Svetlana Savitskaya

My hero is Svetlana Savitskaya. She is the first woman in the world to walk in space.

She was born in Moscow in 1948. Her father was a WWII pilot. Svetlana was interested in flights from the very young age. By the time she was 16, she had done 450 parachute jumps. She was very brave. She performed a jump from 14,252 meters falling 14,000 meters before opening her chute.

At the age of 18 Svetlana entered Moscow Aviation Institute. After graduating from it she became a pilot. She set world records in supersonic and turboprop aircraft.

In 1980 Savitskaya joined the female astronaut group. And in 1982 she became the second woman in the world to fly in space. In two years she became the first woman in the world to walk in space. She was in space for almost 4 hours. She did many experiments on the Salute 7 space station. She proved that women are able to do hard job in space.