Tereshkova's unseen sister

摘要

In 2012, (Spaceflight, Vol 54, No 6, pages 216-217) I revealed details of Tereshkova's Secret Sisters', the group of twenty-three female parachutists, pilots and engineers, who had been seriously considered for selection for the 1962 female cosmonaut team. Earlier this year I stumbled upon a very short Russian language article about 75 year old Elena Illarianovna Sorokina, a retired employee of the JSC Zvezda company, long time manufacturers of Soviet and Russian spacesuit and equipment. In that brief local news item it was revealed that, at the very beginning of her career, Elena had been a ground-tester of equipment designed for the female cosmonaut team, and had also taken part in a range of extreme physical and psychological tests, in order to gather data on the female body, ahead of the planned space flight by a female cosmonaut. Curious to know more, I contacted JSC Zvezda in the hope of finding out a little more about Elena, and any other women who had been involved in this challenging and daunting work, at the very birth of the space age. As a result, I was delighted to be offered an 'e-mail' interview with Elena Sorokina.