she might never have made it she wasn't at the top of the candidate's shortlist but eventually she did blast off shouting triumphantly. as the flight began she was unable to switch to manual control but after three days the world greeted the first woman cosmonaut. six years later as the motorcade passed through the kremlin gates a man opened fire and nine bullets she was untouched. valentyn a biography read a little like a fairy tale a soviet cinderella. a girl from a poor family in a remote province rocketed to such heights that only the stars were above.

the first woman. was the vostok six spacecraft which she first tried on in june nine hundred sixty three it immediately elevated her to the soviet elite. her official calls sign was sego the name was to stay with valentino forever long after the triumph it's still followed her around the world. even in childhood valentino had dreamed about adventure and travel although her earlier ambitions were confined to the earth. you live but there was a real way track not far from our house. and my biggest dream was to become a train driver. i wanted to drive those huge trains. i thought the train driver was the happiest person in the world he could see all the big cities and travel all over the country that i. the family was from

a small country village where mother was a milkmaid and her father was a truck to drive a. couch with he was conscripted into the army. family out of his death when valentino was less than three years old. i belong to the generation of children of the war. we know what war grief. of course we didn't realize it then but we know what it's like for a mother to cry over a telegram saying her husband is dead. oh mother got fifty roubles for each of us a loaf of bread cost two hundred rubles after the war so you see she couldn't even afford bread with that allowance but we never saw her cry. after the war the family moved to jaroslaw. went to school until seventh grade

after that she went to work first in a factory then the weaving mill at the same time she also attended the local trade school and later she joined the local parachute club. there were notices everywhere you looked they said welcome to the parachute sport club i could see parachutists as i went to work along the river bank they jumped on the other side of the river lots of them but i don't think anyone could be unmoved by the sight of people jumping. journey into space again with parachuting in that's my air i made my first jump on may twenty first one thousand nine hundred fifty nine. was i scared of course. your first jump is very special you realize that you are jumping off something so all that you have to overcome your fears. i open the door and put my foot on the step and then i push

myself forward is that the sport like this once you've made your first jump you can never stop. to discover didn't always achieve particularly good grades for jumps average just fall or even three out of five. i often used to find her at the far end of the field where she'd landed after a jump she'd be crying. me i never cried why should i. the job of assembling and training the first group of soviet cosmonauts was delegated to air force vice commander nicole like a monument the idea of sending women into space is also attributed to him. we need young strong girls in good shape so we can train them for the flight within five to six months the main reason for such rapid training is to leave the americans behind . these were the criteria for recruiting women bage up

to thirty fight up to one hundred seventy centimeters wait up to seventy kilograms no less than two hundred hours flying time or fifty parachute jumps when selection began valentino already had a good score ninety jumps she also had one other advantage she was head of the local communist party youth committee at that time only the most ideologically minded of people could be considered for space. it was here at the hours level parachute club than a force officer arrived to select candidates for the soviet space program. won't be in there and we notice that he watched us jumping working together and then he called us in separately for an interview. the cold war was at its peak both the us and the u.s.s.r. were always trying to prove that their political system was best everything concerning space was highly classified. when valentino was chosen to be one of the

cosmonaut candidates not even her mother was allowed to know. that the bill had been limited i had to make up some story to tell my mother it was easy with a little but with mom my me i invented this story. mom you know i've been invited to become a reserve member of the u.s. the parachuting team in moscow. a small team of women was brought together within the all male cosmonauts department city had yet to be built it was just a regular military base with a high fence forty kilometers from moscow. she was very mature when she joined the unit she knew exactly what she wanted from life but . did everything she could to avoid being discharged from the space program.

the women's team was officially formed on the twelfth of march nine hundred sixty two five thousand candidates just five was shortlisted. over mathematician valentino. weaver. teacher. all of them had to undergo extensive preparation including physical training which was exactly the same as for the men. doctors watched every training session very closely they couldn't agree amongst themselves as to whether a woman's body could withstand the intense forces of blast off the weightlessness or the stress of returning from orbit. one of the most demanding tests was the centrifuge with its extreme g. forces all of them would pass. after the task to get red spots on your skin and their cause by believing under the

skin when small vessels burst. by this time got him had already been in space along with government. and. these were for nationally recognized heroes. from god and was always smile. and easygoing and often seen visiting the woman's team they once asked him about his most frightening experience during his flight. that i believe said that the worst thing was when he was walking along a red carpet and neugebauer with his lace fund on he was afraid that he was going to trip and fall over in front of everyone from. the newsreel called this very moment got him with his shoelaces and walks towards the soviet leaders to report on the first successful spaceflight. the one person with absolute authority of the cosmonauts. the chief engineer it was thanks to him that the soviet union

