Valentina Tereshkova - Later Career

Later Career

After her flight, she studied at the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy and graduated with distinction as a cosmonaut engineer. In 1977 she earned a doctorate in engineering. Due to her prominence she was chosen for several political positions: from 1966 to 1974 she was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, from 1974 to 1989 a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, and from 1969 to 1991 she was in the Central Committee of the Communist Party. In 1997 she was retired from the Russian Air Force and the cosmonaut corps by presidential order.

After the Vostok 6 flight a rumor began circulating that she would marry Andrian Nikolayev (1929–2004), the only bachelor cosmonaut to have flown. Nikolayev and Tereshkova married on 3 November 1963 at the Moscow Wedding Palace. Khrushchev himself presided at the wedding party, together with top government and space program leaders.

On June 8, 1964, she gave birth to their daughter Elena Andrianovna Nikolaeva-Tereshkova (who is now a doctor and was the first person to have both a mother and father who had travelled into space). She and Nikolayev divorced in 1982. Her second husband, Yuli Shaposhnikov, died in 1999.

Valentina Tereshkova later became a prominent member of the Soviet government and a well known representative abroad. She was made a member of the World Peace Council in 1966, a member of the Yaroslavl Soviet in 1967, a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union in 1966–1970 and 1970–1974, and was elected to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in 1974. She was also the Soviet representative to the UN Conference for the International Women's Year in Mexico City in 1975. She also led the Soviet delegation to the World Conference on Women in Copenhagen and played a critical role in shaping the socialist women's global agenda for peace. She attained the rank of deputy to the Supreme Soviet, membership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee, Vice President of the International Woman’s Democratic Federation and President of the Soviet-Algerian Friendship Society.

She was decorated with the Hero of the Soviet Union medal, the USSR's highest award. She was also awarded the Order of Lenin, Order of the October Revolution, numerous other medals, and foreign orders including the Karl Marx Order, United Nations Gold Medal of Peace and the Simba International Women’s Movement Award. She was also bestowed a title of the Hero of Socialist Labor of Czechoslovakia, Hero of Labor of Vietnam, and Hero of Mongolia. In 1990 she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. Tereshkova crater on the far side of the Moon was named after her. Valentina Tereshkova became the first and still remains to be the only female general officer in both Soviet and Russian armed forces.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tereshkova lost her political office but none of her prestige. To this day, she is revered as a heroine, and to some her importance in Russian space history is only surpassed by Yuri Gagarin and Alexey Leonov. Since her retirement from politics, she appears infrequently at space-related events, and appears to be content with being out of the limelight.

Tereshkova's life and spaceflight were first examined (in the west) in the 1975 book: It Is I, Sea Gull; Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space by Mitchel R. Sharpe and then again in greater detail of her life and spaceflight in the 2007 book Into That Silent Sea by Colin Burgess and Francis French, including interviews with Tereshkova and her colleagues.

Tereshkova was invited to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's residence in Novo-Ogaryovo for the celebration of her 70th birthday. While there she said that she would like to fly to Mars, even if it meant that it was a one way trip.

On 5 April 2008, she became a torchbearer of the 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

She received the Eduard Rhein Ring of Honor from the German Eduard Rhein Foundation in 2007.