page_title: Women in space
section_title: Women in space programs
hierarchical_section_title: Women in space / Women in space programs
caption_attribution_description: English: “Pilot-cosmonaut Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova”. First woman in space, Hero of the Soviet Union Valentina Tereshkova Русский: «Летчик-космонавт Валентина Владимировна Терешкова». Первая женщина-космонавт, Герой Советского Союза Валентина Терешкова. Россия, Москва
context_page_description: The first woman in space, cosmonaut, flew in 1963. However space flight programs did nt include women after her until the 1980s. Since then many women from a range of countries have worked in space, though overall women are still significantly less often chosen then men to go to space. The first woman to go to the Moon is planned for 2024, as part of the Artemis program.
  Three countries maintain active space programs that have included women: China, Russia, and the United States. In addition, a number of other countries — Canada, France, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom — have sent women into orbit or space on Russian or US missions. Most women in space have been United States citizens, with missions on the Space Shuttle and on the International Space Station.
  Women in space face many of the same challenges faced by men: physical difficulties posed by non-Earth conditions and psychological stresses of isolation and separation. Scientific studies on female amphibians and non-human mammals generally show no adverse effect from short space missions.
context_section_description: Although the first woman flew into space in 1963, very early in crewed space exploration, it would not be until almost 20 years later that another flew.
  And while a number of American women successfully underwent the astronaut selection process in the early 1960s they were not eligible to be astronauts: all astronauts were required to be military test pilots, a career not available to women at the time.
  NASA opened the space program to female applicants in 1978, in response to the new anti-discrimination laws of the time. When Sally Ride became the first female U.S. astronaut to go into space, the press asked her questions about her reproductive organs and whether she would cry if things went wrong on the job.
  Women with children also face questions about how they would compare to traditional expectations of motherhood. Shannon Lucid, one of the first group of female US astronauts, remembers questions by the press on how her children would handle her being a mother in space. Women are often expected to be the ones mainly responsible for child-rearing, which can impact their career.
caption: Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, 1969
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2012:03:02 15:47:50", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3378", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "699", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1024"}