Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: Who was the first female to go to space?
Women of many nationalities have worked in space. The first woman in space, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, flew in 1963. Space flight programs were slow to employ women, and only began to include them from the 1980s. Most women in space have been United States citizens, with missions on the Space Shuttle and on the International Space Station. Three countries maintain active space programs that include women: China, Russia, and the United States of America. 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.
Rear Admiral Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. In 1961 he became the first American to travel into space, and in 1971 he walked on the Moon.
In 1932, Hattie Caraway of Arkansas became the first woman elected to the Senate. Furthermore, in 1932 Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, taking her journey on the 5th anniversary of Lindbergh's solo Atlantic flight . She was awarded the National Geographic Society's gold medal from President Herbert Hoover, and Congress awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross. Later in 1932 she became the first woman to fly solo nonstop coast to coast, and set the women's nonstop transcontinental speed record, flying 2,447.8 miles in 19 hours 5 minutes. In 1935, she became the first person to solo the 2,408-mile distance across the Pacific between Honolulu and Oakland, California; this was also the first flight where a civilian aircraft carried a two-way radio. Later in 1935, she became the first person to fly solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City. Still later in 1935, she became the first person to fly solo nonstop from Mexico City to Newark. In 1937, Amelia Earhart began a flight around the world but vanished during it; her remains, effects, and plane have never been found. The first woman to fly solo around the world and return home safely was the American amateur pilot Jerrie Mock, who did so in 1964. In 1933, Frances Perkins was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as his Secretary of Labor, making her the first woman to hold a job in a Presidential cabinet.
Faced with intense competition from the other astronauts, particularly John Glenn, Shepard quit smoking and adopted Glenn's habit of taking a morning jog, although he did not go so far as to give up the cocktails or the philandering. On January 19, 1961, Robert R. Gilruth, the director of NASA's Space Task Group, informed the seven astronauts that Shepard had been chosen for the first American manned mission into space. Shepard later recalled Louise's response when he told her that she had her arms around the man who would be the first man in space: "Who let a Russian in here?" During training he flew 120 simulated flights. Although his flight was originally scheduled for April 26, 1960, it was postponed several times by unplanned preparatory work, initially to December 5, 1960, then mid-January 1961, March 6, 1961, April 25, 1961, May 2, 1961, and finally to May 5, 1961. On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space, and the first to orbit the Earth. It was another body blow to American pride. When Shepard heard the news he slammed his fist down on a table so hard a NASA public relation officer feared he might have broken it.
NASA has conducted many manned and unmanned spaceflight programs throughout its history. Unmanned programs launched the first American artificial satellites into Earth orbit for scientific and communications purposes, and sent scientific probes to explore the planets of the solar system, starting with Venus and Mars, and including "grand tours" of the outer planets. Manned programs sent the first Americans into low Earth orbit (LEO), won the Space Race with the Soviet Union by landing twelve men on the Moon from 1969 to 1972 in the Apollo program, developed a semi-reusable LEO Space Shuttle, and developed LEO space station capability by itself and with the cooperation of several other nations including post-Soviet Russia. Some missions include both manned and unmanned aspects, such as the Galileo probe, which was deployed by astronauts in Earth orbit before being sent unmanned to Jupiter.
Project Gemini was NASA's second manned spaceflight program. The program ran from 1961 to 1966. The program pioneered the orbital maneuvers required for space rendezvous. Ed White became the first American to make an extravehicular activity (EVA, or "space walk"), on June 3, 1965, during Gemini 4. Gemini 6A and 7 accomplished the first space rendezvous on December 15, 1965. Gemini 8 achieved the first space docking with an unmanned Agena Target Vehicle on March 16, 1966. Gemini 8 was also the first US spacecraft to experience in-space critical failure endangering the lives of the crew.
Since the 18th century, women have developed scientific computations, including Nicole-Reine Lepaute's prediction of Halley's Comet, and Maria Mitchell's computation of the motion of Venus. The first algorithm intended to be executed by a computer was designed by Ada Lovelace who was a pioneer in the field. Grace Hopper was the first person to design a compiler for a programming language. Throughout the 19th and early-20th century, and up to World War II, programming was predominantly done by women; significant examples include the Harvard Computers, codebreaking at Bletchley Park and engineering at NASA.
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite of Earth in the history of mankind.
Madeleine Albright became the first woman to become the United States Secretary of State and the first foreign-born woman to serve in the Cabinet when she was appointed Secretary of State in 1997. Condoleezza Rice became the second female secretary of state in 2005. Hillary Clinton became the third female secretary of state when she was appointed in 2009.
There were approximately 180 women in Antarctica in the 1990-1991 season. Women from several different countries were regularly members of over-wintering teams by 1992. The first all-women expedition reached the South Pole in 1993. Diana Patterson, the first female station leader on Antarctica, saw a change happening in 1995. She felt that many of the sexist views of the past had given way so that women were judged not by the fact that they were women, but "by how well you did your job."
When Albright took office as the 64th U.S. Secretary of State on January 23, 1997, she became the first female U.S. Secretary of State and the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government at the time of her appointment. Not being a natural-born citizen of the U.S., she was not eligible as a U.S. Presidential successor and was excluded from nuclear contingency plans.
History records that Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, the first woman to fly nonstop across the United States and first woman to fly from Hawaii to the west coast of California. The whole world was watching Amelia Earhart when she began her global attempt and of course then mourned her when the plane came up missing without a trace. Earhart was lost somewhere in the south Pacific Ocean. Finch hoped in her recreation of the Earhart circumnavigation, that children around the world would understand Earhart's courage, hope and determination, and find heroes in their own lives - heroes that would teach them to also "reach for the sky".
