Coloring the Cosmos Pink

On June 16, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova, 26, began a three-day orbital voyage, becoming the first woman to break the shackles of the earth. Tereshkova returned to a hero's welcome in Moscow, including kisses from a beaming Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who held her up to the world as the symbol of the new Soviet woman.

Attractive and svelte at age 46, Tereshkova today is divorced from the fellow cosmonaut she married after the flight. She remains a popular public figure and has taken on such ceremonial chores as addressing a huge peace rally in Moscow's Olympic stadium last month. But if Tereshkova's mission was so successful, why did the Soviets wait 19 years before they sent a second woman, Svetlana Savitskaya, 34, into orbit last summer?

The apparent explanation: Tereshkova's highly touted odyssey, which seems to have been ordered by Khrushchev personally, was a technical flop. A millworker by profession, she was poorly prepared (she had done only some amateur parachute jumping) and, according to word from Soviet defectors, became severely ill during the flight. Indeed, even as she was being strapped into her Vostok capsule, as a last-minute replacement for the original woman candidate, she complained of feeling sick and dizzy. But with Khrushchev looking over their shoulders, Soviet space officials sent the reluctant Tereshkova on her way.

Savitskaya's 1982 journey, by contrast, was an undisputed success. A flying instructor and test pilot, she is a model of physical fitness. She and two male companions successfully hooked up with the Salyut 7 space station and spent a week on board with resident Cosmonauts Anatoli Berezovoi and Valentin Lebedev. Savitskaya suffered no discomfort at all. She did, however, have to endure some heavy-handed Soviet male humor. Boarding the space station, Lebedev smilingly invited her to do the cooking and cleaning. Said he: "We've got an apron ready for you, Sveta." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.