Women in Space: Part II

by Karen Bush Gibson
This collection profiles astronauts from around the world, including Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, and Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Introduction–Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV–The Future of Spaceflight
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. socialist
    advocating the state ownership of industry
    Communists led by Vladimir Lenin overthrew the government in 1917 and instituted a socialist system.
  2. ministry
    a government department
    By the mid-1930s, the Soviet Ministry of Defense took over the Moscow Space Club. As technology developed, officials began to see space travel as a reality.
  3. propulsion
    a force causing to move forward
    Five women were accepted for cosmonaut training—two from flying clubs, two parachutists, and a rocket propulsion engineer.
  4. surpass
    be or do something to a greater degree
    Few supported these efforts to put a woman in space, but after American John Glenn orbited the Earth, the Soviets feared the United States was catching up or even surpassing them in the Space Race.
  5. module
    a self-contained component used in combination with others
    About the same time that the Soviets began working on putting another woman in space, they also began talking about a space station, built from separate modules.
  6. prominent
    conspicuous in position or importance
    Exploring Mars is a priority, but a prominent Russian professor of space medicine, Anatoly Grigoryev, says it will be a male-only flight, because women are “too weak" to make the trip.
  7. ineligible
    not qualified for or allowed or worthy of being chosen
    Arthur Dula, an American lawyer who specializes in laws governing international space-related activities, stated that such discrimination should make Russia's Federal Space Agency ineligible for any more funding from the United States.
  8. commission
    charge with a task
    Her cosmonaut training continued, and Irina was commissioned as an air force cosmonaut.
  9. modest
    humble in spirit or manner
    What leader Nikita Khrushchev liked about her was that she represented the best of communist ideals. She was a hard worker, modest, and a leader of the local Komsomol, a youth communist group.
  10. affiliated
    being joined in close association
    By mid-June, the cosmonauts and everyone affiliated with the space program had traveled to a small town, Tyuratam, east of the Caspian and Aral Seas in Kazakhstan, far from Moscow.
  11. induce
    cause to arise
    Space- induced nausea is common in spaceflight, and Valentina wasn't the first to have it.
  12. rendezvous
    meet at an appointed place
    The three cosmonauts were journeying to a Soviet space station, the Salyut 7, where they would rendezvous with two other cosmonauts who had been at the station for six months.
  13. stratosphere
    atmospheric layer between the troposphere and the mesosphere
    By the time she turned 17, she had made 450 parachute jumps and, with her father’s help, at the age of 17, she made a stratospheric (the second layer of atmosphere) sky dive from 14,252 meters.
  14. condescending
    characteristic of those who treat others with arrogance
    She also tried to ignore the condescending remarks by TASS, the government news agency, about her being of the fair sex.
  15. attribute
    a quality belonging to or characteristic of an entity
    A daily newspaper, Izvestia, decided her biography needed to be balanced with traditionally feminine attributes, so they wrote, “She is charming and soft, a hospitable hostess and likes to make patterns and sew her own clothes when she has time to spare."
  16. hospitable
    disposed to treat guests and strangers with generosity
    A daily newspaper, Izvestia, decided her biography needed to be balanced with traditionally feminine attributes, so they wrote, “She is charming and soft, a hospitable hostess and likes to make patterns and sew her own clothes when she has time to spare."
  17. solder
    join or fuse with an alloy
    She and cosmonaut Vladimir Dzhanibekov took turns conducting welding and soldering experiments.
  18. weld
    join together by heating
    When one welded, the other filmed.
  19. expend
    use up or consume fully
    Although the tool was weightless in space, it was still difficult to operate, requiring the cosmonauts to expend a lot of energy with each movement.
  20. upheaval
    a state of violent disturbance and disorder
    During the political upheaval of the uncertain 1990s, the third female Russian cosmonaut was in training.
Created on Tue Mar 30 10:48:12 EDT 2021 (updated Mon Apr 05 10:57:10 EDT 2021)

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