Women in Space Day!


Did you know that 53 different women including cosmonauts, astronauts, payload specialists and foreign nationals have flown in space? That six different female cosmonauts have flown with the Soviet/Russian program and 47 different women have flown with NASA?
In 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space when she piloted the Vostok 6 spacecraft. Later, she married Andrian Nikolayev, another cosmonaut. Their child Yelena was the first child born to space-faring parents.
Sally Ride was the first American woman in space but the third woman in space overall after Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya. Savitskaya flew on Soyuz T-7 on Aug. 19, 1982.

Peggy Whitson was the first woman to complete a six-month tour of duty aboard the International Space Station as the station commander for Expedition 16 in April 2008.


For more information on Inspirational Women of NASA, have yourstudents visit http://quest.nasa.gov/women/intro.html


Link to the NES Virtual Campus home page


One thought on “Women in Space Day!”

  1. Less we accidentally omit two women on “Women in Space Day,” there were in fact 55 women who have flown in space (and a 56th, Christa McAuliffe who launched toward space and was tragically lost before she could make it to orbit).

    In alphabetical order…

    Ansari, Anousheh
    Baker, Ellen
    Bondar, Roberta
    Caldwell Dyson, Tracy
    Chawla, Kalpana
    Clark, Laurel
    Cleave, Mary
    Coleman, Catherine
    Collins, Eileen
    Currie, Nancy
    Davis, Jan
    Dunbar, Bonnie
    Fisher, Anna
    Godwin, Linda
    Haignere, Claudie
    Helms, Susan
    Higginbotham, Joan
    Hire, Kay
    Hughes-Fulford, Millie
    Ivins, Marsha
    Jemison, Mae
    Jernigan, Tamara
    Kavandi, Janet
    Kilrain, Susan
    Kondakova, Elena
    Lawrence, Wendy
    Lucid, Shannon
    Magnus, Sandra
    McArthur, Megan
    Melroy, Pamela
    Metcalf-Lindenburger, Dottie
    Morgan, Barbara
    Mukai, Chiaki
    Nowak, Lisa
    Nyberg, Karen
    Ochoa, Ellen
    Payette, Julie
    Piper, Heide
    Resnik, Judith
    Ride, Sally
    Savitskaya, Svetlana
    Seddon, Rhea
    Sharman, Helen
    Stott, Nicole
    Sullivan, Kathryn
    Tereshkova, Valentina
    Thornton, Kathryn
    Voss, Janice
    Walker, Shannon
    Weber, Mary Ellen
    Whitson, Peggy
    Williams, Sunita
    Wilson, Stephanie
    Yamazaki, Naoko
    Yi, So-Yeon

    —
    Robert Pearlman, Editor
    collectSPACE – The Source for Space History & Artifacts

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