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ThE fiRsT WoMan in sPacE

- A saga of an adventurous woman
1. June 16, 1963 is a memorable day when
Not to be republished
the world shared with Valentina
Tereshkova of Soviet Union the
excitement of the first woman travelling
in space. Travelling successfully in the
©KTBS
space ship Vostok VI round the earth
at 18,000 miles an hour, Valentina
won the credit of being the world’s first
space-woman.
2. Mysterious are the ways of destiny.
Little did the world dream of a village
girl of humble birth becoming the first
woman cosmonaut. But instances
like this are numerous in the pages of
world history.

3. Valentina, who is now an international
figure, was from a humble family. valentina Tereshkova
She was born on March 6, 1937 at
the village of Maselennikovo. Her father was a tractor driver. He
died at the front during World War II. Valentina, more intimately
known as Valya, was then only a child. The family was passing
through many difficulties of poverty. Therefore Valya could not have
a smooth and continuous schooling. In her seventeenth year, she
went to work at a tyre factory and then at a textile mill to help her
mother maintain the family. At the same time, she attended some
classes at Yaroslav. In 1960, she graduated in a trade school. By
this time, she had been trained well in parachute jumping at the
Yaroslav Aero Club. Even then, she did not show herself off as an
extra ordinary woman. It was only her boldness and daring in the
parachute training that stood her in good stead, when she was
selected to undergo cosmonauts’ training. Like many youngsters,
she also was dreaming of sailing on a ‘magic carpet’. Yuri Gagarin’s
first space flight fired her imagination. And she secretly determined
to fly like him. She applied to the space school and was admitted.
And this paved the way for her great expedition.

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