Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to have flown in space, revealed she had no toothbrush and was forced to clean her teeth with her fingers during her three-day mission in the Vostok-6 spacecraft in 1963, British newspaper The Independent reported Thursday.
Tereshkova, 78, shared the details of her space mission at the opening of an exhibition at London's Science Museum devoted to the Soviet Union's space program titled “Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age,” the report said.
“Unfortunately it is a fact,” she was cited by The Independent as saying. “But I was resourceful, as any woman would be. … I had my hands and water,” Tereshkova said.
She also recalled that the engineers had wrongly configured the craft for re-entry, and she had to call ground control to correct the error. “Forgetting the toothbrush was nothing” in comparison to that, because the mission could have ended in disaster, she said.
A Message from The Moscow Times:
Dear readers,
We are facing unprecedented challenges. Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization, criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution. This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent."
These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia. The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate, unbiased reporting on Russia.
We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help.
Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and every contribution makes a significant impact.
By supporting The Moscow Times, you're defending open, independent journalism in the face of repression. Thank you for standing with us.
Remind me later.