of psychological instability." Valentina later replied saying, “I felt fine after 24 hours and asked the state commission to prolong my stay in space to three days. And I carried out the entire schedule. Could I have done that if I had been half-dead?”
Later, in 1965, Valentina was slotted to fly on the Voskhod 2 but the mission was cancelled following a series of flaws. The female cosmonaut program was shut down in 1969 and it took another 19 years before another woman flew in space. Valentina never flew again. Instead, she became a prominent member of the Communist Party and a representative of the Soviet government to numerous international women's organizations and events. She also became a test pilot, received a doctorate in technical sciences, and enrolled in the Zhukovskiy Military Air Academy, graduating with distinction 5 years later.
In November 1963, a few months after her iconic space flight, Valentina married cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev in what the Soviet authorities touted as a “fairy-tale” union. In June 1964, Valentina gave birth to daughter Elena, who became the subject of much medical interest as she was the first child born to parents who had both travelled into space.
Valentina was decorated with the Hero of the Soviet Union medal, the USSR's highest award. She was also awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, numerous other medals, and foreign orders including the Karl Marx Order and the United Nations Gold Medal of Peace. Valentina was among a group of the first living people to have a lunar crater named after them (the "Tereshkova crater" on the far side of the Moon).
To this day, Valentina Tereshkova remains the only woman to have been on a solo space mission.
- Rowan Parkinson