Dr. Valentina Tereshkova is the only woman in history to travel solo into outer space.

Smart, fearless and just 26 years old, on June 19, 1963 – three days after she rocketed into Earth's orbit in the Vostok 6 capsule – Valentina began her descent back to the land of gravity.

To do so, she had to lean on her expertise as a parachute jumper, which was a prerequisite for the cosmonaut program in those days.

When she was 18, Valentina had joined a local parachuting club, and had already clocked over 90 jumps before she became a cosmonaut in 1962.

The Descent

On that historic day in 1963, when Valentina parachuted out of her falling space capsule, she was greeted with strong winds, and had difficulty controlling her parachute:

"At a height of 7 kilometers, I catapulted out of the spacecraft and parachuted down to Earth. I begged god not to land on water. God heard my prayers," she later recalled.

Valentina ended up landing 2 degrees off course, near a lake in North Kazakhstan. She was welcomed by farmers working nearby, who gave her a home cooked meal to enjoy. Not a fan of space food, it was the best meal she'd had in days!