Female cosmonauts?

[PJay_A]

Just realized... In my memory, I have never seen the Russians launch a female cosmonaut. Have there ever been any female cosmonauts launched? If not, do they have a male-only policy? And if so, do they have any practical reason for what appears to be - in a western POV - as an overtly sexist policy?

 

[MeteorWayne]

You have a short memory

1963 - June - Valentina Tereshkova, cosmonaut from the USSR, becomes the first woman in space

1984 - July - Svetlana Savitskaya, USSR cosmonaut, becomes first woman to walk in space

 

[PJay_A]

You have a short memory

1963 - June - Valentina Tereshkova, cosmonaut from the USSR, becomes the first woman in space

1984 - July - Svetlana Savitskaya, USSR cosmonaut, becomes first woman to walk in space

Just those two? If so, both were during the Soviet era. Any females launched under the Russian Federation? If no, I repeat my questions, but specifically as "Russian Federation cosmonauts".

 

[JonClarke]

Elena Vladimirovna Kondakova flew on a five month long mission to Mir in 1994-95. This was the first long-duration flight ever made by a woman. In 1997, Kondakova also flew in STS-84.

 

[shuttle_guy]

A good site for manned spaceflight is:

SPACEFACTS

This link takes you to the SPACEFACTS list of female cosmonauts.

http://www.spacefacts.de/english/e_female_cosmo.htm

 

[Zipi]

Thanks for the link SG! Very interesting to see that they have only one active female cosmonaut. And she even haven't flown at space yet, which is a shame. Only three female cosmonauts have flown during their space program, which is more than I knew earlier.

 

[Windbourne]

wow,
three female cosmonauts in 5 flights over nearly 50 years.
That really is pretty sad.

 

[CalliArcale]

If you extend it to include guest cosmonauts (non-NASA), we can include:

* Helen Sharman, who flew to Mir aboard Soyuz TM-12 representing Great Britain (first British space traveller). She returned on Soyuz TM-11

* Claudie Haigneré, a Frenchwoman who flew to Mir aboard Soyuz TM-24 and returned aboard Soyuz TM-23, and later flew to the ISS aboard Soyuz TM-33, returning on Soyuz TM-32

* Anousheh Ansari, first Iranian in space (albeit while a US citizen) and first female space tourist, flew to the ISS aboard Soyuz TMA-9 and returned on Soyuz TMA-8

* Yi So-yeon, first Korean in space, had a numeric parallel to Helen Sharman's flight: she went to the ISS on Soyuz TMA-12, and returned on Soyuz TMA-11 (which had a rough landing which hospitalized her due to back problems)

It is, however, very true that the Russian space program has not been very open to the idea of female cosmonauts. Apart from a few publicity stunts, they have generally not even contemplated the idea. They seem to have gotten more used to the idea of foreign female astronauts, though back in the Shuttle-Mir program, there was considerable awkwardness. It's a more macho culture, basically. That can't change overnight, or even within a generation.

 

[BenS1985]

Hate to be a conspiracy theorist but...

Maybe there were more?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmo ... .281961.29

Seems like the USSR may have had a bad track record with females in outer space.

 

[drwayne]

I don't think the expanded list of "Soviet Lost in Space" has much credibility in the community.

 

[milresol]

Actually, Savitskaya got two flights. The 1984 flight was her second. She first flew in 1982 on Soyuz T-7 (beating Sally Ride to space by nearly a year). Soyuz T-12 in 1984 where she got her EVA was her second; this upstaged Ride as first woman to fly twice and upstaged Sullivan (Ride's crewmate on STS-41G) as first woman to walk in space. Soyuz T-15 was to have been an all-female flight in 1985, with Savitskaya as commander. But she got pregnant and that took her out of running for the flight. Soviet flight rules did not permit an "all-rookie" crew, and with Savitskaya out of the running, that was the end of that. Many women trained at the time of Savitskaya, but it seems any Soviet women in space were largely political stunts; the Russians clearly feel less need for such political stunts (at least with women cosmonauts, as women have largely broken all barriers there are to break in space...yeah, I know, still haven't had a lady on the moon).

