I don't want to refer to the arianist name of Ariane the "european" rocket : Definition of Europe is hidden and will stay matter of debate. States are well defined and trusting in Peace so I only want to refer to legal nationalities.
At the time of the first launches of Svetlana Savitskaia and Sally Ride USA and URSS were already working and flying together in Space, despite cold war and military competition.
They both discovered that male astronauts teams were improved if women were added. Despite Russia no more wanted to send a woman after Valentina Terechkova, the US politic of quota against all discriminations was a positive action. The time of Jerry Cobb and Mrs Vitality for the Mercury project was far away. So US decision to send Sally Ride changed URSS choice who knew that Savitskaia was an excellent choice if already women had to be sent. Valentina Terechkova had been sent around the country to deliver a political message and had been put aside despite her want to fly again... Finaly Russia sent Svetlana Savitskaia earlier than USA with Sally Ride. But the difference of schedule was not significative of the not independant decision to launch female astronauts/cosmonauts.
The high psychological difficulty of long multicrew missions in Space decided these good choices.
roulishollandais
Last edited by roulishollandais; 26th Jul 2013 at 02:42.