Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, world's first woman to fly to space, attends a meeting of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin with activists of the ruling United Russia party in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2011. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, walks prior to a meeting with activists of a ruling United Russia in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2011. Former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov, center and first woman cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, second left, applaud.(AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (L) jokes with Soviet former cosmonaut and first woman in space Valentina Tereshkova, 74, after awarding her with the medal for "Merits in Space Exploration" in the Moscow Kremlin on April 12, 2011. Legendary astronauts, including a veteran of the US Apollo programme and the first man to walk in space on April 12 joined the widow of Yuri Gagarin in the Kremlin to remember his space flight 50 years ago. AFP PHOTO / POOL / YURI KOCHETKOV

PHOTO: EAST NEWS/ ARTUR STAREWICZ WIZYTA W OSRDKU BADAN KOSMICZNYCH W ROSJI, DRUGA POLOWA LAT 50 od lewej: VALENTINA VLADIMIROWNA TERESHKOVA (1937)- RADZIECKA KOSMONAUTKA, PIERWSZA KOBIETA W KOSMOSIE 16.VI. 1963. GOMULKA WLADYSLAW "WIESLAW" (1905-1982)- I SEKRETARZ PPR 1943-48, I SEKRETARZ KC PZPR 1956-70.

PHOTO; EAST NEWS/LASKI DIFFUSION WALENTINA TIERIESZKOWA - RADZIECKA KOSMONAUTKA, INZYNIER, PIERWSZA KOBIETA KTORA ODBYLA LOT PO ORBICIE OKOLOZIEMNSKIEJ. VALENTINA TERESHKOVA - SOVIET COSMONAUT AND THE FIRST WOMAN TO FLY IN SPACE.

US singers Whitney Houston, third left, and Dionne Warwick, second left, sing beside British fasion designer Vivienne Westwood, left, Valentina Tereshkova from Russia, first women in space, third right, German top model Nadja Auermann, second right, and Agnes Wessalowski participant in a special olympics team, right, to the end of the World Women's Award ceremony in Hamburg's Congress Center, northern Germany, on Wednesday, June 9, 2004. Houston and Warwick got the World Artist Award for Lifetime Archievement. The Women's World Awards are part of the global initiative

Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to travel in space - a three-day flight aboard Vostok 6, June 16, 1963 . (AP photo/Tass)

Samantha Smith, the Maine schoolgirl, met with Valentina Tereshkova, on Monday July 18, 1983 in Moscow, the first woman to fly in space 20 years age. Soviet leader Yuri Andropov invited Samantha to the Soviet Union.(AP Photo/

26 year old Valentina Tereshkova, who became the first woman to travel in space, is pictured as seen in a television transmission from her space craft, Vostok 6, June 16, 1963. (AP photo/Tass)