Yevgeniy Savitskiy Yevgeniy Savitskiy Yevgeniy Yakovlevich Savitzky (; , Novorossiysk, Black Sea Governorate — 6 April 1990) was a World War II fighter ace, 22 individual and 2 group victories Commanding General of Aviation of the Air Defense Forces of the Country, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal of Aviation. The asteroid 4303 Savitskij is named for him. His daughter, Svetlana Savitskaya became a Soviet cosmonaut who flew the Soyuz T-7 in 1982, becoming the second woman in space some 19 years after Valentina Tereshkova and in 1984, the first woman ever to fly to space twice and to perform a
Astronaut Vostok 6 and orbited Earth for almost three days. Alan Shepard became the first American and second person in space on May 5, 1961, on a 15-minute sub-orbital flight. The first American to orbit the Earth was John Glenn, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, during Space Shuttle Challenger's mission STS-7, on June 18, 1983. In 1992 Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space aboard STS-47. Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first person to conduct an extravehicular activity (EVA), (commonly called a "spacewalk"), on March