* This is the only book that provides the full story of the role of women in space exploration. * Previously unpublished photographs of various aspects of training and participation in spaceflights are included. * Personal interviews with female cosmonauts and astronauts. * Traces the history of female aviation milestones from the early part of the 20th Century to the current space programme.

Chronicles the life of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to travel into space, discussing her life, her training, and her life after the mission.

Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman to travel into space, spending almost three days piloting Vostok 6 in 1963-twenty years before Sally Ride became the first American woman to reach orbit. Affectionately known as the "First Lady of Space," Valentina Vladiminirovna "Valya" Tereshkova was born in a small village outside Moscow where she was a textile factory assembly worker and an amateur skydiver. Her skills at parachuting caught the attention of the cosmonaut program and she became one of just five women applicants (out of more than 400) to be recruited and the only one to fly to orbit. She spent almost three days in space, orbiting the Earth 48 times. During this single flight, she logged more flight time than the combined times of all American astronauts who had flown before that date. She became an inspiration to millions of women and was designated a "Hero of the Soviet Union." Inside is her story, told to us in her own words. Contains a number of rare photos.

A biography of the first woman astronaut and history of the Russian manned space program.

In the graphic novel Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier, Jim Ottaviani and illustrator Maris Wicks capture the great humor and incredible drive of Mary Cleave, Valentina Tereshkova, and the first women in space. The U.S. may have put the first man on the moon, but it was the Soviet space program that made Valentina Tereshkova the first woman in space. It took years to catch up, but soon NASA’s first female astronauts were racing past milestones of their own. The trail-blazing women of Group 9, NASA’s first mixed gender class, had the challenging task of convincing the powers that be that a woman’s place is in space, but they discovered that NASA had plenty to learn about how to make space travel possible for everyone.

When Valentina Tereshkova blasted off aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963, she became the first woman to rocket into space. It would be 19 years before another woman got a chance—cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982—followed by American astronaut Sally Ride a year later. And by breaking the stratospheric ceiling, these women forged a path for many female astronauts, cosmonauts, and mission specialists to follow. In Women in Space, author Karen Bush Gibson profiles 23 pioneers, all of whom achieved greatness in orbit. Read about Eileen Collins, the first woman to command the Space Shuttle; Peggy Whitson, who has logged more than a year in orbit aboard the International Space Station; Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space; as well as astronauts from Japan, Canada, Italy, South Korea, France, and more. Learn, too, about the Mercury 13, American women selected by NASA in the late 1950s to train for spaceflight. Though they matched and sometimes surpassed their male counterparts in performance, they were ultimately denied the opportunity to head out to the launching pad. Their story, and the stories of pilots, physicists, and doctors who followed them, demonstrate the vital role women have played in the quest for scientific understanding. Karen Bush Gibson is the author of Women Aviators, Native American History for Kids, and three dozen other books for young readers. She lives in Norman, Oklahoma.

space program and the rise of the women's movement in America.