Why does Russians now have so few female cosmonauts given the fact they was the first who send first woman into space?

[Pawelk198604]

Why does Russians now have so few female cosmonauts, in in comparison to NASA, given the fact they was the first who send first woman into space, Valentina Tereshkova?  

Edited June 8, 2018 by Pawelk198604

[Superfluous J]

I can't speak to the relative roster sizes of today, mostly because I don't know them but am pretty sure that neither country has a ratio even resembling the ratio in the general population.

However I can speak to the "first in space" part. It has nothing to do with equal rights. They sent her up specifically to be the first woman in space, to beat the US at it. If you could get positive press and a general feeling of "we do gooder than you" for it, they'd have sent the first wombat into space.

[mikegarrison]

It was basically just a PR stunt. Of course, to some extent the entire manned space programs of both the USSR and the USA were just PR stunts at the time.

Tereshkova was apparently selected because she was a skydiver. It also fit the Soviet PR that she was a factory worker rather than a military test pilot. It was essentially the same kind of PR stunt that NASA tried to pull with Christa McAuliffe -- "citizen in space" sort of thing.

Anyway, she's still around. Perhaps you could ask her opinion on the subject.

[Nivee~]

I read somewhere that she did not communicate from her capsule throughout the mission..Whether it was because of a comms error, or she was just scared stiff, is unknown..

[wumpus]

I got the distinct impression that there was a stronger push to either increase women's place as a "soviet worker" or increase the impression that they were doing that in the Early Soviet union.  Either more conservative types filtered into Politburo and shut it down or perhaps the PR benefits weren't paying out and they stopped pretending to do it, I'm not sure.  But it seemed like something the Soviets did a lot in Lenin and Stalin's time, less in Khrushchev's time and pretty much had given up by Brezhnev's time.

- this may be too much of the Soviet Union as seen during the Cold War.  It was almost impossible to know what was going on inside, so I have no idea how much was PR and how much was a real push.

[Kerbart]

Because there is PR value in firsts, but not in routine operations.

for the longest time crew—on either side of the ocean — was selected from military pilots. That alone stacks the cards against females being selected. Add a sexist society, machism (male ‘nauts don’t want female colleagues because it would devaluate the status of their profession) and here we are.

And don’t think we have made much progress in modern days. Helen Sharman is recognized as the first British woman for the many firsts she achieved in space instead of plainly the first Brit.

[kerbiloid]

Because Shuttle has 7-8 seats, while Soyuz - 2-3.

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Tereshkova was apparently selected because she was a skydiver.

Weaver (i.e. labourer), Comsomol activist, and skydiver.

Also, it's well-known, her flight was a little bit confusing, so Korolev declared: "No woman in space, while I'm alive".

Later the space program was partially military, so officers were males.

Edited June 9, 2018 by kerbiloid

[NSEP]

All they wanted to do is unlock achievements.

[GoSlash27]

2 reasons I can think of:
 1) The Russians haven't allowed female combat pilots, which is the traditional pipeline into the space program. This just changed last year, so we should start seeing more female cosmonauts in the next decade.

 

2) Russia has a smaller budget for space, and spends a lot less money on cosmonauts for pure science. Since they send up mainly flight crews, and the flight crews are mainly male....

 

Best,
-Slashy

[Cassel]

maybe through biology? women are born with egg cells and every time they expose their organisms to radiation they risk not being able to have healthy children

[Canopus]

32 minutes ago, Cassel said:

maybe through biology? women are born with egg cells and every time they expose their organisms to radiation they risk not being able to have healthy children

Same goes for men?

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

 1) The Russians haven't allowed female combat pilots, which is the traditional pipeline into the space program. 

There were both military and civil cosmonaut groups, sometimes competing.
Say, Salyut was a mostly civil program, while Almaz - military, both with its own cosmonaut groups.
Soyuz vs Vostok, Soyuz vs Soyuz-VI, etc.
Intercosmos program with its short-stay flights.
So, if they wanted to send a woman, they would, and her military career would not matter.

4 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

This just changed last year, so we should start seeing more female cosmonauts in the next decade.

This won't change in the foreseable future.

4 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

Since they send up mainly flight crews, and the flight crews are mainly male....

Board engineers are not necessary from flight crews.
Just a monogender crew is considered causing less headache, that's the only reason. The same with army.

1 hour ago, Cassel said:

maybe through biology? women are born with egg cells and every time they expose their organisms to radiation they risk not being able to have healthy children

Women reproduction system is even a little bit less sensible to radiation.

***

First female cosmonaut group was created in 1962. (With active participation of Gen. Kamanin, so their military background doesn't matter.)
Consisted of 5 women: engineer Irina Solovyova, mathematician-programmer Valentina Ponomaryova (also a MiG-15 sport pilot, retired as colonel), weaver Valentina Tereshkova, teacher Zhanna Yerkina, stenographer secretary Tatiana Kuznetsova.
Gagarin was against Ponomaryova's participation, as she had a child, so he didn't want to risk with her life.

