Space Rendezvous

Valentina was sitting at a picnic table in the long shadows of the pine trees. She was about to be the most celebrated women in the Soviet Socialist Republic.

Along the stone path came the young Khazakstani couple. Sofia was carrying a tray of mutton stew. Amir was holding three small glasses and a pint-sized bottle of the local liquor. Amir felt very uneasy.

“My name is Valentina,” said the visitor. She had short blonde hair, unusually pale skin, and an accent that was unfamiliar to the couple. Her eyes were dark and betrayed her exhaustion.

“You must be hungry.” said Sofia ladling spoonfuls of mutton and potatoes into a bowl for their visitor. The hot stew was Valentina’s first warm meal in almost four days. It helped to revitalize her mind and body.

Amir poured their glasses of the sweet, milky liquor. Valentina’s felt the burn of the alcohol in her mouth and closed her eyes. She felt the security of her bare feet on the rough ground. She recalled her journey and recalled her views of earth from above the clouds.

Conversations shifted from food to Valentina’s spectacular arrival. Sofia had been laboring in the small plot where she and Amir grew vegetables for sale in markets. The day’s weather had brought both blue skies, grey clouds and thunderstorms shuddering across the nearby pine forests. Sofia had looked upwards and seen a figure.

At first the figure appeared to be floating like a spirit in a gap between the clouds. Then suddenly the wind grew and there were flashes of lightning and cracks of thunder. Now the figure was struggling with the storm and tumbling through the atmosphere. Faster and faster the figure was falling to earth. The figure was fighting for life.

Sofia watched in terror as the figure first struck a tree and then hit the ground. She ran across the gravel path towards to edge of the forest. In the dirt and brush she recognized a young women. The women was wearing a suit of silver with strange motifs. She was bleeding from her face but, somehow, miraculously, alive. “Are you okay,” asked Sofia, “Yes, I’m okay,” replied Valentina.

Amir was suspicious of Valentina and worried about Sofia. “How did you fall from the sky?” he asked. Valentina was hurt. In anger she thought “You don’t know how brave I was. You don’t know how strong I am.” But Valentina also understood the fear in Amir.

She began telling the story of her flight in the sphere. The sphere was ten feet in diameter. It was built from a special alloy in order to withstand the high temperatures and high pressures. It incorporated a small window of hardened glass that was mounted in the center of the hatch. She had a camera to take pictures through the window. For three day and three nights she was laying on a seat that was pointed like a missile at the hatch.

During the trip she’d got sick. The seat was awkward and Valentina got cramps in her legs with increasing frequencies. Unable to stretch or stand the cramps become unbearable. She also had nausea and was unable to eat the bread that was packed for her flight. But most awful were the fears. The fear of freezing to death, the fear of burning to death, or suffocating to death.

In order to return to Earth she had to rotate the sphere by 180^o and then to fire the brake. She was terrified of being unable to rotate the sphere or unable to fire the break. If so, she’d be doomed to gradual death by endless travel until exhausting her air supply.

When she rotated the sphere it worked. When she applied the brake it worked. But then the sphere started to rumble and shudder. The sphere was getting much hotter and filling with smoke. The sphere’s walls were too hot for her to touch. The chair’s frame were too hot for her to touch. It was getting difficult for Valentina to see gauges and make decisions.

At optimal altitude she was ejected from the sphere. Valentina recalled a bright flash and intense pressure on her body. Then she’s tumbling through air. And then suddenly an incredible jolt on Valentina’s shoulders and overhead the parachute opens.

Three days earlier, at precisely 4:02 am, just before sunrise, Vostok 6 launched. The weather and launch were close to perfect. Stages one, two, and three each fired and burned as programmed and put the sphere into the correct orbit. The following day, two spheres, Vostok 5 and 6, passed within one mile and each other in their earth orbits.

The Baikonur Cosmodrome and Soviet Space Program had succeeded in putting both one man and one woman in space. It was a major achievement for the Soviet program and a major embarrassment for the United States. The Soviet cosmonauts and engineers and U.S. astronauts and engineers never forgot the spectacular space rendezvous. But history has forgotten the story.

Valentina thought about her fall into the khasakstan village and her flight through the earth's ionosphere. She thought about the trip in the jeep to the rocket. She thought about the hours as the loaded the three stages with the fuel. And she thought about the moment of the launch from the Cosmodrome. It seemed like fantasy.

Valentina had grown up in a small village on the Volga river -about sixty miles to Moscow’s north. Her parents were poor and farmed a small plot of land for vegetables for sale at markets. She thought they seemed like Amir and Sofia. She thought about her mother and father and friends Amir and Sofia. She saw her father in Sofia, an innocent who wants to help, and she saw her mother in Amir, someone that's suspicious and fearful of change.

She imagined herself. Someone who's so brave and so courageous to be fired in a rocket into the unknown. Someone who’s so scared and so frightened she lives a life in fear of freezing, burning and suffocating. She felt pride in what she’d done.