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Almost exactly 52 years ago today, the first woman flew into space. That was cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963. She's the only woman ever to orbit solo. You may be surprised to know that one of her essential qualifications was being a keen parachutist. After the space capsule re-entered Earth's atmosphere, the cosmonaut ejected from it and parachuted back to Earth.

But the Americans weren't to be outdone. Oh no indeed. A mere twenty years later they sent a female astronaut into space. (BTW meanwhile a second female cosmonaut, Svetlana Savitskaya, had been into space.) Anyhow it was 32 years ago today that Dr. Sally Ride (PhD in physics from Stanford University) was a mission specialist on a space shuttle Challenger mission.

Here is an infographic that summarizes Valentina Tereschkova's space flight. At the time of her flight, she spent longer in space than all of the American astronauts put together had done.

Here is an infographic on some of the highlights of the career of the brilliant Sally Ride. She was a most extraordinary person who put her great abilities to work to advancing science, to teaching, and to encouraging young people - especially girls - in science.

I guess the one talent she didn't develop was tennis. She kept on with the physics despite Billie Jean King's saying she could be a great player. (Ride was a junior champion at the time.)

On July 25, 1984 Svetlana Savitskaya was the first woman to carry out an EVA - known to most people as a spacewalk. Later that year NASA astronaut Kathryn Sullivan became the second female spacewalker.

Sixteen years ago - July 23, 1999 - the space shuttle Columbia's mission STS-93 was launched. NASA astronaut Eileen Collins became the first woman commander of a shuttle mission.

Of additional interest is that one of the mission objectives was the deployment of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, a highly sophisticated space telescope that is still producing results at wavelengths that are impossible to detect through the Earth's atmosphere.

On Wednesday, six Russian women - all of whom have expertise in medicine, biophysics or psychology - began an 8-day stint on board a mock spacecraft. There will be ten science experiments to carry out and they will be closely observed. It's to help answer the question the question of how an all-female crew might manage the physical, social and psychological strain of long-haul spaceflight.

But don't imagine this means there will be all-female crews. Despite the fact that the first two women in space back in the 60s were Russian, there have only been four female cosmonauts. And it doesn't sound as though everyone is taking this experiment seriously.

Predictably, the woman got stupid questions from the media at a press conference. Gosh, how would they manage without makeup for eight days? And dear me, how would the little dears get along with no men around for over a week?

But sexism goes higher than that, for the director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems, which is running this research program, is quoted as saying, “It will be particularly interesting in terms of psychology. They say that in one kitchen, two housewives find it hard to live together.” [from me: eyeroll]

The Russian 8-day lunar mission simulation was successfully completed with an all-femaile crew. The crew members got along well despite dire predictions by some men. [I guess guys can still do that in Russia without being - quite rightly! - taken apart on Twitter.] Daria Komissarova commented, "To those who said we'd end up ripping each other's hair out: we didn't even come close to that."

I have mixed feelings about the bouquets of flowers. Although I personally love getting flowers, it does seem to me to be a bit . . . well, you know . . . as though they weren't being taken seriously.

Despite this experiment, Russia is unlikely to be planning any all-female missions of any kind. In the whole history of the Soviet/Russian space program only four of their cosmonauts have been women.

The first female cosmonaut flew in 1963. Valentina Tereshkova is still the only woman to have flown solo. This sounds enlightened until you realize that the second female cosmonaut didn't go into space until 1982.

NASA didn't even select any women as astronauts until 1978 and the first one into space was Sally Ride in 1983. However once they got the idea, many more American women have gone into space than Russian women.

For the first time in history, NASA has chosen a class of astronauts that consists of  equal numbers of men and women. Some of the women could be on the inaugural trip to Mars. Women are now an integral part of the space program, unlike in the 1960s when they were secretaries and astronaut wives. They're designers, builders, and part of the mission teams for space probes.

Those who've been accepted as astronauts have been through two years of intense training, and no one would dare suggest that NASA lowered the bar so that these little ladies could get in.

Anne McClain always wanted to be an astronaut. She served in Iraq flying attack attack helicopters. Nicole Aunapu Mann also served in Iraq, flying fighter jets with the Marine Corps. Dr Jessica Meir has a PhD in marine biology and lived and researched in Antarctica. (Also went scuba diving under the ice.) Christina Hammock Koch also lived at the South Pole, for a year. She was in charge of the liquid helium for supercooling the telescopes. She says, “our motto was 'When the South Pole isn't cold enough, call us.'”

On February 3, 1995 Space Shuttle Discovery was launched. It was the first time a shuttle mission had a female pilot, Eileen Collins. One of the primary objectives of the mission was a rendezvous between Discovery and the Russian space station Mir.