June 16,1963. Fifty years ago, a woman travelled through space for the first time in the History of Humanity. Valentina Terechkova was 26 years old, she was Soviet and remains the only woman to date to have performed a solo space flight. She descended to Earth on June 19 after 48 orbits around the Earth in 70 hours and 41 minutes, more flying hours on its own than all the American astronauts put together (at the time). And she remains to this day the youngest person to have travelled in space.

On June 16,1963, Valentina Terechkova became the first woman in space after "more advanced training than men," she said on her 70th birthday. Thus, it was not justice and fairness that guided the Soviets, but rather the will to win their fight against the United States. Like Laïka, Sputnik or Gagarin, Valentina Terechkova was just another propaganda tool during the Cold War. And in his case, they killed two birds with one stone because the USSR wanted to prove the equality between men and women advocated by the communist ideal.

After this achievement, Sergei Korolev shouted:"Good women have nothing to do in space! (...) I never want to deal with women again!" This mood was due to two things: Korolev was irritated by the young cosmonaut's nausea and his inability to manage the orientation of his ship.

Yes - except for nausea, they were related to space sickness (equivalent to sea sickness, if you like) and more than one in two people suffer from it on their first trip. It is therefore in no way related to the astronaut's gender. As for the ship's orientation...

The Vostok was known for regularly failing in its orientation program. When Terechkova realized that her Vostok-6 was moving away from Earth with each revolution instead of approaching it, she transmitted the information to Korolev, who had the control system data modified to put it back in the right orbit. Except..."Mr. Korolev asked me not to tell anyone and I kept it a secret for decades. Now there is information on this subject and I can talk about it freely,"Terechkova announced in 2007. Apparently, the engineer in charge of the orientation program had admitted his mistake a few years earlier. So the cosmonaut was not at fault.

With Mercury Seven, In this year of 1959, America saw the greatest male heroes of modern life even before they flew in space. The profile of the perfect astronaut was based on years of medical testing experience of pilots. In 1959, Dr. Lovelace was in Miami, Florida attending an Aviation Convention, when he and Air Force Brigadier General Donald Flickinger wondered how women would handle the new frontier of space, if they were given a chance. General Flickinger had knowledge of the Russians preparing a non-pilot woman to be put into space and knew America had to act quickly if we wanted to launch a woman into space first. At this same Aviation Convention, Dr. Lovelace and General Flickinger met Aero Commander's first woman pilot, Jerrie Cobb. Impressed by Jerrie's experience and credentials, Jerrie was selected to be the first American woman to take the astronaut tests.

Between February 1961 and that summer, 12 women aviators were test candidates sworn to secrecy to become the Mercury 13. Their names are: 'K' Cagle, Jerrie Cobb, Jan Dietrich, Marion Dietrich*, Wally Funk, Jane Hart, Jean Hixson*, Gene Nora Jessen, Irene Leverton, Sarah Ratley, 'B' Steadman, Jerri Truhill and Rhea Woltman. (*Deceased). Cobb, Funk and Woltman went on to take Phase II, Cobb and Funk completed Phase III. In spite of each woman's outstanding test results, these talented women would never get a chance to fly into space.