WI: Woman instead Yuri Gagarin

What would happened if woman was chosen by Soviet leadership as first human in space? I know that some Eastern cultures can be biased against women or Sergei Korolev could disagree with that but what if Khrushchev decided that if Soviet Union is making milestone - placing man in orbit it would be woman? This could be excellent propaganda for communist states ("In the Soviet Union women are first in space!") but how would other countries react?
 
In the Soviet Union, Valentina Terescheva was the first woman in space, preceded by a couple men. In America, chimpanzees preceded men, and women came a generation later. It was lucky Terescheva was not a chimp, because they screwed up her orbit. How did everyone react?
 
Considering their shorter height and lighter weight, women cosmonauts could fit into smaller, lighter capsules, reducing launch costs by millions of rubles.
 
I'm sorry if I was badly understood but I meant cultures of first cosmonaut's country - Soviet Union. How different they would react if Gagarin was replaced by woman? How they would develop their views? In Soviet Union there were various cultures and views - Marxist feminist, Leninists, Turkish people and many others.
 
Complicated question - Firstly, there were no women in the first cosmonaut detachment. Secondly, even if it does, I do not think that the reaction of Soviet citizens will change.
In general, the Soviet gender issue is an interesting topic. The basis is the combination of radical and conservative installations.
Active climbing of the ladies on the tractor and under the tractor, as well as piloting, constructing and splitting the atom were not purely male acts. I want to split - you take and splinter! On the contrary, especially ladies' occupations - mannequin, manicurist, beautician, stewardess, and, finally, a housewife, were considered in the USSR not the most honorable. The woman was supposed to perform labor feat, and, best of all, to spend the working day in a severe struggle. Looking for easy happiness? Never! In books, articles and films, the story was constantly played out-the girl wants to have an effective, beautifully-ladies work, and then goes to work in the Big and Difficult Business. It's good or bad, it's not for me to judge. Just a fact. In Hollywood cinema, it was the other way around. For example, in the "Funny Muzzle" with Audrey Hepburn, a clever girl - with a penchant for harsh "bookishness" - becomes the top model. Following the Soviet tradition, the girl can easily get away from the books - to the rolling mill, but not to the podium! Gender policy in the USSR was very interesting. And explainable. For here mixed what should not have been confused initially - the desire to emancipate the feminine for the needs of the industry and the traditional peasant attitude towards the woman, as the keeper of the hearth and caring mother. At the output, it turned out that a girl can be a climber, however, she should not smoke and swear, as the male steeple has the right to do.
On the one hand, from everywhere sounded trumpet-drawn: "You're de-e-eve!", On the other hand, this very little girl was often shamed for wanting to be "just a mom", as in the movie "We'll Live To Monday". The high school student honestly betrayed in the essay that motherhood is also work. The teacher went into a deep stupor, classmates first gasped, and then they saw clearly - really, but what's wrong with that? In the lyrical comedy "Once Upon a Time Twenty Years Later ..." the ex-best student is no longer just a mother, but a mother-heroine. An attempt to show, more precisely - to prove to the world that motherhood is a feat, even on condition that children get folded, intelligent and understanding.
In satirical magazines, young fashionable women were constantly laughed at, risking to try on a not very feminine image - some patsan jeans or unintelligible kepi. The girl must be chaste, modest, shy. To stop a horse at a race follows in a skirt, and best of all, without a cut, for it is vulgar. Actually, this is not at all a purely Soviet phenomenon - such cartoons were drawn, for example, by Herluf Bidstrup, and in general, in any society, people are largely unwilling to "erase faces" between the sexes. Simply in the USSR, this went in parallel with the chanting of the work of women, steeplejacks, mestro-builders and other horses-on-the-race. It turned out that the lady must be feminine, while doing male labor? Not so long ago I caught a glimpse of an old "Worker" - in those years I would not have paid any attention to her at all. And now ... Girls are writing an introductory essay for a technical school connected with radio equipment. Beautiful words about the standards of feminine charm - about Tatiana Larina, about Natasha Rostova, about Turgenev's young ladies. But they are obliged to solder with a soldering iron. With soldering iron? All is correct. But you're the same girl! Look at Tatyana Larin! Where's your crimson beret? Throw a cigarette, take off your pants, put on a chiffon miracle with firmware! Eeee, leave a soldering iron ...
 
