Posted on 03/06/2007 1:42:32 PM PST by anymouse
The world's first female astronaut Valentina Tereshkova, marking her 70th birthday on Tuesday, says she still dreams of flying to Mars -- even on a one-way ticket.
In June 1963, 25-year-old Tereshkova spent 71 hours in orbit on board a Soviet Vostok spacecraft, earning a niche in the history books and scoring propaganda points for the Soviet Union in its Cold War space rivalry with the United States.
The story of the peasant's daughter who became a household name thanks to communism's achievements made her a role model for young Soviet women. Her photograph smiling from a space suit became an icon.
President Vladimir Putin, who invited Tereshkova to his residence near Moscow to mark her birthday, said her flight remained an inspiration for the resurgent Russia of today.
"Your flight was, and will remain, a matter of pride for the Soviet people, for the Russian people," he told Tereshkova who sported the gold star of the Hero of the Soviet Union on her black suit.
Tereshkova all but disappeared from public life after the Soviet Union collapsed and now heads an obscure international cooperation association under the auspices of the foreign ministry and takes part in private projects helping orphans.
"I want you to know I will serve the country to the end," she told Putin.
But in an interview with Komsomoskaya Pravda daily published on Tuesday she disclosed another cherished dream.
"If I had money, I would enjoy flying to Mars," she said. "This was the dream of the first cosmonauts. I wish I could realize it! I am ready to fly without coming back."
Space ping
Good to hear she is still around.
Dreams are forever young.............
She lived to see the Soviet Union fall.
And to see Putin resurrect it.
I went to the Soviet Space exhibit at Boston's Museum of Science. I found hard to believe there were any survivors. I used to joke that the 1st page of the Cosmonauts' Handbook said; "Thank You for dying for your country." There is no page 2.
She could hardly say anything different about Putin. Those who criticize him seem to be disappearing regularly.
You got a pernt there.
No, I won't be "volunteered". :^)
Nah, he's bringing Imperial Russia back.
http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/2000/jul/m17-026.shtml
...from Jame Oberg's book 'Red Star in Orbit'. "The one named Valentina Tereshkova is the only one we know about, although the first names of two others, Tanya and Irina, were published many years later. Of the fourth young woman, not even her name is known, although one foreign journalist claimed it was Ludmilla..." (p. 64) "(Her mother learned that Valentina was a cosmonaut when the flight was announced over Radio Moscow.)" (p. 65) "In 1976 at a press conference at the NASA Space Center in Houston, I [James Oberg] asked her [Valentina Tereshkova] who and where the other three woman cosmonaut trainees were; immediately she demanded that I be expelled from the meeting room - and I was.)" (p. 67)
Well, the Soviets had 7 astronauts die, IIRC we had 17 (not counting other accidents while on duty, but not in space)
Seems to me that they are the safe way to get to space, simple reliable boosters, escape rocket, etc.
The Soviets actually lost only 4 men in space.
Vladimir Komarov, Soyuz 1 mission, 1967;
George Dobrovolskiy, Victor Patsaeyev, Vladislav Volkov, Soyuz 11 mission, 1971;
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