the world's first woman cosmonaut, selected from among the parachutists. After the first successful space flight of Yuri Gagarin
and German Titov Sergey Korolyov decided to send a woman into space. It was a politically motivated move. And like this to be the first.
Search contestants started at the end of 1961. The requirements were: parachutist, age 30 years, height 170 cm and weight up to 70 kilograms. Parachutists were favored because the astronaut "East" had to eject after braking lander in the atmosphere and landing by parachute, and the period of the preparation was initially defined compressed - about six months. Did not want to spend a lot of time to perfect landing by parachute.
Valentina Tereshkova - the first woman in space
Of more than fifty candidates finally selected five girls. These came in and Valentina Tereshkova. All of them, except for pilots Valentina Ponomareva were parachutists. Valentina Tereshkova parachuting engaged since 1959 in Yaroslavl flying club: at the time of the search of candidates for space flight performed a total of about 90 jumps.