Comment by jkot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jkot | Hacker News Reader

I know different side of story, from Karel Pacner who studied soviet archives, and wrote many books about space exploration history. I do not have English version, but here is a Google Translate link

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

Valentina was choosed for political reasons. She was humble textile factory worker and soviet party official. There were better woman candidates, but they were ignored due to their education and more aristocratic family. Valentine was selected by Khrushchev. She was not a very good astronaut.

> If ground control had not succeeded in sending and installing a new computer program, instead of returning to Earth

There was semi-automatic landing. Vostok was capable of landing unmanned without a pilot. But there was problem with engine orientation (the same problem destroyed first unmanned mission). They eventually fixed the problem and landed in automatic mode.

Manual landing was for backup, if automatic failed. But Valentina did not took flight well, and could not even describe manual landing sequence over radio. Mission control spend big part of mission explaining how to do manual landing.

> She said she was sad so few Russian women have followed her into space, none at all for one 19-year period, but more were now being trained: “I think the attitude to women will change – do you hear me?”

This was her fault from big part. Soviets planned more women after her. Ponomarevová and Solovjovová would fly in a Voskhod 6 at the end of 1966, while Solovjovová should climb into space.

Your fault attribution is mis-informed. From an MIT interview with Valentina Ponomareva (http://web.mit.edu/slava/space/interview/interview-ponomarev...):

Q. What was the fate of the women's group after Tereshkova's flight?

A. It is well known that Korolev's attitude toward the presence of women at work and especially on the launching pad was very negative. He believed that on a launching pad, like on a ship, a woman brings misfortune.

(Korolev was the head of the Soviet space program at the time).

... and Kruschev was the one who choosed astronauts. Same problem was with Gagarin versus Titov.

One might be not a very good candidate. But once you're in space, you either do or don't. She, at the end of day, did.

I find the whole question very sad.

I do love her comments about the ship she rode in and her request to not punish an engineer whose work could have gotten her killed.

she sounds very pragmatic and honestly sometimes technical expertise isn't the most valuable trait when your in a field where it still is all very much up in the air as to if it works.

She survived but that is not enough. This is not a ride in space shuttle, but ICBM with cannon ball on top. There were other women who would do much better, and she ruined it for them for another 20 years.

She almost died three times due to her under qualification. First the manual landing. Second she almost chopped her head off on ejection during landing, luckily she got away with a huge bruise. Third she almost landed on water, and would not be able to swim due to injury from ejection.

And there is other smaller stuff, such as ruining medical experiments, by giving away all her food.

But those sound like problems with the system that selected her - if she gets picked and she's not really that qualified then it's not really her fault.

We don't know how other women would fare. Maybe something will go slightly wrong and there will be a tragedy that might break the whole space program for a few years.

Space is the world of chances anyway.

Think about this: USSR could select whatever they likes into this position. There probably was 10 million girls: Russian, party member, of common ancestry. But they did enroll Tereshkova in this program. Means she at least passed basic tests.

I disagree. You can train for motion sickness and parachute jumps.

There were three final candidates:

Ponomarjovová graduated at Moscow Aviation Institute, had 320 flight hours as a sport pilot and 10 parachute jumps.

Solovjovová graduated at Ural Construction Faculty, had 900 jumps and was national sport champion.

Tereshkova had 78 jumps and no university or mid education, only 8 years of basic school.

It isn't her fault. They should have had dozens of candidates with diverse background and identical training. But there wasn't, and she did what she could, after all the politicking.

I imagine, for every one of us on HN, there exist a teenager in rural China (northern Nigeria, brazilian favelas) who could have done our work better than we are, theoretically, provided (s)he had all the training and expertise. But nevertheless we do what we do, we got there on merit AND chance, don't steal out achivements and Tereshkova's too.

She ruined it for them?

Do you think it’s prudent of those in positions of power to ascribe her (as you claim) mistakes and misjudgments to her gender and not their process of selection and training? I mean, you even talk about her lack of training as the reason for this (which is clearly unrelated to her gender), so if that’s the case how could she have ruined it for other women?

The fix for a lack of training is not to not hire women (that’s just a total non-sequitur), but to train more and better.

In that context it seems to me as though sexist assumptions by those in positions of power combined with a political selection process “ruined it for them for another 20 years”, not her performance.

You cannot shoulder the oppressed with expectations of perfect performance, even under adverse conditions. It’s totally awesome when they can pull it off, but that can’t be and isn’t the norm.

Yes, she ruined it for them. Two more women would flight just three years after her, they would perform a space walk, but that was cancelled after her flight.

I only mentioned that because she tried to act as victim of sexism, but she was is one of the reasons: She said she was sad so few Russian women have followed her into space, none at all for one 19-year period,

> in that context it seems to me as though sexist assumptions by those in positions of power combined

Nice try. Korolev, technicians etc were the one opposing women astronauts. Politicians 'and those at position of power' wanted women astronauts, but they lost argument after her flight. Communist party did more for women rights that any western politician.

> You cannot shoulder the oppressed with expectations of perfect performance

If you are buying this paternity propaganda bullish have a look at first Japanese astronaut. His backup was a woman with better qualifications. Mir crew had to sedate and restrain him, because he got panic attack. Doubt that would happen if she would fly.

“Korolev, technicians etc” are people in positions with power. Otherwise they couldn’t have an argument with the political leadership and win.

Their sexist assumptions ruined this. Don’t perpetuate this victim-blaming bullcrap and don’t shoulder all the responsibility on the oppressed.

How did she ruin things? Everything you say above clearly puts the blame on the selection process and those who ran it.

> She, at the end of day, did.

As did Belka and Strelka.

The matter of fact is that Tereshkova's flight didn't end up in a catastrophe not because of what she did on the orbit, but despite of it. It was salvaged from the ground control, despite of her having a panic attack and going into unresponsive mode. Her claim on how she pleaded not to have the tech punished is simply ludicrous.

Equating Tereshkova to a dog is as disrespectful as it is dishonest.

1. Yes she threw up in space. So do ALL astronauts. So much so that NASA has procedures on how to handle that (http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/29/17970838-vomit-i...).

2. Tereshkova did not have a panic attack in space. She had a panic attack before going and was strapped into the seat against her will. Again, this is not uncommon - NASA considers behavioral and psychiatric conditions a significant risk to the integrity of its missions (http://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/Risks/risk.aspx?i=99).

(An interesting aside: A 1976 Soviet space mission Союз 21 had to return early because of "interpersonal issues" but of course these were male astronauts so no one says the mission was aborted due to crew's cat fighting).

3. Tereshkova was not "unresponsive", she fixed multiple engineering/communication failures, both during flight and landing.

> Tereshkova did not have a panic attack in space. She had a panic attack before going and was strapped into the seat against her will.

Any source? There were two backups, and if there would be delay a few days, she would not have fly anyway.

Fuller-Wright, a NASA-funded researcher:

"She didn't want to go," Soviet space scientists told me. "At the last minute, she panicked, and they had to strap her into her seat against her will."

> Equating Tereshkova to a dog is as disrespectful as it is dishonest.

.. as is taking what being said out of context and twisting it into something it wasn't.

It is not actually possible to take words in a threaded conversation out of context and twist them. The entire thread and your unaltered, original words are right there, for all to see.

Ponomareva and Solvyova

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