Having reached the age of 76, it might be expected that Valentina Tereshkova would be planning a life of quiet gentility: a bit of gardening, perhaps, or catching up on reading. Far from it. The grande dame of astronautics has no intention of retiring gracefully, she has revealed. Indeed, she has a very different idea of how her future will unfold: she wants to go to Mars, her favourite planet. More to the point, she says she is happy if the mission turns out to be a one-way trip.
“Of course, it’s a dream to go to Mars,” says Tereshkova, who became the first woman in space after she spent three days orbiting Earth in 1963. “I want to find out whether there was life there or not. And if there was, then why did it die out? What sort of catastrophe happened?”