She became a parachutist and a pilot as a teen-ager and set records in both. A pilot cosmonaut, she was launched into space with two male cosmonauts in a Soyuz T-5 capsule in August 1982. She was hailed by the Soviet press as another example of the liberated Soviet woman. There is no public record of Savitskaya's reaction to this welcome, but it stands in contrast to another story involving her presence in space, and that of female cosmonauts. Not long after Savitskaya returned to Earth, some Soviet news stories cited the reports of the male astronauts who said a female in space was a pleasing presence.
Women go into space because they measure up to the job.
Nikolayevna-Tereshkova was plucked from a textile assembly line to become a cosmonaut in 1962. A little more than a year later she was in space. She was also a member of a parachute club, and eventually a graduate of the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. She has left the space program and now takes part in various women's peace groups and Soviet friendship organizations. Today there are no females among the 50 or so cosmonauts in training at the Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center at Star City, the home of the Soviet cosmonauts.