Cosmonauts exhibition at the Science Museum sees new launch for first woman in space

Valentina Tereshkova was reunited with the craft that carried her into space as she opened the Science Museum’s new display
Valentina Tereshkova: The first woman in space
Robert Dex @RobDexES17 September 2015

The first woman in space today relived the drama of her historic mission at the launch of a major London exhibition.

Valentina Tereshkova was reunited with the craft that carried her as she opened the Science Museum’s new display telling the story of the Soviet Union’s entry into the space race.

After blasting off in June, 1963, Ms Tereshkova spent almost three days in space and orbited the earth 48 times in her Vostok-6 capsule.

She had to cope with a life-threatening crisis after the craft’s trajectory was programmed wrongly. “Unfortunately this is a fact but I’m very resourceful as any woman would be”, she said.

Browse our gallery of the exhibition below

Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age at the Science Museum

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Curator Doug Millard described the drama: “She noticed the orientation of her craft was way out and told mission control that if it wasn’t fixed, when she applied the brakes to start her descent it would do the opposite and fire her into a higher orbit — where she would undoubtedly die.” In a less serious error, she also forgot her toothbrush.

The exhibition follows five years of planning and talks with museums and the Russian space industry. The Soviet Union set the pace for space travel in the Fifties and early Sixties, launching the first satellite, Sputnik 1; the first animal, Laika the dog; the first man, Yuri Gargarin; and the first woman.

Vostok-6, complete with the scorched remains of its heat shield, is one of 150 exhibits on show, along with an ejector seat for a dog, a lunar lander whose existence was kept secret, a toilet designed for the Mir space station, and a gold mannequin made in the image of Gagarin that was flown around the moon to test the effects of radiation.

Ms Tereshkova had been a factory worker and amateur skydiver. She later became a cosmonaut engineer and a politician. Now 78, she told how, while training, she stroked her spacecraft and spoke to it: “I say, ‘My lovely one. My best and most beautiful friend. My best and most beautiful man.’”

The exhibition, Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age, runs at the Science Museum until March.

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