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Writer's pictureDion Hughes

A Critical Geographical Report on the Vostok 6 Spaceflight

The Vostok space programme was a USSR initiative to put the first humans into space and return them safely to Earth (Kohonen, 2009). Vostok 6 was unique in that it established the first female cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova, in a space race renowned for being a masculine form of competition. In the words of Tereshkova, “A bird cannot fly with one wing only. Human space flight cannot develop any further without the active participation of women” (Uri, 2019, pp. 1). This would therefore imply that the USSR was more socially advanced than the USA for being the first country to train and use a female astronaut. However, even with this milestone achieved for women it can be argued that the space mission was mostly symbolic and heavily politicised and had no incentive to advance the expansion and acceptance of female cosmonauts. This account will evaluate the Vostok 6 space mission and how it influenced the political, cultural and environmental attitudes of the time.


Firstly, space travel and exploration was popular amongst Soviet citizens from the 19th century onwards for a plethora of reasons.For instance, the rise of publishing, the growth in literacy, and the onset of industrialisation all played a major role in the surge in popularity (Siddiqi, 2010).Stalin however, did not always support space research, and in fact imprisoned key researchers including Korolev and Glushko in his purges in 1938 and 1939. However, Stalin started to become more publically supportive of space research as it was closely linked to nuclear weapon research (Winter, 1983). Despite this, there were no space launches in Stalinist era Soviet Union. On the other hand, in post Stalinist Russia there was a renewed incentive for space exploration under the new leader Nikita Khrushchev (Andrews, 2007). Khrushchev sought to establish a strong Soviet space programme in order to set the Soviet Union apart from the rest of the world as more advanced and to re-launch socialism thus creating a new and improved public morale in the Soviet Union (Launius, 2007). Thus, the geopolitical environment of Khrushchev’s time was a primary motivator for the Soviet space programme.


The first spaceflight carried out in the Soviet space programme, Vostok 1, carried the first ever human into space, Iurii Gagarin, on 12 April 1961 (Young, 2012). This was a huge achievement for Russia as they beat America to put the first ever human into space and return them safely as well. On the back of this momentum Khrushchev endeavoured to keep the space “firsts” strictly Soviet. After hearing America planned to send the first female astronaut into space, Soviet Chief Designer Sergey Korolyov proposed flying a woman in space first which Khrushchev adamantly backed despite initial governmental apprehension (Uri, 2019). Similarly, Col. Gen. Nikolai Kamanin stated in his journal “We need young, strong girls in good shape so we can train them for the flight within five to six months. The main reason for such rapid training is to leave the Americans behind” (RT, 2013). As Kamanin’s journal states, the main reason for the space flight was to achieve the first female cosmonaut in space before America could. On 16th June 1963 the Soviet Union made history for launching Tereshkova as the first woman in space (Millard, 2014).


Moreover, Vostok 6 was part of the Vostok space programme which aimed to set the first humans into space and return them safely to Earth (Mann, 2020). Vostok provided numerous space “firsts” for the Soviet Union such as the first man and woman in space and the first crewed space flight. The Vostok missions all set out to ascertain how the human body behaved and was affected by space travel. For Vostok 6 the main academic aim was to ascertain how the female body was affected by space, a scientific first. Tereshkova spent a total of two days twenty two hours and fifty minutes in space (Spacefacts, 2018) before landing on June 19, 1963, northeast of Karaganda (NASA, 2020). Vostok 5 and 6 were launched with a three day gap between them which allowed Tereshkova and Bykovsky to be close enough to each other to communicate for a short period of time whilst both were in space. This double launch was again orchestrated to outmanoeuvre American attempts of intimidation by NASA (Mann, 2020).


