Three spaceflight anniversaries, each separated by at least a decade, have a nexus, of sorts, in a comic strip that ran in newspapers just over 20 years ago.
Today marks 60 years since the first woman launched into outer space. On June 16, 1963, Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova lifted off on the Soviet Union's three-day Vostok 6 mission. A 26-year-old amateur parachutist, "Seagull" (as was her call sign) circled Earth 48 times while coming within 3 miles (5 kilometers) of Valery Bykovsky on board Vostok 5 and collecting the first physiological data, to be compared with her male counterparts.
It took another 20 years (and two days) for the United States to catch up and fly its first female astronaut. Sunday (June 18) is the 40th anniversary of Sally Ride becoming the first American woman to launch into space. A mission specialist on space shuttle Challenger's STS-7 crew, Ride was a nationally ranked junior tennis player and physicist when she was selected with five other women to join NASA's astronaut corps.
Related: Photos of Sally Ride, the 1st American woman in space
Once in orbit, Ride controlled the robotic arm to deploy and retrieve a free-flying experiment pallet, which also captured the first on-orbit "selfie" of the space shuttle orbiter itself.
Between those two milestones was the first mission to Skylab, the United States' first space station. Next Thursday (June 22) is the 50th anniversary of the first landing from the orbital workshop, when Pete Conrad, Joe Kerwin and Paul Weitz set a then-record of 28 days living and working in space.
So what does a 2002 black-and-white comic strip have to do with these three events? It all comes down to the imagination and knowledge — or lack thereof — of Johnny Hart.