became the pioneers of space. probably only sergei could write you off could have criticized and loved us so much at the same time we were both afraid of him and we adored him we simply loved him you can't use your parents and we were so unbelievably lucky to have been mentored by cornell . contemporaries say that he didn't support the idea of women in space at first. initially he thought the only male air force pilot should become cosmonauts but later he agreed to send a woman and it was him who supported valentino telescope his candidacy although the final decision will be made not by chief engineer totally off but by the soviet leader nikita khrushchev. thanks to nikita crew shows intervention and with the tacit approval of surrogate call you of despite an unfavorable medical commission

report valentino was appointed the number one cosmonaut among the women valentino's social origins played a major part in the decision on the whole she wasn't the best choice. we're loser they choose when. not over do you know why she was a pilot she graduated from moscow state university she passed course in higher mathematics i thought it would be but it turned out to be over. from the highest office she represented her country as head of the soviet women's committee and travelled the world as leader of the friendship society. there was the one moment that could have brought it to an end. the frosty morning of january the twenty second one thousand nine hundred sixty nine this was to be a happy day. a government delegation including to was to welcome cosmonauts returning

home from a routine flight they immediately headed for the kremlin. yep assumed you knew i was sitting in the middle of the car you know overly valentino and nicholai of war behind me yeah i saw an officer in a blue uniform step out of the crowd and he started shooting up the car well not you three or. well mr ballen tina was behind me and that he hadn't covered her body with a soul. and that's the truth. i was sitting on the side he shot at you know they found nine bullets under my seat. yeah i probably survived because i had a sick mother that needed my help. and also a small daughter you might think god probably knew that.

this was to have been an attack on the u.s.s. leonid brezhnev. a soviet army officer approached the motorcade wearing a police uniform his intention was to kill brezhnev. but he fired at the wrong the one carrying the cosmonauts. he was immediately arrested and later declared the same. i don't want to use your right hand if you're in the race. then you should. be used to that it was. a fair there's even that.

you mean i think that if you disagree with her it was. there's over here to be had and no. need to be. or what have you given to me. as usual. easy for. her i ever was. the highway bill some the bones of its makers the wind through one of the wildest and most beautiful regions of russia a place that's home to less than a million people and the keepers of the great frosts. join me james brown as i

travel to the coldest inhabited place in the world. and meet some of the toughest people and hardest animals on the planet. just make sure that you keep your eyes on the road. race to the poll of polls only on r.t. . arguments over who was best prepared to be the first woman in space continued up until mid may nine hundred sixty three. led the group supporting to its cover and

was later joined by your ego got in. on may twenty first nine hundred sixty three the training center welcomes the state committee. in there we were sitting at a long table that was covered with the red fabric and one of the rooms at the training center. we had already been given the rank of a junior lieutenant so we were sitting there by the wall in our new uniforms shivering with anticipation that. chief engineer. could see that everyone had already guessed the final decision and he addressed by nobody over. my comrade kind of money would you be offended and i said yes i would i'd be very upset. and he said oh that's right i would be too but he said he'll all go into a. sadly that did not come true the first woman's team. made it into space. others spent several years in training until finally they

heard the verdict one hundred sixty nine. of the bad news they expressed gratitude for our willingness to serve our country but that our services for no longer required so we were disbanded. and. had made the first joint space flights into orbit involved. three and four stop for . now there was a new goal for the first time in history a woman would fly into space. the mission would begin with because ski aboard vostok five and then telescope it would blast off with stock six. on june the forty nine hundred sixty three at five pm local time because flew into space. the fifteenth of june twenty four hours before total scope as planned

flight. doctors assure us that terrorist has a good appetite and has even gained some weight but i still think that she has done a lot she looks pale and seems a little agitated. the sixteenth of july nine hundred sixty three these pictures went all around the world. to discover the spacecraft launched with nothing untoward. yet like them so when the ship took off and i heard the command starts it's i shouted. hey sky take off your hat i'm on my way. to be. to show his relatives only heard of a flight from the radio. he has a good record i had finished my first year at the trade college and there were six

or seven girls in the room where i was living in the dormitory on the radio they said that volunteer at their school that had flown into space i was shocked that was my cousin i say girls that's my cousin and they didn't believe me and birth to a lick of it was hard to convince. that very. day spoke to soviet leader nikita khrushchev. all systems are working perfectly. i feel excellent. i can hear you very well your call signal is siegel but let me call you simply valentyn are. very happy and proud that our girl a girl from the soviet union is the first woman to fly into space and to operate such cutting edge equipment. but not everything was quite so perfect

with that cutting edge equipment. i spoke several times with. i heard she was tired but she wouldn't admit it twice she tried to orient the spacecraft and she honestly said she'd failed to do that. even though it was only a test procedure. couldn't do it she couldn't operate the spacecraft manually. today the former cosmonaut claims it was because of an engineering fault. don't you see there was an error in the program when it was supposed to land instead of descending from orbit the ship was programmed to ascend to meet them i entered the data center from earth into the program and was able to land safely and i might. the doctors had a different opinion because the seagull didn't feel well on the way to conditions