T
Considering their shorter height and lighter weight, women cosmonauts could fit into smaller, lighter capsules, reducing launch costs by millions of rubles.
This. Maybe an earlier launch using a less powerful rocket, with weight at a greater premium perhaps.

In the EDC the first human to exit the Earth's atmosphere in a purely human craft was a Polish female test pilot in an adapted Russian war-rocket (inspired by Megaroc) in 1948.
 
Unlikely, as the vostok program were composed of pilots who were pretty much exclusively male much like the mercury seven. The sentiment is nice but much needs to change for this to become likely. Whatever platitudes the USSR extolled on gender equality, they were firmly male dominated and Russia remains so to this day,
 
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In the EDC the first human to exit the Earth's atmosphere in a purely human craft was a Polish female test pilot in an adapted Russian war-rocket (inspired by Megaroc) in 1948.

Sounds interesting! Can you post a link to this event. Always curious to see how early female spaceflights are portrayed!
 
It's a fact that Russian politics and public life were dominated by men, both before and after the October Revolution.
And even if the Soviet Union officially proclaimed gender equality, men had more opportunities in life than women.
It's not that simple ... a woman could work by anyone. The main mistake of the Soviet government is "Double Loading". After re-educating women, they forgot to re-educate men.
 
It's not that simple ... a woman could work by anyone. The main mistake of the Soviet government is "Double Loading". After re-educating women, they forgot to re-educate men.

So in practice it was still fundamentally male dominated while they pretended that it wasn't. This is not how you solve your gender divides.
 
So in practice it was still fundamentally male dominated while they pretended that it wasn't. This is not how you solve your gender divides.
The problem is that the man in such a system was not the absolute master. A typical-patriarchal man, for example, Western, was quite happy - he knew what his male advantage was, he had his own, male world; He could always feel better and better than the whole half of humanity.
A Soviet man felt very uncomfortable!
On the one hand, a woman is equal to him. He knew this firmly, but his everyday experience also spoke about this. After all, women surrounded him in school (and usually still studied better), at work; Women were excellent specialists, they had the same salary as he had. He also listened in his childhood stories not only about the heroes, but also about the heroines. There is no "male world", there is a human world.
But on the other hand, he was surrounded also by the "female world". Created as it were for its maintenance. But ... at times, and enslaving him. The woman decided that he would eat, drink; In which apartment he will live, what he will wear. It was sweet to use the labor of a woman, but she served him not as a slave - but as a rather demanding mother. The man turned into an eternal child. He was distressed by this position. The woman could not look at him with all this from the bottom up, like a housewife in the West - her working husband; Huh - she herself works, what kind of complaints can there be? So often she looked down at him, and even if the relationship was equal, she often expressed her discontent. The man was perplexed - "but I'm helping the housework!" - but the woman had her own right: "help with housework" is strikingly different, fundamentally different from the management of the economy and the responsibility for everything.
However, here the life of different layers is very different. But the fact remains that modern Russia took away from the woman those few gains that the Soviet government gave it to her (say, a day nursery and a kindergarten with a night shift). While they now smoke a lot and foul language.
 
It's not that simple ... a woman could work by anyone.

It wasn't only about mentalities and education as you suggest. It was about hard economic and political facts.

Soviet ideology emphasized both on the role of women as workers and as mothers. Men on the contrary had only one role to fulfill - an important difference. The estimates for the GDR are that women had to work 50 hours a week at home - after their actual job. This was especially true for single mothers who had to work and care for their children.

In politics, women were discriminated against too. In the history of the Soviet Union, only four women served as one of the ~ 120 members of the politburo. Again, the numbers for the GDR are similar: no female members of the politburo at all, and only 4% of leading offices held by women.
 
It wasn't only about mentalities and education as you suggest. It was about hard economic and political facts.

Soviet ideology emphasized both on the role of women as workers and as mothers. Men on the contrary had only one role to fulfill - an important difference. The estimates for the GDR are that women had to work 50 hours a week at home - after their actual job. This was especially true for single mothers who had to work and care for their children.

