 500 people have flown into space, but women make up only 11% of that number. The majority of the women flew through NASA’s space program; others were part of Soviet/Russian and Chinese programs. Women have been well-represented in recent space missions—through 2016 the United States has sent the most females into space: 50 female astronauts since 1961, including Peggy Whitson, who spent the most consecutive days in space of any American. But women make up only 14 percent of all Americans flown in space.

The first class of NASA astronauts chosen in 1978 was the first time that women were selected to join the corps. The first American woman to fly in space was Sally Ride, succeeded by her classmates Shannon Lucid, Judith Resnik, and Anna Lee Fisher, who became the first mother in space.

Looking Ahead

Valentina Tereshkova’s legacy survives to inspire and challenge the space exploration community towards greater gender equality. To move these frontiers forward, it would be necessary that the lead women—Tereshkova, Savitskaya, and Ride—demonstrate that diversity and inclusion are core to excel in scientific and exploratory pursuits. Anchored by efforts to bridge the chasm of disparity, now the sky is no longer a limit but a starting point.