The exhibition follows five years of planning and talks with museums and the Russian space industry. Unfortunately, the cosmonaut realized that she had made a grave mistake once she arrived – she had remembered to bring food, water, and toothpaste, but left her toothbrush back on the ground.
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The 78-year-old cosmonaut embarked on a mission via Vostok-6 spacecraft on June 16, 1963, making her the first woman to ever be sent to the cosmos, twenty years before the first American woman astronaut, named Sally Ride, was sent to space.
Fifty-two years after becoming the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova reflected on her historic trip and how she very almost never returned this week.
The Soviet Union turned its focus to space stations, and set new records, not least the longest time spent in orbit: the 803 days still held by Sergei Krikalyov.
Also on display are several Sputnik satellites and a lunar lander used to train cosmonauts how to land on the moon in a Soviet programme kept secret from the world until 1989.
Valentina Tereshkova, 78, revealed that she had to clean her teeth with her fingers during the three-day mission in the Vostok-6 spacecraft in 1963.
“And every time I pass it by I stroke it and say “My lovely one, my best and most attractive friend; my best and most handsome man”.
“It creates the possibility to think about future co-operation between our scientists, our young people who want to fly into space”. Built in 1969, it was designed to take a single cosmonaut to the surface of the moon. “These are the objects that with the help of which we conquered space, step by step”. Tereshkova was speaking to media during opening celebrations for a new exhibition at the Science Museum in London.
Among other items displayed are a space toilet, shower, fridge, a dog ejector seat and suit and a rarely-seen collection of original Soviet space poster art, the museum said.
“Birth of the Space Age” is billed as the greatest exhibition of Soviet spacecraft and artefacts ever to be seen outside Russian Federation. Tickets run £14 (about $22) for adults; children under 7 are free of charge.
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Ms Tereshkova was talking at the dispatch of a presentation about the Soviet space program at the Science Museum.
