On June 16， 1963， aboard Vostok 6， Soviet Cosmonaut1 Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to travel into space. After 48 orbits2 and 71 hours， she returned to earth， having spent more time in space than all U.S. astronauts combined to that date.

1963年6月16日，前蘇聯宇航員瓦蓮京娜·捷列什科娃乘坐“東方6號飛船”，成為太空旅行的第一位女性。在繞地球48圈的71小時太空飛行后，她返回地球，她在太空中的時間比她之前所有美國宇航員的太空飛行時間的總和還要長。

Tereshkova was born to a peasant family in 1937. She began work at a textile3 factory when she was 18， and at age 22 she made her first parachute4 jump under the auspices5 of a local aviation6 club. In February 1962， she was selected along with three other woman parachutists and a female pilot to begin training to become a cosmonaut.

1937年，捷列什科娃出生于一個農民家庭。她18歲的時候開始在一家紡織廠工作，22歲時，她在當地航空俱樂部的贊助下進行了首次跳傘。1962年2月，她與其他三名女傘兵和一名女飛行員一起被選中開始了成為宇航員的訓練。

After her historic space flight， in November 1963， she married fellow cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev. They were the first pairing of two single cosmonauts in human history.

在歷史性的太空飛行之后，1963年11月，捷列什科娃嫁給了同為宇航員的安德列安·尼古拉耶夫。他們是人類歷史上的首對宇航員夫婦。

Tereshkova served as the Soviet representative7 to many international womens organizations and events. She never entered space again， and hers was the last space flight by a female cosmonaut until the 1980s.

捷列什科娃曾擔任眾多國際婦女組織和運動的蘇聯代表。她再未進入過太空。直到上世紀80年代為止，她都是唯一一名在太空飛行過的女宇航員。

The United States screened a group of female pilots in 1959 and 1960 for possible astronaut training but later decided to restrict astronaut qualification to men. The first American woman in space was astronaut and physicist Sally Ride， who served as mission specialist on a flight of the space shuttle8 Challenger in 1983.

美國在1959和1960年間為相關的宇航員訓練篩選了一批女飛行員，但后來決定將宇航員資格限定在男子中。太空中的第一位美國女性宇航員是宇航員兼物理學家的莎莉·萊德，她在1983年的“挑戰(zhàn)者號”航天飛機的任務中飛向太空。

Notes：

1. cosmonaut n. （俄）宇航員（等于astronaut）

2. orbit n. 軌道；圓圈飛行

3. textile n. 紡織品，織物 adj. 紡織的

4. parachute n. 降落傘

5. auspice n. 贊助

6. aviation n. 航空；飛行術；飛機制造業(yè)

7. representative n. 代表 8. shuttle n. 航天飛機