16.11.2011, 15:46, Boris Pavlishchev, The cosmonaut team plans to hold an open contest among women, Head of the Russian Space Agency Vladimir Popovkin said, adding that Yelena Serova - the only member of the cosmonaut team today – will surely be launched into space.As long ago as December 1961, that is, several months after Yuri Gagarin’s space flight, the Soviet government gave instructions to set up a female cosmonaut group. Soon after 5 new female members of the cosmonaut team started their training exercises on the “Vostok” spaceship. On a secret agreement with the newcomers, it was decided that they would wait for some time with child-bearing. There’s an opinion that such were the terms that was set by Sergei Korolyov, who was the founder of the Soviet space programme. Time passed, and in March of 1963, for the first time in history, two spaceships, “Vostok-5” and “Vostok-6”, under the leadership of Valentina Tereshkova and Valentina Ponomaryova, were to be launched into space with a one day gap. Tags: cosmonauts, space, Sci-Tech, Commentary, Russia, Читать дале, Source: Voice of Russia.