In politics, women were discriminated against too. In the history of the Soviet Union, only four women served as one of the ~ 120 members of the politburo.
In general So far as I heard the GDR was the most progressive state in Europe - a maternity leave could get both a woman and a man. Maternity leave in both countries is 3 years, without fear of being fired.
However, in general, you are right - we "left the chicken wings, but forgot to tear down the ceiling." But for that time - a progressive result. Who could have thought that the Soviet Union would defeat the most common way of life.

PS - I emphasize in modern Russian women much less opportunities.
 
Sounds interesting! Can you post a link to this event. Always curious to see how early female spaceflights are portrayed!
Alas it didn't appear in v1 of the EDC (available here) and v2 is still a rather large an uncoordinated Word doc (277 pages) that I'm gradually rewriting and expanding.

In universe the three Polish sub-orbital (perigee 300km) flights happened using modified, captured, Russian rockets (from the Eastern War) with a small capsule on the end, based on the historical Megaroc proposal.
The effect would be to prod the Germans (Poland's "big brother" and the first-amongst-equals of the nascent European Federation into pouring a lot of resources into spaceflight.
Of course there were other reasons.
 
Tal Shiar wrote:
What would happened if woman was chosen by Soviet leadership as first human in space? I know that some Eastern cultures can be biased against women or Sergei Korolev could disagree with that but what if Khrushchev decided that if Soviet Union is making milestone - placing man in orbit it would be woman? This could be excellent propaganda for communist states ("In the Soviet Union women are first in space!") but how would other countries react?

You already opened that can of worms in "Red Universe" I see :)

First of all let me preface this with the fact I'm struggling to achieve similar circumstances if/when the tenativly titled "Vangaurd to the Stars" short TL ever manages to move from notes to an actual time-line. As a basic justification I am going with the same rational "riggerbob" used above (which was also used to effect by Robert Heinlien's script for "Project Moonbase" :) ) because in-TL the Navy is using less powerful rockets with smaller 'sub-scale' vehicles than the Air Force who are getting the lions share of the funding. Due to this they have to pretty much use pilots how "fit-in-the-capsule" rather than whom they might otherwise choose.
(I also want to make her Negro as I'm having a really hard time resisting having a reporter taken down by several notches by the commanding Admiral for commenting the US had just sent another 'monkey' into space) BTW I recommend seeing "Project Moonbase" if you get the chance. It has been often used as an example of how "far-ahead" RH's thinking was but once you actually watch the movie you see the reality of the scripting and situations tells a HUGE amount of what was and was not accetable culturally in America at the time for women.

To your question though, after being shown up by Sputnik and the failures of the American Vanguard project Vostok 1 was like being hit with an even bigger hammer. America was 'racing' to put a man into space on a suborbital trajectory at the time, we would have to wait on the Atlas to put a man into orbit, but again the Soviet's had "beaten" us despite what looked like an all-out effort. The gender of the cosmonaut is going to be noted in passing at first but will then be used to show how "inhuman" the Soviets/Communists are by exposing and untrained, unskilled WOMAN to the dangers of space flight with NO regard for human decency! They probably ordered her into the capsule because she was handy and they didn't have another dog available so "obviously" they grabbed some hapless woman, who being the good, brainwashed, Communist she was agreed blissfully unaware of the dangers and risk involved. Why those godless Commie's kidnapped and strapped someones daughter/mother/wife into a missile simply to test it before they dared risk a MAN in the contraption! How dare they...
(Continue on as required of course to sooth the outraged ego, if would be 'nice' if she were actually a test pilot or something though :) )

You can assume that a lot of western aligned countries will hop on the bandwagon, (imagine the outrage in France for example :) ) you need only look at the press around Sally Ride's first trip into space and the op-eds and cartoon that showed she was just along to provide coffee and sandwhiches while the "men" did the work, and that's the 80s!

