
This week sees the 50th anniversary of the historic space flight of Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who became the first woman in outer space on 16 June 1963 – so here are a few more firsts in space for women:
- 1963 - June - Valentina Tereshkova, Russian cosmonaut became the first woman in space
- 1983 - June - Sally Ride, American astronaut became the first American woman in space
- 1984 - July - Svetlana Savitskaya, Russian cosmonaut became the first woman to walk in space
- 1986 – Jan - Christa McAuliffe & Judith Resnik, first female astronauts to die on a space mission – Challenger space shuttle disaster – although technically the shuttle did not reach space as it was torn apart just 73 seconds into the flight
- 1994 - July - Chiaki Mukai, became the first Japanese woman in space
- 2006 – Sept - Anousheh Ansari, became the first female space tourist & first Iranian in space
- 2012 – June - Liu Yang, became the first Chinese woman in space
So which woman is going to be the next 'first' to add to this list? First woman on Mars perhaps?!!