cosmonauts gone wild!

And speaking of females in free fall, on this date in 1963, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was launched into space by the Soviet Union, where she spent three historic days in orbit. She returned to Earth and later married the first man in space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Tereshkova never flew again and it was not until twenty years later, when American astronaut Sally Ride boarded the shuttle Challenger in 1983, that another woman left the atmosphere and became a temporary space dweller. Since then, many women have become space travelers, and sadly, four even perished in the tragic losses of the Challenger and the Columbia.