It is no secret that women are especially underrepresented amongst the world’s most innovative industries, given the 47% gender gap in tech and science fields.

Accordingly, it comes as no surprise that Space, too, is lagging behind in gender equality - having only 11% of the total Space explorers been women.

Being the first one is never easy

In 1963, two years after the first man going into Space, Valentina Tereshkova made history on June 13th as she became the first woman space explorer.  Under Soviet Union’s Vostok 46 space programme and at the age of 26, Tereshkova orbited 48 times around Earth during three days.

Early in her life, she took interest in parachuting as a hobby, which later would be the primary reason for being selected for training as a cosmonaut for a Soviet space mission. Despite not having any prior pilot experience, Valentina stood out for her parachuting ability and performance under extreme and zero-gravity conditions.

This milestone would lead Tereshkova to be awarded Hero of Soviet Union, Order of Lenin, Gold Star Medal and UN Gold Medal of Peace.

Women in Space

It was just 19 years later, that the history of Space exploration saw another woman reaching her way to outer space - Svetlana Savitskaya. She was the first woman to fly on a space station and again in 1984 to perform a spacewalk.

Among the countries involved in space missions, only the US, Russia, UK, Canada, China, Japan, Italy and France have sent women to space and in all cases, except the UK with 50% stake, women represent a minority.

To date, the US stands out for sending most women to Space since 1961. Though sending 46 women may seem impressive, the gender divide becomes evident as we learn that they represent only 14% of all Americans who went to Space.

Russia, despite being the first country supporting space missions performed by women, presents so far a disappointing 3% female representation in space exploration.

Article written by Teresa Duarte @ VisionSpace