Just as China sends their second astronaut (or “taikonaut”) into space to dock with the nation’s prototype space station, the first woman of all time to orbit the Earth is about to celebrate the 50th anniversary (on June 16) of achieving her feat. Valentina Tereshkova completed her solo flight around the Earth in 1963, a major propaganda coup for the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But now, the 76-year-old feels it’s time to make an even bigger leap into interplanetary space.
“Mars is my favorite planet,” said Tereshkova said during a press conference at cosmonaut training center in Star City, near Moscow, on Friday. She likes the Red Planet so much that she’d be happy to join the crew of a one-way mission.
But she has a point; it’s likely that we’d see older astronauts making the interplanetary hop in the future. Radiation levels will be high during transit to Mars, so individuals beyond childbearing age will likely be chosen as the “first wave” of colonists.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published by DISCOVERY NEWS, here, and is licenced as Public Domain under Creative Commons. See Creative Commons - Attribution Licence.
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