After Tereshkova's flight, Korolev was disappointed and declared that a female team fell short of his expectations, and he no more needs it.

But they were keeping building several Vostoks, several Voskhods, and were going to start building Soyuzes.
A lot of flights were planned: 1966 - 9, 1967 - 14, 1968 - 21.

So, among these flights there was planned an all-female flight: Voskhod, crew of 2, 15 days, EVA.
Main crew - Ponomaryova (commander) + Solovyova (EVA specialist).
Backup crew - Yerkina, Kuznetsova.
But the flight was not a high-priority, then Korolev died, then Voskhod program was closed as Soyuz came in, and in 1969 the female team has been dismissed.

Spoiler

Also there was suggested a mixed flight with artificial gravity and conceiving.
It was planned after that, but probably would not be implemented anyway .
As always, the most interesting never happens...

~15 years later Glushko wanted to send a woman into space again.
For some reasons his choice was a rather extraordinary person - Svetlana Savitskaya, an aviation engineer and experienced sport and test fighter and bomber pilot.
So, in 1982 the second woman has flied into space.

Edited June 9, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Tullius]

There are probably two main reasons for it: The Russians believe that it brings bad luck to have women on spacecraft. Quoting from the wikipedia article on Soyuz TMA-11 (which had 1 man and 2 women on board for the landing):

Quote

Anatoly Perminov, the head of the Russian Federal Space Agency, speculated that the ballistic reentry was connected to a Russian nautical superstition that having more women than men on a craft was unlucky. The return flight of Soyuz TMA-11 was the first time two women flew together on board a Soyuz and it was the first time women outnumbered men aboard a spacecraft since Valentina Tereshkova's solo flight in 1963. "This isn't discrimination," Perminov stated when challenged on the point. "I'm just saying that when a majority [of the crew] is female, sometimes certain kinds of unsanctioned behaviour or something else occurs." Perminov said he would try to ensure that the number of women would not exceed the number of men in the future.

Also, normally astronauts are chosen to be the best of the best. However, when comparing men and women in terms of physical strength on equal grounds, usually the men come out ahead. This might in part explain why men are overrepresented in the astronaut lists.

[kerbiloid]

8 minutes ago, Tullius said:

The Russians believe that it brings bad luck to have women on spacecraft. Quoting from the wikipedia article on Soyuz TMA-11 (which had 1 man and 2 women on board for the landing):

This could be easily neutralized by placing the man in the middle seat and two women with same names (that's important!) aside.
Then the man can make a wish (for example, to land safely), and it happens.

Spoiler

8 minutes ago, Tullius said:

Also, normally astronauts are chosen to be the best of the best. However, when comparing men and women in terms of physical strength on equal grounds, usually the men come out ahead.

And here we can start a countdown till the thread closure.

 

Edited June 9, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Kerbart]

1 hour ago, Canopus said:

Same goes for men?

Pay more attention in biology class

Women get a stock of egg cells at birth basically, and that will have to last a lifetime. Men's sperm cells only life a day or so and get produced on a daily basis. If an astronaut pair went to space for a year, and ten years after returning to earth decided to have kids, the women's egg cells are still the ones exposed to a year of radiation. The men's cells are fresh.

But to be honest, I highly doubt that's the reason. It might be used as an excuse though.

[Canopus]

4 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Pay more attention in biology class

Women get a stock of egg cells at birth basically, and that will have to last a lifetime. 

Isn‘t this contested? 

And also, depending on the exposure and dosage, radiation can be just as damaging to the male reproductive organ. Even stopping Sperm cell production.

[kerbiloid]

44 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

The men's cells are fresh.

The men's gametes are fresh, but the men's gonads are exposed, and some of their cells produce mutated gametes.

28 minutes ago, Canopus said:

And also, depending on the exposure and dosage, radiation can be just as damaging to the male reproductive organ. Even stopping Sperm cell production.

1 Sv stops it for about a year.
But to get such dose they have to get under storm outside of magnetosphere.

Though, the reproductive function temporarily decreases due to zero-G effects.

Edited June 9, 2018 by kerbiloid

[magnemoe]

8 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

2 reasons I can think of:
 1) The Russians haven't allowed female combat pilots, which is the traditional pipeline into the space program. This just changed last year, so we should start seeing more female cosmonauts in the next decade.

 

2) Russia has a smaller budget for space, and spends a lot less money on cosmonauts for pure science. Since they send up mainly flight crews, and the flight crews are mainly male....

 

Best,
-Slashy

Think this sums it up well, first was an publicity stunt, and with an 3 man capsule there you need minimum one pilot so one or two scientists, add that Soviet was far from as equal they claimed this leave few women. After Soviet Russia has mostly supplied the pilot and getting payment for scientists from other countries 

US with all the shuttle missions with its large crew had room for more scientists and therefor more women as gender ratio is pretty even here compared to fighter pilots. 
 

[VaPaL]

Amy from Vintage Space made a video about that recently:

 

[YNM]

13 hours ago, Canopus said:

Same goes for men?