she wasn't accurately executing her commands from earth your ears would the first twenty four hours were really bad for her she felt. but nobody flies up there feels great but. at that time the first soviet woman in space could not afford mistakes nor to reveal any weakness she was to be a legend even before leaving the ground it was much later that there would be speculation about the problems with that flight and the fact that she fell asleep at an inappropriate time. there was also talk of two broken pencils that had allegedly prevented her from keeping proper records in the ship's log book. there was only one pen so no it didn't break so it's just you know sometimes they asked me to deny the story but i don't think there's any need to have that an

honest person would never believe them. you must understand that those were the first space flights we had to prove that a human could function even aboard a spacecraft in those conditions. there are certain professional issues that shouldn't be discussed in public. these things. work and during every spaceflight even today. the first female cosmonauts lending was far from smooth. it was very clearly stated that she was not to raise her head you're strapped in the capsule and you must lie still. you know what well a woman's curiosity got the better of her screen when the hatch opened she looked up and at that moment she was objected litter helmet had the bridge of her nose

look at the woods you know it is so we bailed out and our ships had their own parachutes and else i thought it was they were supposed to open at a height of four kilometers while ours were at seven kilometers. you know you when i looked down what did i see my god there was a lake i thought there's no way i'm going to fall there but what could i do. this if the wind was extreme up to seventeen meters a second well i even had to stand on my head and fasten the parachute locking clips rational system the moment she landed she was immediately surrounded by locals reasoning got a shortage of people brought her some birds like boiled potatoes and milk. that untended out her own food a souvenir stood them out of the work she shouldn't have done because we had to

keep metabolic records of the flight how much she consumed her excretions what quantities and so on store video but she gave everything away so we couldn't analyze it if the look at the new one year. spur of the moment behavior was a minor detail above all she had written a life. woman blasted into space for the first time in sixty three rushes and balanchine a terrorist brought on a body of the prime be a servant but i have been alone in space for quite some time just so it was especially rewarding to be joined in orbit by such a charming comrade as valentino terrace cove. and i hope your wife didn't hear that . if you didn't i'm so happy to have them is granted the honor of being the

first woman in the world to go into space. the birth was he always emphasized like that women are that we. here you can see a woman who. is weak so look at what she has shown to america's consonance she showed them who's who was. there on the podium in red square. shoulder to shoulder with. the perhaps there should be a first space couple. personal supervision.

the couple had a baby girl. these are pictures of the first woman in space bringing her daughter to a video connection with. who was once again you know a bit. daddy. and. the nineteen years of marriage. eventually divorced. doesn't like to speak either of her first marriage. to the soviet defense ministry chiefs. the first woman now has two grandsons and. just finished school this year and wants to be an economist. first my eldest son wanted to be a pilot but in time he ended up changing its mind. lots of the youngest claims he

wants to be a cosmonaut. but he's like that says he'll do something maybe he will and maybe he won't. my grandmother and my grandfather were cosmonauts they did the trampoline well i wanted to try it. over again jumping on the trampoline is my favorite hobby now. it's. just like fifty years ago valentino telescope has no time to spare in a regular working day she's a member of the state duma. she went into space just once but she will always be the first woman in space the fact confirmed by every encyclopedia and internet search engine. to discover still dreams today now she's ready to join an expedition to mars the favors planet even though it would be

a one way trip. if the miami asylum have crisis this is my profession she said it has been since the end of nine hundred sixty one when i was invited to moscow to go to the selection commission and training. and from one thousand nine hundred sixty two until today i think closely involved with this profession and this training center. this is been my life but i and i can't imagine living any other the way. you have the brain stem.

it's. i think the first impulse off air in the auto was pretty much the same as the first impulse that is to stop traffic. was it was a dictator like a dictator missed out on has been elected and he's acting in the wrong way but don't come with the comparison with syria if it doesn't fly. welcome to teal one here you can feel it home.

if there are three choices in life the first is to work in a cooler door to live on a miserable way like a slave. the second is to jump the wall and catch the american dream. most of them and lose their lot of. this disease number of an organisation and get inside the growing trade. to buy something cool never forget. a. book with the smooth need for what i've done

would never stop a. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. i would rather abstractions for people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t. question more.

damascus accuses washington of lies over its claims the syrian government used chemical weapons in its civil war this while some critics say it's domestic failures in america which are behind the war mongering on capitol hill. official authority is threatening to revoke the medical licenses of doctors for treating her protest as. one issues yet another on old warning. and a moderate cleric looks likely to succeed enough with off within a job as iran council votes in a high turnout presidential election.