Following the steps of Valentina Tereshkovawho in 1963 became the first woman to orbit Land, Svetlana Savitskaya remained in the annals of space exploration and female empowerment after achieving succeed in fields traditionally dominated by men. But it all started much earlier, with a childhood inspired by his pilot father and a prolific career as world champion in aviation and skydiving, test pilot and eventually cosmonaut.
Thus, the July 25, 1984 marked a milestone in the history of space exploration, when Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to take a spacewalk. Of course, that feat was not far from controversy, in a time when machismo reigned and women were reduced to household chores.
Svetlana Savitskaya: Her path to space
Born in Moscow in the year 1948, Savitskaya grew up in a family environment linked to aeronautics, which sparked his interest in flying from an early age. Thus, her passion led her to excel in skydiving before focusing on her academic and professional training in the Moscow Aviation Institute and the Ministry of Air Industry of the Soviet Union.
Already in 1980, her skill and dedication allowed her to be selected for the group of female astronauts, and In 1982 she became the second woman to travel to space, mission he carried out together with cosmonauts Alexander Serebrov and Leonid Popov
After that milestone, the space professional had to tolerate sexism from the rest of their staff. And when they opened the hatch of the Soviet space station on their return to Earth, their colleagues Valentin Lebedev and Anatoly Berezovoithey received her with flowers and a most infamous phrase: “We have an apron prepared for you, Sveta. As if you were at home. Of course, we have a kitchen for you; “That’s where you’ll work.”
The first woman to walk in space
But that did not demotivate her, and her most important mission occurred two years later, in 1984, when She was immortalized as the first woman to walk through outer space, an achievement that twice earned him recognition as Hero of the Soviet Union. His stay in space was framed in the Soyuz T-12 mission, during which he spent 3 hours and 30 minutes outside the Salyut 7 space station, being in charge of assembly and welding tasks.
Besides, Historically, she is considered the last astronaut of the Soviet Union.since his successor, Yelena V. Kondakovatraveled to space on the Soyuz TM-20 as Russian citizen in 1994.
But despite his success in his profession, In 1993 Savitskaya decided to leave the cosmonaut corps to maintain a balance between his life as a cosmonaut and his family. She also ventured into politics, where she remains active as a member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
However, throughout her career the astronaut staunchly defended the importance of women in spacearguing that mixed teams are more efficient and that women are indispensable for tasks such as biotechnology and mineral detection.