Voting Station

Svetlana Savitskaya

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Astronaut

The Resume

    (August 8, 1948- )
    Born in Moscow, Russia
    Flew on Soyuz T-7 (1982) and Soyuz T-12 (1984)
    Second woman in space
    First woman to fly in space twice
    First woman to perform a spacewalk
    People's Deputy of the USSR (1989-90) and Russia (1990-92)
    Elected to the State Duma representing the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (1996)

Why she might be annoying:

    She began parachuting in her teens without her parents' knowledge. (Her father found out when he discovered a parachute knife in her school bag.)
    When she first entered the Salyut 7 space station, cosmonaut Valentin Lebedev handed her an apron and told her to 'get to work.'
    She said about the welding exercises she performed during her spacewalk, 'I did not understand the point of it.' (Fueling suspicion that the event was contrived so she could beat out American Kathryn D. Sullivan as first woman to walk in space.)
    Plans for her to command an all-female cosmonaut crew for International Women's Day were scrubbed twice -- first due to a loss of power on the Salyut 7 space station (1985), then because of Savitskaya's pregnancy (1986) -- before being cancelled.
    She remains a dedicated Communist and said she was glad her parents did not live to see the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She set women's parachuting records with stratospheric jumps of 13.8 km (8.5 miles) and 14.25 km (8.85 miles) (1965).
    She was a member of the all-female pilot team that won the FAI World Aerobatic Championship (1970).
    She set a women's speed record in a MiG at 2,683 km/hr (1,667 mi/hr) (1975).
    She responded to Lebedev's apron presentation with, 'Housekeeping duties are the responsibility of the host cosmonauts.'
    She said, 'I was quickly able to establish a working, professional relationship' with the male cosmonauts.
    She was one of five cosmonauts chosen to raise the Russian flag at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Sochi (2014).

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 14 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 6 Votes: 33.33% Annoying