You can always store some in a ground-based facility outside your body. Not sure if there's any yet for egg cells.

[Vanamonde]

A post or two have been removed from this thread. Please keep things on-topic. 

[peadar1987]

Wasn't there some anime about a Japanese space programme consisting of teenagers, because they were lighter? Get your dry mass down with female cosmonauts

[Brotoro]

30 minutes ago, peadar1987 said:

Wasn't there some anime about a Japanese space programme consisting of teenagers, because they were lighter? Get your dry mass down with female cosmonauts

That would be Rocket Girls...but it's not the Japanese space program that uses them, it's the Solomon Space Association.

[Northstar1989]

On 6/9/2018 at 12:36 PM, Kerbart said:

Pay more attention in biology class

Women get a stock of egg cells at birth basically, and that will have to last a lifetime. Men's sperm cells only life a day or so and get produced on a daily basis. If an astronaut pair went to space for a year, and ten years after returning to earth decided to have kids, the women's egg cells are still the ones exposed to a year of radiation. The men's cells are fresh.

But to be honest, I highly doubt that's the reason. It might be used as an excuse though.

As a published Biologist with a graduate degree, substantial research experience in Reproductive Biology (and *specifically* an entire year spent researching Spermatogenesis), and one of my areas of focus being Genetics and Development, I can state that is categorically false.

Sperm do *NOT* live "only a day or so" (in fact they take about 70-90 days just to form), and new ones are not generated from scratch on a daily basis (although new sperm are continuously being formed).  The man's Spermatogonial Stem Cells, Sertoli Cells, and various other cells of the testis that support Spermatogenesis are NOT "fresh" 10 years after a space mission, and because the woman's eggs that are active 10 years later were completely dormant and inactive during the space mission (and thus at minimal risk for radiation-induced mutagenesis) she is actually at lower risk of reproductive complications due to the radiation exposure than the man...

---

The formation of Sperm (Spermatogenesis) takes 10 to 12 weeks (as much as 3 months!) from start to finish.  What's more, since Spermatogenesis is continuous in the testis, on any given day there are MILLIONS of cell divisions going on associated with it.

You really should at least read the Wikipedia article on the topic before presuming to make statements on sperm formation:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermatogenesis

The male reproductive system is actually far MORE vulnerable to radiation exposure than the female system for the following reasons:

1. Cells are most vulnerable to radiation while they are actively undergoing cell division.  A woman is born with all the immature eggs she will ever have, but all but a handful are frozen in Meiosis I at any given point in her lifetime- and active cell division of the follicles only occurs at certain times of the month (as opposed to 365 days a year in men), as dictated by the hormonal cycle.  Follicular development also occurs at a much slower pace overall- a single egg takes 10 months to develop, as opposed to 3 months for sperm.

2.  There are no active germline stem cell populations in the postnatal (after birth) human female.  All ovarian follicles have already been formed long before birth, and the germ cells are merely frozen in their development.  The germline stem cell populations that give rise to new germ cells from scratch degenerated before she was even born.  By contrast, males still have active germline stem cell populations- which are capable of accumulating mutations during cell division due to radiation exposure and sustaining the effects of these mutations in ALL future sperm generated from those mutated stem cells (a female can have half her actively-dividing follicles mutate, and they will all be gone in a year- with the dormant eggs that later become active as good as new.  A male can accumulate mutations in half his dividing spermatogonial stem cells, and it will affect his fertility and risk of cancer for the rest of his life...)  Stem Cell mutations also *greatly* increase the risk of cancer compared to somatic cell mutations, consider the "Cancer Stem Cell Theory"...

 

There are other reasons, but after writing this much, I don't really feel like going into them...

It suffices to say that men are actually at greater risk of radiation exposure affecting their fertility than women.

---

Not to mention women make better astronauts for a variety of other reasons, including lower metabolic rate (for long-duration missions, the cost of food for the crew is a very significant consideration.  Females burn through substantially fewercalories in a day than men on average, in part due to their smaller bodies...), lower incidence of aggressive/violent behaviors (on long-duration missions, the risk of crew attacking each other is, once again, a significant consideration.  I believe it was a Russian male cosmonaut who once wrote in his diary about a space station mission that on an extended stay in a crasmoed space station "all the conditions necessary for murder are present" and that he personally fantasized at times of bashing one particular comrade's head in...), and greater tendency to behave cooperatively and follow instructions ratger than behaving easily or independently (indeed NASA once experienced a small "mutiny in space" of sorts when some of their astronauts stopped following orders...)

---

No, the reason Russia no longer relies as heavily on female cosmonauts as it once did has nothing to do with biology or the relative suitability of male vs. female cosmonauts (because females are actualky BETTER suited for the demands of extended space missions).  My best guess is it has to do with creeping conservatism in the later years of the USSR (as others have suggested) and sexist attitudes ultimately gaining more dominance in the Russian space program and political arenas, as others suggested.. 

 

Edited June 14, 2018 by Northstar1989

[Dafni]

@Northstar1989 thank you for this interesting contribution. I appreciate the insight.