A Seagull in Space: Valentina Tereshkova

A Seagull in Space: Valentina Tereshkova - and the Vostok 6 - In a time when it seems that to attract the attention of someone, a woman must inevitably undress and staging ridiculous pantomimes even in holy places, it is worth mentioning the enterprise of a different woman, daughter of other times and other values.

The June 16, 1963 Valentina Tereshkova flew in space aboard Vostok 6, making 48 orbits of Earth in nearly three days of travel.

This June 16, 2013, is the fiftieth anniversary of that under every point of view was an epic adventure.

The then Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev wanted it was Russian the first woman to fly in space as Russian had been the first man, Yuri Gagarin. Not only that, but to show that in the Soviet Union anyone could pilot a spaceship, he commanded that the chosen had not a particular preparation, apart from the technical strictly necessary to make the flight.

Valentina Tereshkova met all the requirements!

At the time, she was 26 years of age, without a university degree or a patent military, as her male counterparts had instead.

Her success turned out to be the result of a powerful specific training as well as a precise political design.

True daughter of the people, at the age of two years, she lost her father, tank crewman, who died in combat in 1939 during the Second World War, at Lemetti in the Finnish Karelia.

Raised by her mother, began working young like many of her peers because of the difficulties in which the Nazi invasion had left the Soviet Union. She was studying in the evening, the young Valentina, while by day she worked in a textile factory.

Nothing presaged that there would be a different fate from that of simple working if not that, one day, this determined daughter of the Soviet was persuaded by a friend to bail out from an airplane, with a parachute, so for testing.

She liked it. Even more: she liked it so much that it became a passion so intense as to devote every spare moment to the achievement of the parachutist patent.

Age, size, proletarian origins, courage in launching off a plane hanging from a floating sheet of canvas, these were the things that enabled her to be noticed and to enter the Soviet space program in 1962.

After a year of hard training, secret even to her mother, a year in many ways terrible but certainly exciting like a victorious ride, Valentina Tereshkova was successfully fired into orbit on the morning of June 16, 1963.

She chose the code name of Chaika, Seagull and endured all that was expected should endure: the fatigue, the overwhelming acceleration when the rocket engines ignited, the absence of weight once in orbit, the nausea and dizziness that seized her while she was in space, the claustrophobic containment in the space capsule.

She endured it all and after three days she landed safe and sound in the Siberian region of Altai Mountains.

She was found by the locals, who helped her out of the space suit and also offered to eat. Valentina agreed ... on the other hand she had eaten almost nothing for three days, excluding foods in size toothpaste. It was natural that she was hungry!

And yet, this was outside the procedure, and therefore she received a reprimand from her commander. It's good to remember this story because are things like this that make real every hero. All those little flaws, all those little faults that inevitably accompany even the great men and great women, all those things return them in a human dimension that enhances them even more.

The rest is really history: celebrations, official recognition, political appointments at the highest levels, two marriages, children and grandchildren.

The first woman in space has spent the years following 1963, until today, in a continuous industriousness true bearer of Soviet Union before and Russia after.

She has been successful because she has committed unconditionally and because an entire system had confidence in her.

For that kind of enterprise, there was no room for cheating, there was no room for the easy shortcuts of seduction or corruption. The only feasible way was that of diligence and hard work, loyalty and sacrifice, with the full knowledge that, in case, the price for  a mistake could be the death.

Nowadays, there are half-naked women who inveigh against the legitimate President of a great Nation, in a public square and even inside a cathedral, reminiscent of a glorious past. They peddle their undignified performances for political struggle and aspiration to democracy.

Valentina Tereshkova in 1963, instead, honored her homeland and humanity, by her intellect, her determination, her courage. She forged her body not to show it undressed, strumming idiot tunes, but in order to achieve a high aim through her mind.

It is right to remember her, celebrating those glorious days. For a future memory.

Costantino Ceoldo