The key aspect will be the follow through as no ones noted that the Soviets didn't fly another woman until the 80s themselves by which time the US had already included woman astronauts. If, as per OTL it's a one-off stunt it will be MORE noticable due to one being first and therefore the PR liability is much higher than OTL. As noted it would take an early decision to pull this off but in doing that it would also require the inclusion of women in the program earlier which may not be that bad as it is then LESS likely to be a 'stunt'. But you also have to look at the program progress and the cultural backgrounds involved. The Soviet astronaut corps was, (like its Amercan counterpart) built on a core of military MALE test pilots because it was seen a high-risk program. Having a political decision to advance a woman over the more qualifed men is in and of itself a 'high-risk' ploy due to the egos involed and the effect on morale. (The 'glory' was stolen from both Gagarin and his back-up after all and how many more times are poltics going to override?)

Keep in mind that along with the "Mercury 7" male astonauts there had been both offical and unoffical pressure to allow continued testing and eventual down-select of the "Mercury 13" female canidates to 7 as well but given the very limited nature of the Mercury program itself this was obviously not going to happen OTL. (To do so requires a much more extensivly planned and supported program as well as a much more capable Mercury vehicle, both of which were not intended in OTL) Vostok on the other hand was a bit more of a 'flexible' vehicle/program as demonstrated by later flights. IF there is evidence of inclusion of woman in the Soviet program then one could assume that the Americans would follow suit, but it's not a given.

At this point in time, (Vostok 1) the US still does not have the Atlas booster available and the planned Mercury vehicle run is In work but it is well known it is a very limited vehicle, (the 'long-duration' flight of Gordon Cooper saw the removal of a lot of equipment and systems to make room for the needed support equipment and it STILL was mostly 'broken' by the time it came down. Compare the 34 hours there with Vostok5 at 119 hours...

And Vostok evolved into Voskhod which Mercury couldn't obviously do, instead needing the new Gemini, (orginally Mercury Mark II) vehicle to be designed and built and the more powerful Titan-II launch vehicle to loft. It's not until the premiere of the Saturn-1 launch vehicle the US has the capacity to launch larger vehicles into orbit.

So for a time the Soviets if they so choose have a small window to continue racking up records and PR propaganda. BUT! Recall that Korolev is already pushing for Soyuz and there are only a few Vostok's left in assembly to convert to Voskhods AND if more are planned/built then this pushes Soyuz back even further. And along in here they need to consider rendevous and docking which will be essential for future space operations and which the American Gemini is going to be specifially designed to explore whereas Voskhod is a modification.

These are the background factors for the inclusion of woman in the program(s) so need to be kept in mind. In context while it won't effect the Mercury program I'd suppose, (to far along and to limited) by the end of 1961 we can assume Kennedy will still commit the US to a Moon landing and all that implies for Apollo. This means Gemini will still be a rather limited profram both due to budget/support and efforts to get Apollo up and running and while I can see it argued that a few more vehicles/flights might be added to the program to alllow the inclusion of female astronauts my "gut" feeling is the US will continue to consider it a very much male oriented program and require only male pilots which was done OTL until very late in the program. And as per OTL I don't see them going outside of the inclusion of male scientists.

If the Soviets continue to fly women on a semi-regular basis, (there would be some serious questions on the need due to the requirments and skills needed for such) as the program was being largly based on "military utility of humans" rather than more general goals and here there are no clear 'advantages' for using woman over men and given the obviouse male orientation of the miltary...

So again we're looking at clear 'political intervention' cases or a clearly justifiable 'need' to use women over men which are questionable at best.

So... The initial reaction will most likely be some outrage, a lot of regretable reactionary rhetoric, (especially from America which will later have to live it down or justify it) some calls for more 'inclusion' as time goes on but in general I don't think it will significantly effect the "Space Race" at the point and time it happens. Assuming there is no significant change in American post-Vostok-1 policy, (and by this point America is really up against a wall with very few choices available to them so the Moon and Apollo are pretty much inevitable) or really Soviet space policy, (it's a one off stunt) then I don't see any real butterflies until much further down the road. In general you MIGHT have one or two Gemini missions added with female crews and tenative "plans" for an all woman Lunar mission somewhere between Apollo-15 and Apollo-20 but I'd expect them to be the ones cut first as the budget and support dries up in the late 60s. (NASA-et-al are GOING to favor the long term MALE astronauts just like they did OTL so barring politial interferance, which will NOT go over well, they will push female/new-astonauts to later missions and ground them once those missions are cancled)

Randy
 
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