See what I did there? Karin smiles or Karin's miles. I like to think I do a lot of the first one a while clocking up the second, my running partners may think differently... Today has been designated Ada Lovelace Day : an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology; this is my contribution to that global celebration.
Valentina Tereshkova by Graham Chandler
I was a space-age kid. I sat glued to the TV for launches and splash-downs. I had copies of all the Apollo mission badges and I can recall the thrill of watching the moon-landings. But notable among my early space heroes is Valentina Tereshkova because she was the first woman in space. Tereshkova was selected for cosmonaut training because she was an accomplished parachutist; she was neither a scientist nor an engineer but for me she is inextricably linked with the excitement generated by the technology of the time. At a time when little girls still largely expected to fit into traditional women’s jobs (nurses, teachers, secretaries maybe), her example showed that there were alternatives.
Helen Sharman was only weeks old when Tereshkova made her space flight, but her ‘first’ was just as significant to me when she was selected to be the first astronaut from the UK from over 13,000 applicants. Sharman spent eight days on the Mir space station during which she carried out various experiments including an amateur radio hookup with British schoolchildren. Sharman’s experience in space and the numerous lectures and television appearances on the back of it, brought interest in space travel to a new generation of schoolchildren and re-kindled the excitement of the early missions in big space-age kids like me.
update
I had no sooner posted my contribution than I found another (and better) Ada Lovelace day blog dedicated to Valentina Tereshkova, click here to read it.
