Valentina Tereshkova, the first female Soviet cosmonaut indeed, the first woman to go into space recently celebrated her 70th birthday.

Other achievements of Russian space program include the first photo of the far side of the Moon exploration of Venus the first spacewalk by Alexey Leonov first female spaceflight by Valentina Tereshkova.

These are Thank you. This is Valentina, the Fastest.

Valentina became queasy during the flight and became sick.

What, then, might a woman of Tereshkova s generation think of the changes during Vladimir Putin s presidency?

Due to World War II, Valentina didn't begin attending school until she was 8 years old.

That Valentina will become one of those secretaries in porn movies by age 14, read another.

Valentina learned to sky dive through an auxiliary organization of the Soviet Air Force located in her town (Yaroslavl).

While the Soviet Union sent the first two women into space, only four of all the women in space have been Russian or Soviet.

In a media ecosystem where violence, sexism, and pedophilia all has a place, MasterChef Junior spawned consequences its producers could hardly have foreseen. Valentina, 12, one of the contestants, emerged as a particularly skilled chef and a favourite of viewers.

Tereshkova s generation, though it encompassed almost the entire era of Soviet rule, had been raised in the tradition of Russian womanhood.

These women and Tereshkova is undoubtedly among them were shocked by the changes they saw before them.

Valentina's father Vladimir went missing in action in the Finno Russian War of 1939 1940, and so Valentina and her siblings were raised by their mother.

But for Tereshkova and other women of her generation, the great Soviet state and the daring achievements of Soviet science were inseparable.

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova was born March 6th, 1937 in Bolshoye Maslennikovo in the Yaroslavl Oblast of the Soviet Union.

Briefly married to a fellow cosmonaut, she gave birth to the first child of parents who had traveled in space a daughter, who later became a doctor.

Today in History June 16, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space aboard the Soviet Union s Vostok 6.

But Tereshkova s dream about travel to Mars is not just suicidal nostalgia for a time when she was young and surrounded by people who were ready to sacrifice their lives for a greater cause.

This culturally desiccated world is much more alien than the red desert of the Martian landscape that Tereshkova and her cosmonaut friends including her husband dreamed of in their youth.

Tereshkova s dream is a symbol not only of her desperation, which is the desperation of the creative mind in today s Russia, but also of continuing belief in the great potential of the human spirit.

To reduce what ground control perceived as space sickness, Valentina was told to stay strapped into her chair for the three day duration of the flight.

Just days before the world celebrated International Women's Day last week, Valentina Tereshkova the first woman to enter space celebrated her 75th birthday.

This culturally desiccated world is much more alien than the red desert of the Martian landscape that Tereshkova and her cosmonaut friends including her husband dreamed of in their youth. The collapse of the country for which she lived underscores her overwhelming sense of tragedy.