Valentina Tereshkova travelled into space in 1963 in a craft programmed to ascend but not descend. This was compounded by the fact she had no toothbrush

On 16 June 1963, within hours of Valentina Tereshkova becoming the first woman in space, she realised that the scientists and engineers who had worked for years on the project had made two mistakes, one small but enraging, one possibly terminal.



Re-united with her spacecraft, Vostok 6, in an epic exhibition at the Science Museum in London, she recalled the shock of the discovery. She had food, water, and tooth paste, but no toothbrush.

“My toothbrush was nothing compared to the fact that the space craft was programmed to ascend, but not to descend. Now that was a mistake.”

If ground control had not succeeded in sending and installing a new computer program, instead of returning to Earth - where she parachuted safely out of the craft from nearly seven kilometres up - the fragile craft in which she would orbit Earth 48 times over two days, 22 hours and 50 minutes, would have spun on and on into outer space for ever. As for the toothbrush, “I had tooth paste, and water, and my hands,” she said.



She asked that the engineer who so nearly cost her her life not be punished, and was asked in return never to reveal the truth – and never spoke of it for 30 years, she said. “Cosmonauts can keep their word like men and women - particularly women.”

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?”

Tereshkova, who became a decorated national hero, and carried the Olympic flag at winter and summer games in Russia, said whenever she sees the craft that took her into space, she strokes its scarred and scorched flanks. Although she has married twice, first to a fellow cosmonaut in a ceremony attended by both Yuri Gagarin and the Soviet premier, Nikita Kruschev, Vostok 6 has a special place in her heart. “My lovely one,” she called it. “My best and most beautiful friend – my best and most beautiful man.”

Most of the 150 objects in the exhibition have never left Russia, with many from private collections never seen by the public even in Russia – including state papers and working drawings that had to be de-classified before they could be exported. The items include engineering models and real spacecraft, equipment and uniforms, archive film, official documents, and drawings and writings from the earliest dreams of space travel long before such machines could be built.

Birth of the space age exhibition: how we got the Russians on board Read more

The objects range from the most technically sophisticated flight suits, to an ejector seat for a dog, a space suit for a monkey, and a white lab coat on which a medical student in Moscow painted in scarlet letters the words “space is ours”, almost incredulous with joy at the news in April 1961 that Yuri Gagarin had become the first man to break the bonds of Earth.

The displays include test models for the Soviet Union’s advanced project to land a man on the moon, aborted when the Americans got there first, and only gradually revealed as relations thawed in the late 1980s.

The opening was also attended by Sergei Krikalev, who held the record for the most hours in space, 803 days, 9 hours and 39 minutes over six missions, until Gennady Padalka set a new record of 879 days earlier this month. The spoon on which Krikalev carefully engraved his initials on one mission, and found and brought back from the space station on his next, is among the treasures in the exhibition.

In 1989 Krikalev became the last Soviet Union cosmonaut: he was actually in the space station when the world into which he was born in 1958 disintegrated. There were fears that the space programme would collapse with the regime, and he might never have been brought back, but he was not afraid, he said. “Ground control kept working - our operations in space were more stable than what was happening on Earth.” Tereshkova added: “We never forgot them, we never abandoned them.”

After conquering space, the cosmonauts were reminded that Earthly bureaucracy remains beyond mortal control: on arrival in London they spent so long stuck in passport control that they almost missed the official reception in their honour at the Russian embassy.

Science Museum director Ian Blatchford said it was the most ambitious exhibition in the 100-year history of the museum, taking five years and the work of more than 200 curators, scientists and experts to create: “We’ve never been mad enough to put on anything on this scale.” After 16 visits to Moscow, gallons of Russian tea, “and more vodka than I am prepared to admit to my GP”, his favourite object remains the 1960s samovar modelled as Sputnik. He said he wants a replica for his office.

• For the first time the museum will open the exhibition until 10pm on Friday nights to cope with the expected demand for tickets. Cosmonauts, Birth of the Space Age, opens to the public on Friday 18 September and continues at the Science Museum until 13 March 2016.