Tereshkhova and Ride, similar and different

2018/06/25 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Berdintasuna
• Historia
• Astronautika

This month the anniversaries of the first time cosmonaut and astronaut women went into space are joined. In particular, Valentina Tereshkova took this step on June 18 and Sally Rid on the 16th. There are therefore two days of difference between the two effermerids. Regarding the years, however, the distance is quite greater: when the Americans sent to space the first astronaut, Ride, there were 20 years in which the Russians achieved that achievement thanks to Tereshkova.

Tereshkova travelled to space in 1963 aboard the ship Vostok 6. It is, in addition to the first woman who traveled to space, the only one who was alone in space. In addition, he was the first civilian, since all those who had gone to space before were military, and on their journey, the astronauts exceeded the total hours in space. For nearly three days, he completed 48 orbits around the Earth.

Thus, the Russians put themselves at the head of the space race once again: they launched the first satellite (Sputnik-1, in 1957), sent the first animal (Laika, also in 1957) and the first man (Yuri Gagarin, in 1961), and the first woman who traveled to space was also cosmonaut, not astronaut.

Twenty years after the Americans sent the first woman into space. His name was Sally Ride, a physicist who traveled aboard the Challenger on the STS-7 mission. And in another aspect he was the first to recognize that among those who have traveled to space, he is the first and, for the moment, the only one.

If not, she was the third woman who traveled to space, as the second cosmonaut was a year before him: Svetlana Savitskaya. In fact, in the years 1960-1970, attempts made in the US to send a woman to space, but always by unofficial means, because neither NASA nor society were willing to accept it. Astronauts were heroes of the country and heroes had to be necessarily men.

So until 1983 they have not taken that step in the US and yet had to endure the machismo of the press. For example, at the press conference where they were asked “Will the trip affect your reproductive organs?” and “Do you cry when things go wrong?”

After the space race, Tereshkova entered politics. Ride, for his part, worked as a physics professor at the University of California and wrote science books for children with his partner.

Published in the newspaper Berria.