Galina Balashova facts for kids

Galina Andreevna Balashova (Russian: Галина Андреевна Балашова, born in 1931) is a talented Russian architect and designer. She played a huge role in the Soviet space program, creating the look and feel inside many famous spacecraft.

Life Story of a Space Designer

Galina Balashova was born in Kolomna, a city in Russia. She studied architecture at the Moscow Architectural Institute. After finishing her studies in 1955, she started working at a design institute. Her first jobs involved making buildings simpler and less decorative.

In 1957, something exciting happened! She became a senior architect at OKB-1. This was the main design office for the early Soviet space program. At first, she designed homes for the people who worked there. But soon, her skills were needed for something much bigger: designing the inside of spacecraft!

Galina Balashova helped design the interiors of the Soyuz spacecraft. She also worked on the Salyut and Mir space stations. These were like homes in space for astronauts! She even helped as a consultant for the Buran programme, which was a Soviet space shuttle. She retired in 1991 when the Soviet Union ended. This meant her amazing designs, which were once secret, could finally be seen by everyone!

Designing for Space

Galina Balashova's work for the space program was very special. She designed everything from the inside of the spacecraft to the furniture and control panels. She even created cool logos and murals for the walls!

One of her biggest challenges was designing for a zero gravity environment. Imagine floating around! To help astronauts know which way was up or down, she used different colors for the floor and ceiling. This stopped them from getting confused. Her ideas for colors came from her childhood, when she loved doing watercolors. She also used the color green in her designs. This was because televisions at the time showed green colors best.

The Apollo-Soyuz Emblem

Galina Balashova also designed a special lapel pin for an exhibition in France in 1973. This design later became the official symbol for the famous Apollo–Soyuz Test Project. This was a historic meeting in space between American and Soviet spacecraft.

Even though she created the design, Galina was not allowed to put her name on it. Her bosses said it was for "safety reasons." This meant she didn't get credit for her amazing work, even though 100,000 pins were given out! Later, when the pins were being made, the factory secretly made certificates saying she was the creator. This made her superiors very angry. They thought they should get the credit. One of her bosses even threatened her! Galina had to say that the factory, not her, had made the certificate. She also had to give up any future money from her design. It's sad because another person later copied her design and reportedly made a lot of money from it.

Galina Balashova's pioneering work is now being recognized more. Her contributions to designing for zero gravity are slowly becoming known through exhibitions and books about women in architecture.

See also

In Spanish: Galina Balashova para niños Zarema Nagayeva

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