Not long after launching Yuri Gagarin on his historic journey, the Soviets achieved another first by sending a woman into space. Valentina Tereshkova was not a pilot, but a factory worker who parachuted as a hobby. Her letter applying for cosmonaut training was plucked from thousands of others, and led to her becoming one of the most decorated women in the Soviet Union. The book includes never-before-published photos of Tereshkova and other cosmonauts