Kondakova flew a Mir expedition on a Soyuz, then flew a shuttle mission to Mir. There have been active female cosmonauts since; Nadezhda Kuzhelnaya was scheduled as flight engineer on a "Soyuz Taxi" mission to ISS, but in the wake of Columbia, she lost that ride, gave up and went to work as a first officer on the airlines. There is actually an active female cosmonaut. Selected in 2006, Yelena Serova probably still has a long wait. What's more, she's not someone of seeming importance--hubby is a cosmonaut (Mark Serov), but doesn't seem to be an "important" person. Savitskaya was no surprise as a cosmonaut...besides being a pilot and parachutist, her father, Field Marshal Yevgeni Savitsky was once chief of the Air Force, and reportedly made sure it was his girl who got the flight. Kondakova was husband to former cosmonaut Valeri Ryumin who ran the Mir program when she did her expedition to Mir, and ran the Russian half of shuttle-Mir when she flew on the shuttle to Mir.

 

[JBM425]

There were also several female cosmonauts who were backups to Tereshkova. Check http://www.astronautix.com/astros/terhkova.htm. It notes that there were five "finalists" for the "Miss Cosmonaut Pageant" (I say this sarcastically because over time it was clear that this was simply a propaganda stunt).

The first group, in addition to Valentina Tereshkova:

Tatyana Dmitryevna Pitskhelauri (nee Kuznetsova)
Valentina Leonidovna Ponomaryova
Irina Bayanovna Solovyova
Zhanna Dmitriyevna Yerkina

According to Astronautix.com, the finalists for the dual Vostok 5 & 6 mission were Tereshkova and Ponomaryova. Tereshkova apparently was the most physically fit, but she lagged behind the others in academics. Fittingly in keeping with the Miss Cosmonaut Pageant theme, "On 19 November 1962 selection for the flights took place. Ponomaryova and Tereshkova were the final candidates - but who would be the first Soviet woman in space? Ponomaryova had the best test results, but did not give 'proper' replies in the interviews with the puritanical Communist selection board. When asked 'What do you want from life?' she replied, 'I want to take everything it can offer'. Tereshkova, on the other hand, intoned 'I want to support irrevocably the Komsomol and Communist Party'. Ponomaryova also maintained that a woman could smoke and still be a decent person, and had made 'scandalous' trips unescorted into the town of Fedosiya while there for parachute training." Maybe if Ponomaryova had answered "I want world peace," she might have won the honors!

Initially the plan was for a woman to fly in both Vostok 5 and 6, but the Kremlin put the kibosh on that at the last minute, so Valery Bykovsky became the pilot of Vostok 5. There was also a plan for a two-woman Voshkhod crew, but that and other long-duration Voshkhod missions were cancelled to concentrate work on Soyuz (actually, they were never officially cancelled; they just faded away). Other than that the first female detachment was pretty much a one-and-done deal and existed only for its propaganda value, and it was ultimately disbanded in October 1969 (see also http://www.astronautix.com/astrogrp/femp1962.htm).

 

[JonClarke]

Hate to be a conspiracy theorist but...

Maybe there were more?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmo ... .281961.29

Seems like the USSR may have had a bad track record with females in outer space.

There is not the slightest evidence to support the "lost cosmonauts" nonsense. They are the febrile figments of cold war imaginations.

 

[samkent]

Has there ever been a couple in space with an admission of what couples do? Or is that a first yet to be claimed?

 

[Zipi]

Has there ever been a couple in space with an admission of what couples do? Or is that a first yet to be claimed?

Here is some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ma ... _travelers

 

[CalliArcale]

Has there ever been a couple in space with an admission of what couples do? Or is that a first yet to be claimed?

As far as anyone knows, no one has yet entered the 100-mile-high club, if you know what I mean. ;-) It's inevitable, sooner or later, but all of the long-duration spacefarers yet have been professionals who fought hard to get to where they were. They wouldn't want to jeopardize that by doing something as foolish as that.

There are serious concerns about sex in space. One is pregnancy; we know that microgravity does affect the development of fish embryos, and we also know that the radiation environment is much higher than on the surface of the Earth. A more immediate concern is what it would do to crew dynamics. We know dynamics change when people start sleeping together. Even terrestrial missions requiring long stays in close quarters try to avoid this as much as possible. There is also the concern of mess. Ever had to sleep on "the wet spot"? Now try to picture that floating around the cabin.... EWWWWW!!!!

