Valentina Tereshkova

I think you can tell from the report the first woman in space did not enjoy herself, in fact for years the rumour was Valentina was paralysed by fear for the whole mission.

Summary of Valentina Tereshkova’s Debriefing
The launch was excellent, the comunications good, I could hear all the calls from the ground. The G forces were weak, under 5.0. After orbital insertion I could see the earth through the Vzor and the porthole. Through the right porthole I could see the third stage of the rocket. I had no problem with zero-G. In the earth’s shadow I could communicate directly with Yastreb (Bykovskiy in Vostok 5). I saw stars on the night side and mistook the third magnitude star Vega for Venus. When first trying manual orienttion of the spacecraft, I closed the cotton (?) and could feel an explosion on the ejection of the can.
The first attempt at manual orientation was unsuccessful. I was not expecting the instruction from No. 20 (Korolev) to test manual orientation on the 38th orbit. When I tried again on the 45th orbit, I was able to orient the spacecraft for landing within twenty minutes. There was no failure of the orientation system.
The equipment was all right, but I didn’t need the globus or the other instruments. I filmed cities, forests, and rivers. I didn’t complete the biological experiment - I couldn’t reach the equipment. The dosimeter stayed at zero throughout the flight. The hygienic napkins had a bad smochen and were very small. I used them to clean my teeth. Using the color filters I could distinguish the colored bands of the horizon. I could see fires in South America, and cities at night.The light of the moon on the dark side of the earth was lovely. I tried to but could not observe the solar coronoa.
I didn’t release mysefl from the seat on the first day. On the second day I felt a nagging pain on my right shin, which became very disturbing by the third day.
Communications were all right. When first turning on the UHF all I got was static, and the static was always worse in the equatorial regions. I heard Vesna-1 and Vesna-4 well in the southern hemisphere. I had excellent communications with Yastreb on the first orbit, but these faded and by the second day it was no longer possible to talk directly with each other - we had to have our communications relayed through the earth stations.
Zero-G was pleasant, no problems and I enjoyed floating. The bread was awful, too dry, I didn’t eat it. I mainly ate the black bread and tubed onions. The water was cold and refreshing. I threw up once, but it was due to the food and not due to vestibular problems. The environmental control system worked as designed. My mental state was the same as one earth. I took two photometric measurements. Writing was no problem.
The spacecraft started solar orientation for retrofire on the dark side of the earth. I could hear the TDU retrorocket fire. I could feel the G forces against my spine during retrofire. The service module jettisoned cleanly, with no movement. I took 8 G’s on reentry. Through the porthole I could see glowing flakes flying by from the burning exterior of the capusle. After the G’s subsided there was a lot of smoke and heat in the spacecraft cabin. Ejection came quickly and correctly. After my parachute opened I could see the capusle below. The capusle, seat, and I came down together. It was not possible to control the canopy of my parachute and I landed on my back. People came running and stood by to assist me. The capusle landed about 400 m away. After an hour an aircraft flew over and two parachutists were dropped. After three hours I was able to reach a telephone and called Khrushchev and reported the successful completion of the flight.