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vustudents
09-07-2011, 02:47 AM
Q. 17 Make a summary of “The first woman in space.”
Answer: Among the heroes of space travel, Valentina TeresH Kova holds a place of great honour. She is the first woman who went up into space. Valentina was born in 1937, in a small village in the Soviet Union. Her father died when she was a small child. Her mother with Valentina and her sister moved to Yaroslavl and found work in a textile factory. Valentina after graduating from school joined her mother in the factory. She also continued her studies at a technical institute. At twenty-one. She joined a parachute club and received the first class parachutist’s badge. She proved herself an extra ordinary young woman. In 1961, the Russians launched the first manned spaceship and Yuri Gagarin became the first man ever to travel in space. This created much interest in space travel. Valetina volunteered for training as a cosmonaut. She was selected after a series of stiff physical and intelligence tests. At the cosmonaut’s training school, she had to undergo hard training to prepare her for space flight. She had to prove that she was physically and mentally fit to face the strains of space travel. The training progarmme included parachute jumping riding the ‘Wheel’ a cabin that was spun round and round at a terrific speed working in the heat chamber and noise chamber. There was also the vibration table which shook the trainee at the rate of 200 vibrations per minute. Perhaps the worst test was ‘quiet chamber’. It was a soundless darkroom equipped with a number of instruments and in far-red cameras. The trainess inside was, for all practical purposes, cut off from the world outside. He was to report by radio how he felt and what he thought. Sometimes the men outside acknowledged the reports, sometimes they kept silent. Sitting in a little dark silent room for hours and hours exert a great pressure on one’s nerves. Valetina completed the entire course of training with determination and courage. She proved that she possessed perfect health, exceptional stamina, high intelligence, quickness of mind and iron will. On June 16, 1963, Valentina, clad in three space suits, entered the spaceship, Vostok-6. The loose wires hanging from her space suit were connected to the instruments in the cabin. They would tell the doctors below how she was behaving during the flight into space. At 12.00 p. m, she felt a sudden jolt and the spaceship took off. An unseen pressure forced her back into her seat. Her limbs grew heavy and she felt pain in her eyes and head. The pressure on her body increased but she could bear it. A little later the spaceship travelling at five miles a second swung into orbit. All the pressure and pain had gone. She felt comfortable. She circled the earth for 72 hours and then the spaceship was brought back to earth. She had done what no woman had done before.