 

[samkent]

Likely we wouldn’t find out until sometime after the mission. But that would be one way to get yourself into the world record books and the 6:30 world news.
Professional astronauts may be too professional to do something like that. Or would they??? But not the tourists on Soyuz.

 

[abq_farside]

....There is also the concern of mess. Ever had to sleep on "the wet spot"? Now try to picture that floating around the cabin.... EWWWWW!!!!

Thanks Calli for ruining my space fantasies. And some terrestrial ones too.

 

[JBM425]

Hate to be a conspiracy theorist but...

Maybe there were more?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cosmo ... .281961.29

Seems like the USSR may have had a bad track record with females in outer space.

That has been pretty much debunked by James Oberg and other credible space journalists. Were there training accidents that didn't make headlines ? Yes, such as cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenko (he died in March, 1961 [just before Gagarin's flight in Vostok 1] as a result of horrific burns in a high-altitude oxygen chamber accident). But that was an accident on the ground; it appears that there were no "lost cosmonauts" in space.

BTW, jamesoberg.com has published online Chapter 10 from his excellent book Uncovering Soviet Disasters in which he separates fact from fiction regarding "dead cosmonauts." See http://www.jamesoberg.com/usd10.html

 

[earth_bound_misfit]

And if so, do they have any practical reason for what appears to be - in a western POV - as an overtly sexist policy?

Maybe Russian women have really bad PMS

 

[JBM425]

... do they have any practical reason for what appears to be - in a western POV - as an overtly sexist policy?

I'd say that much like the early US program, it was partly practical, partly sexist. The practical part involves the environmental system for supporting humans in space; it was simpler to just configure it for men only than for both males and females.

There's no denying there was perhaps a sexist element in both programs, but from what I've read, moreso in the USSR. Even though they did fly the first female in space and considered flying a two-woman crew in a Voshkhod, and perhaps later in Soyuz, the Powers That Be considered those flights as a propaganda tool rather than useful science and saw no need for further flights once the propaganda effect was realized.

With the US program, the Space Shuttle's sheer volume that enabled a modicum of privacy made it inevitable that females would become a regular part of crews. Salyut and Mir somewhat revived the female cosmonaut program, but as you can tell, their female flights were few and far between; I don't know if Buran would have made a difference. They still have many cultural obstacles to overcome in Russian society.

 

[CalliArcale]

I'd say that much like the early US program, it was partly practical, partly sexist. The practical part involves the environmental system for supporting humans in space; it was simpler to just configure it for men only than for both males and females.

That's a poor excuse, and underestimates how primitive the toilet facilities were on early spacecraft. Until Salyut and Space Shuttle, there were no space toilets at all. Solutions included diapers (which are unisex), condom catheters (which are male-specific), evacuation tubes (which can be adapted for either gender), and fecal bags (which are unisex, since rectums are universal). If the men could put up with that, the women could too.

Actually, there was one other solution: "just hold it". That obviously became impractical rather quickly. ;-) (Famously, Alan Shepard was forced to wet his spacesuit on the first US spaceflight, due to a combination of pre-flight coffee and repeated launch delays.)

 

[JonClarke]

They still have many cultural obstacles to overcome in Russian society.

I find this statement staggerly patronising.

Jon

 

[CalliArcale]

On the surface, it is true -- of course, we likewise have many obstacles to overcome in American society. It is part of the human condition that there will always be obstacles to overcome.

I think Russia has done very well, by any measure. It remains a very macho culture, but is that fundamentally a bad thing? Though female NASA astronauts on Mir reported some significant tensions in that regard with their male cosmonaut colleagues, that has not been a problem at all on ISS. The difference may be as insignificant as the fact that now they all train together as a team, rather than as two separate teams that at some point need to work together. And the fact that they weren't earlier may be as much NASA's fault as theirs, for not fully appreciating the unique requirements of very long-duration spaceflight. It was a learning process, and a successful one.

 

[Woggles]

Wasn't sure were to put this so this post looked good?

Jerrie Cobb, first woman to pass NASA astronaut training

Just thought it would be of interest to those here

http://www.helium.com/items/1465077-jerrie-cobb

Paul