Samus was one of the first major female protagonists in a video game. Although Toby Masuyo ("Kissy") from Namco's "Alien Sector" ("Baraduke") predates her by one year as a female protagonist, 2013's "Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition" declared Samus as "the first playable human female character in a mainstream videogame", and as being "enduringly" popular, noting that sales of the "Metroid" series has exceeded 17.44 million copies as of September 2012. As a woman in a male-dominated role, Samus has been widely considered a breakthrough for female characters in video games.
Apollo 7 was an October 1968 human spaceflight mission carried out by the United States. It was the first mission in the United States' Apollo program to carry a crew into space. It was also the first U.S. spaceflight to carry astronauts since the flight of Gemini XII in November 1966. The AS-204 mission, also known as "Apollo 1", was intended to be the first manned flight of the Apollo program. It was scheduled to launch in February 1967, but a fire in the cabin during a January 1967 test killed the crew. Manned flights were then suspended for 21 months, while the cause of the accident was investigated and improvements made to the spacecraft and safety procedures, and unmanned test flights of the Saturn V rocket and Apollo Lunar Module were made. Apollo 7 fulfilled Apollo 1's mission of testing the Apollo command and service module (CSM) in low Earth orbit.
A space observatory is any instrument, such as a telescope, in outer space which is used for observation of distant planets, galaxies, and other outer space objects. In 1946, American theoretical astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer was proposed the idea of a telescope in outer space, a decade before the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, "Sputnik" into orbit. However, German scientist Hermann Oberth had first conceived the idea of a space based telescope. Spitzer's proposal called for a large telescope that would not be hindered by Earth's atmosphere. After lobbying in the 1960s and 1970s for such a system to be built, Spitzer's vision ultimately materialized into the world's first space-based optical telescope, "Hubble Space Telescope", which was launched on April 20, 1990 by the Space Shuttle "Discovery" (STS-31).
Yukari Nakano and Ludmila Nelidina both landed a triple axel in their free skating, together becoming the first female skaters to perform the jump in international competition since Midori Ito landed it at the 1992 Winter Olympics. Nakano landed it first and Nelidina, who skated after her, also performed it successfully.
The first person to reach all three locations was Edmund Hillary. He reached the top of Everest in May 1953, the South Pole in January 1958 and made it to the North Pole in company with Neil Armstrong in April 1985.
Hillary flew to the North Pole. The first person to reach all three locations on foot was Erling Kagge. He had reached all three by May 1994, being 6 months faster than the next person. On 5 August 1997 Antoine de Choudens (France, 1969–2009) became the only climber to accomplish the Three Poles Challenge on foot without using supplementary oxygen on the Everest climb. Tina Sjögren became the first woman to complete the challenge in 2002.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency was to have a distinctly civilian orientation, encouraging peaceful applications in space science. Since its establishment, most US space exploration efforts have been led by NASA, including the Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle. NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, the Space Launch System and Commercial Crew vehicles. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches.
Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (born Marie Jana Korbelová; May 15, 1937) is an American politician and diplomat. She is the first female United States Secretary of State in U.S. history, having served from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton.
Thomas Joseph O'Malley (October 15, 1915 – November 6, 2009), better known as T. J. O'Malley, was an Irish-American aerospace engineer who, as chief test conductor for the Convair division of General Dynamics, was responsible for pushing the button on February 20, 1962 launching the Mercury-Atlas 6 space flight carrying astronaut John Glenn, the first American in orbit. Five years later, NASA asked North American Aviation to hire him as director of launch operations to help get the Apollo program back on track after the Apollo 1 command module fire on the launch pad killed three astronauts. O'Malley continued to play a leadership role in the United States' space program through the first space shuttle launch in 1981.
In 1957, the Russian flight of Sputnik 1 prompted the United States to accelerate its fledgling space program. On July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which established NASA and subsumed NACA within this newly created organization. Langley Research Center became a part of NASA, as did Langley employees such as Kraft. Even before NASA began its official existence in October, Kraft was invited by Gilruth to become a part of a new group that was working on the problems of putting a man into orbit. Without much hesitation, he accepted the offer. When the Space Task Group was officially formed on November 5, Kraft became one of the original thirty-five engineers to be assigned to Project Mercury, America's man-in-space program.
The following is a list of women who have traveled into space, sorted by date of first flight. Although the first woman flew into space in 1963, very early in crewed space exploration, it would not be until almost twenty years later that another flew. Female astronauts went on to become commonplace in the 1980s. This list includes both cosmonauts and astronauts.
What's going on up there? is a one-hour documentary film by film maker Dr. Maryanne Galvin explores the topic of why space and space exploration is important from a number of perspectives, by considering the question "What's going on up there?" Featuring a voice introduction by Leonard Nimoy and interviews with scientists and scholars at MIT, Yale, Sydney University, and UC San Francisco, attorneys, authors, entrepreneurs, economist, environmentalists, filmmakers, youngsters and average citizens—even a college student in Kuwait who wants to be the first Muslim woman in space—this in-your-face documentary offers conversations on all sides of the space debate.
Kalpana Chawla (March 17, 1962 – February 1, 2003) was an American astronaut, engineer and the first female of Indian origin to go to space. She first flew on Space Shuttle "Columbia" in 1997 as a mission specialist and primary robotic arm operator. In 2003, Chawla was one of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle "Columbia" disaster when the aircraft disintegrated during its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, and several streets, universities and institutions have been named in her honor.
Stefanyshyn-Piper flew her first mission on STS-115, aboard Space Shuttle "Atlantis" (launched September 9, 2006, and returned September 21), as a Mission Specialist and became only the 8th woman to perform a spacewalk (out of 180 total spacewalkers). Stefanyshyn-Piper participated in two of the mission's three EVAs for a total of 12 hours, 8 minutes made her the second most experienced female spacewalker. She also became the first Minnesota woman to go into space.