Valentina Tereshkova

Valentina Tereshkova was born in 1937 in Maslennikovo, Yaroslavl Oblast, USSR. Valentina Tereshkova's background is described as Russian; village family. Growing up, the family was working class — her tractor-driver father was killed in the Winter War when she was two; her mother worked in a textile mill. A textile-mill worker and amateur parachutist; the first — and still only — woman to fly to space alone.

Born

1937 · Maslennikovo, Yaroslavl Oblast, USSR

Roots

Russian; village family

Family

Working class

Her tractor-driver father was killed in the Winter War when she was two; her mother worked in a textile mill.

Education

Evening classes and correspondence courses while working at the mill

Started with

A parachute club

An amateur skydiver at the Yaroslavl aeroclub while working in a textile mill — exactly the profile the cosmonaut program wanted.

Affiliations & societies

Communist Party of the Soviet UnionDocumented

Member from 1962; later served on the party's Central Committee.

Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1. 1954 · age 17
   The mill

   Tire factory, then the textile mill where her mother and sister worked; school continues by correspondence.

2. 1959 · age 22
   First jump

   Takes up parachuting at the local aeroclub; logs well over a hundred jumps.

3. 1962 · age 25
   Selected

   One of five women chosen from hundreds; trains in secret while telling her mother it's a skydiving team.

4. 1963 · age 26
   Vostok 6

   Three days and 48 orbits — more flight time than every American astronaut combined to that date.

5. 1963 · age 26
   A global symbol

   No woman flies to space alone again; the next Soviet woman flies 19 years later.

6. 2011 · age 74
   Parliament

   A long political career in the State Duma follows her cosmonaut years.