"As far as their will and desire to go on with space research and exploration, we welcome it," Valentina Tereshkova said of China's planned launch of the Shenzhou 5 this week.

Tereshkova's own mission in June 1963, as commander of the Vostok 6, added to the prestige of the former Soviet Union's space program. Two years earlier, her compatriot Yuri Gagarin had become the first man in space.

Like the Soviets, China hopes to showcase its technological prowess with the Shenzhou 5, whose name means "Divine Vessel.'' Its launch, set for sometime between Wednesday and Friday, and successful orbit of the earth would make China only the third nation to send a person into space, after the ex-Soviet Union and the United States.

But Tereshkova said China could not have accomplished the feat alone.

Chinese astronauts spent months undergoing rigorous physical training at the Russia Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, near Moscow, she said. There, they experienced the high temperatures and body-wrenching gravitational forces of takeoff and landing and the weightlessness and discomfort of thickening blood in zero-gravity in preparation for their flight, Tereshkova said.

Much has changed since Tereshkova's three-day, 1.2-million-mile (1.9-million-kilometer) trip 48 times round the globe.

Many women have followed her into space, she said.

Also, the dehydrated food and solidified liquids she and the other cosmonauts consumed during their flight came in tubes, she said.

Nowadays, astronauts choose from an extensive menu of freeze-dried meals and can even heat up their food on spacecraft that come equipped with an oven, she said.

One thing that hasn't changed, however, is the pioneering spirit -- and the risks, underscored by the space shuttle Columbia's destruction on Feb. 1.

"I am aware that it is very difficult for space pioneers to go along a path that hasn't been explored yet,'' said Tereshkova, now 66. "Practically, we had to sacrifice our daily lives for the sake of it. It took our lives sometimes, too."

Still, she predicted that space travel would someday become common for people other than seasoned pilots and astronauts, following American Dennis Tito's $20 million trip on a Russian craft as the first-ever space tourist.

Even Tereshkova might consider going again.

"I dream of going again," she said, laughing and turning her eyes skyward.