 On June 16th, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, and contrary to stories about the mission that seemed to go around the internet periodically, she was not thrown in a Vostok capsule last minute. The female cosmonaut class actually trained for a very long time before she flew in space. The impetus for starting a female cosmonaut class in the Soviet Union came the same way they decided to start training men to best the United States in this brand new arena of spaceflight. The idea came from chief designer Sergei Korolev. He was the main architect behind the Soviet space program and is sometimes called the Soviet equivalent of Warner Fun Brown. It was Korolev who snuck Sputnik in as a side goal of a military missile program such that no one had to okay Sputnik on its own, but it would be ready to go. In fact, Sputnik was actually a step backwards from his original first satellite goal, which was effectively Sputnik 2, launching something with a biological payload, in this case, like a dog, into orbit before the Americans did anything in space. He was also the man who handpicked Yurik Garin to be the first cosmonaut to fly for the Soviet Union. Korolev understood the psychological benefit to beating the Americans in the early space age, and so, in early 1961, he was thinking what to do next. They were already looking at developing a larger and more versatile spacecraft, what became the Soyuz. But in the meantime, he needed something else to keep this lead over the United States and came up with the idea of launching a woman. Launching a woman would have two very positive effects. Not only would it be something to do first over the Americans maintaining that lead in space, it would also be a new role model for children in the Soviet Union. Basically, the idea was to show that little kids all over the country could look up to these people and grow up through the communist system to rise to greatness. Having a male role model and a female role model would say that communism favored neither gender, that anyone could be anything they wanted to be within the communist system because it was better than democracy. The Central Committee of the Communist Party okayed Korolev's idea and thus began the search for female cosmonauts. The search began like any other astronaut or cosmonaut recruitment, figuring out what qualities this new class of people would need. Soviet officials looked at women in the military, women who were athletes that also flew, people who had done extensive skydiving or had qualifications. They even looked at parachutists, because remember the Vostok didn't actually land with the cosmonaut inside. The cosmonaut had to eject out of that first spacecraft at 10,000 feet and land by personal parachute. The files of 58 women reached the desk of Nikolai Kamonen in early January 1962 and he wasn't overly impressed. He was concerned that the women in these files didn't have enough experience that would translate to spaceflight but he sort of put those worries at bay when he remembered that Vostok was essentially an automated spacecraft and they wouldn't really need to do all that much. 23 women made the initial cut and 18 women were given extensive medical and psychological and physical testing to determine who could join the cosmonaut class. In the end, 5 women, all experienced parachutists, were selected to train as cosmonauts. One eventually dropped out, leaving 4 vying for the role of first female cosmonaut. When the women first arrived, there was some resistance from their male counterparts. Many felt that women had no business in spaceflight, that it was too dangerous, that a woman ever wanted to be a mother, she shouldn't be exposed to the radiation in space. But over time, the men changed their tune when they saw the women training just as hard as they were. Finally, in May of 1963, Kamonen gathered the women and announced that Valentina Tereshkova would be the first woman to fly. She'd been selected as much for her qualifications as for her pedigree. She was a textile factory worker and an outspoken supporter of the Communist Party who had worked throughout her entire life. She'd begun helping her widowed mother support the family when she was just 10 and had gone through the Communist system to achieve great things. Like Yuri Gagarin before her, she was a picture of success in the Soviet system. Meanwhile, the other three women were told they would eventually make a flight as well. At the time, the rough schedule included a 30-day animal flight on Vostok 7, an 8-day manned mission on Vostok 8, and a 10-day tandem mission on Vostok 9 and 10. Any of these three manned missions could be flown by a female pilot. Unfortunately, none of the other female cosmonaut trainees got a chance to fly. When Tereshkova flew on Vostok 6, it was the final mission of the program. Korolev and the other Soviet designers opted to cancel the Vostok program and instead alter the spacecraft to become the new Vostok. This would be able to carry multiple cosmonauts at once, serving as an analog or a match, rather, to the American Gemini program, which was just getting off the ground. Tereshkova completed about 48 orbits during her 70-hour spaceflight, wherein she ran some small biomedical experiments and also just gathered data on how to live and work in space. Scientists even continued to study Tereshkova after her flight. She became the first woman to have flown in space to then have a child, and she married another cosmonaut, meaning that both of these parents had been exposed to radiation in space. And amazingly enough, or not surprisingly at all, the child was born without a tail. Tereshkova is often lauded as a trailblazer for women in space, which she certainly was. But we have to remember that there was a very strong political element to getting her in space in the first place. If you guys have other questions about the Soviet space program or things that you want to know more about, leave me all of that in the comment section below. And of course, if you enjoyed this video, be sure to subscribe right here to my channel so you never miss an episode. And if you want vintage space every day of the week, be sure to follow me all across social media on Facebook, Twitter, and on Instagram. As always, guys, thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.