Furthermore, Vostok 6 was momentous for numerous reasons. The first aspect of Vostok 6 to be examined will be its geopolitical impact. Tereshkova and the Soviet Union’s accomplishment is often interpreted as a success of the Soviet policy of equality of the sexes (Scheide and Ruthers, 2011). This can still be argued today as the first American female astronaut, Sally Ride, didn’t travel to space until 1983 (Wild, 2018) and by then Russia had already sent the world’s second woman into space, Svetlana Savitskaya, one year before Ride travelled to space (Cavallaro, 2017). However, the feminist motives of the USSR can be criticised as the Soviet Union allegedly only sent Savitskaya to space as they heard from NASA in 1978 that they were planning on sending their first woman into space (Lewis, 2018). Therefore, the Soviet Union used Vostok 6 to portray to the world their superior attitudes towards gender. For instance, upon Tereshkova’s return to Earth, Khrushchev gave a televised speech from Moscow and stated, “The Bourgeoisie always emphasise that women are the weaker sex. Now here you can see a typical Soviet woman who in the eyes of the Bourgeoisie is weak. Look at what she has shown to America’s cosmonauts. She showed them who’s who” (RT, 2013). Here Khrushchev directly draws upon Marxist thinking and equates America to the suppressant Bourgeoisie and portrays the Soviet Union as the freed proletariat who have embraced communism and are emancipated from the shackles of the inherently sexist capitalist regime. Ultimately, the geopolitical aspect of Vostok 6 was to prove the sociological superiority of the Soviet Union compared to America. However, the validity of this “superiority” is disputable as it begs the question that if America had not announced any interest in female astronauts would Tereshkova have traveled to space? It is the opinion of this paper that she would not.


Fig. 1, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly to space, source: Sharp, 2018


Consequentially, the cultural impact of Vostok 6 is heavily linked to its gendered nature.The public image of Vostok 6 was that it was an immense success for the Soviet space programme and for the USSR in general.The Soviet Union emphasised through various monuments, public appearances, media presentations etc. that Tereshkova was a national hero who had done an immense service for her country (Fig. 2). The public image of Tereshkova was used to galvanise public trust in the communist Soviet system especially amongst women. Nikolai Kamanin, the head of cosmonaut training, touches on this when he first heard of American efforts for female astronauts, “We cannot allow that the first woman in space will be American. This would be an insult to the patriotic feelings of Soviet women” (Burgess and Hall, 2009, pp. 229).It would appear the publicity awarded to Tereshkova and the Soviet Union had a significant cultural and political agenda.This is proven by the selection of Tereshkova to be the chosen cosmonaut from the women’s training team.The record of Dr Vladimir Yazdovsky stated, “Thanks to Nikita Khrushchev’s intervention and with the tacit approval of Sergey Korolev, despite an unfavourable medical commission report, Valentina Tereshkova was appointed the number one cosmonaut among the women.


Fig. 2, : Tereshkova Monument at the site of Vostok 6 landing in Kazakhstan (Swopes, 2020)


Valentina’s social origins played a major part in the decision.On the whole, she wasn’t the best choice” (RT, 2013). Tereshkova’s father had died in the Finnish Winter War during World War II and this was a motivating reason for her selection by Khrushchev as she came from a family that, to the public, appeared to serve and die to preserve Soviet freedom and culture (Sylvester, 2019). This aspect of Tereshkova’s family history was often emphasised by Soviet commentators with the hopes of creating pride and a boost in morale in Soviet society.Apparently it would appear the motives of Khrushchev’s selection of Tereshkova were effective.For instance, numerous Soviet women had wrote to Tereshkova with numerous compliments such as, ““Let the representatives of all the continents of the earth once again be convinced of what heroic deeds Soviet women are capable of in the name of peace and communism” (Sylvester, 2019, pp. 400). Therefore, it is clear Vostok 6 had helped to galvanise Soviet women’s faith in their country, but was this solely a political motive or a genuine move to advance gender equality in the Soviet culture? It is this paper’s interpretation the former is more believable due to the biased selection involved in Tereshkova’s choosing. On the other hand, the environmental impact of Vostok 6 was significantly smaller. Whilst in space Tereshkova took photographs which helped discover aerosol layers in the Earth’s atmosphere. No doubt this has helped climatologists in their work and thus, to a certain extent, helped us understand our planet; however, it can be argued that the actual scientific and environmental motives for Vostok 6 were far less important to the USSR compared to the geopolitical and cultural motives.


In conclusion, Vostok 6 will always be remembered for being the first space flight to carry a woman into space.This provided, for the first time, scientific evidence of how the female body is affected by space travel.However, the geopolitical and cultural aspects of this event may be overlooked as a result.This paper therefore outlines how the geopolitical and cultural influences have dictated the choices, presentations and interpretations of Vostok 6.Overall, it can be seen that if it were not for the geopolitical circumstances of the time, Vostok 6 would likely never have launched


 

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