Tereshkova, who embarked on a flight lasting 70 hours and 41 minutes around the Earth on June 16 1963, was sent into space as a high-profile exercise to flaunt the superiority of the Soviet Union's Socialist ideology.

The United States only sent its first woman into space, Sally Ride, in 1983.

But in a rare interview, the Soviet icon complained that she had never been allowed to make a second mission.

"They forbade me from flying, despite all my protests and arguments," Tereshkova told the Russian weekly Ogonyok.

"After being once in space, I was desperately keen to go back there. But it didn't happen," she added.

Russia sent another two women into space after Tereshkova: Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982 and Yelena Kondakova, who made the first ever long-duration flight by a woman in 1994-95.

The Russian space team currently counts just one female cosmonaut but she has made no missions into space although she trained as an understudy to Italian astronaut Robert Vittori who flew to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2001.

Nadezhda Kuzhelnaya, 40, complained in her last published interview that the male-dominated Russian space program did not make any attempt to include women.

"I would not say that female cosmonauts are not welcomed in the Russian space program. I must say, however, that all spaceflight hardware, including spacesuits and spacecraft comfort assuring systems, were designed mostly by men and for men. For this reason, women do not really fit into the Russian spacecraft environment," Kuzhelnaya said.

"I believe more women must be admitted to cosmonauts' training in Russia. Women are an important driving force behind human civilization's development. If women can be railroad workers in Russia, why can't they fly in space?" she demanded.

A top Russian space official sought Monday to soothe those concerns, promising that women would be considered in the next recruitment drive for cosmonauts -- which could be in several years' time.

"It has not been easy to select experienced, good male specialists either. We are ready to consider female candidates for the next recruitment," Alexander Alexandrov from the Energiya space construction firm said.

Nine male candidates joined the Russian cosmonaut team in late May, the first recruitment to take place in the past five years. The team currently is made up of 44 astronauts.

Just a few months ago, the head of Russia's space agency said it would be "a long time" before any Russian women could fly to space because of severe cutbacks prompted by the loss of the US space shuttle Columbia in February.

"If we decide to send female cosmonauts to the International Space Station, it won't be for a long time," Yury Koptev said.

"There will be a place for women cosmonauts aboard the station once the mission teams comprise six or seven people," he said.

In contrast, US space officials have already announced that the crew of the next space shuttle to take off when the program resumes following the February 1 disaster that killed seven astronauts will be commanded by an American woman.

Tereshkova meanwhile angrily denied longstanding rumours that she had hardly coped with her flight and was practically unconscious the whole time in orbit as "absurd and ridiculous."

"I felt fine after 24 hours and asked the state commission to prolong my stay in space to three days. And I carried out the entire schedule. Could I have done that if I had been 'half-dead'?" she said.

SPACE.WIRE