Helen Sharman
Helen Sharman
Dr Helen Patricia Sharman OBE FRSCis a British chemist who became the first British astronaut and the first woman to visit the Mir space station in 1991...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionAstronaut
Date of Birth30 May 1963
ahead became city learning life lived remote russian star trip year
I lived at Star City for more than a year ahead of my trip to Mir on May 18, 1991 in Soyuz TM-12. My life at Star City was so remote that learning Russian became my greatest priority.
atoms became began coming highly negatively positively
As the craft re-entered earth's atmosphere, it was coming in so fast, it heated up the surrounding atoms and molecules, and they became positively and negatively charged, and highly reactive, and began luminescing all around us.
although appears brick brilliant clouds deserts earth ireland looks red stand
From space, the earth appears predominantly blue; the clouds are brilliant white. Surprisingly, you don't see much green, although Ireland looks green, and so do Scandinavia and New Zealand. The deserts are brick red and really stand out.
cannot earth gain good science stuff understanding
There is good science you can do in space. There is stuff there you cannot do on Earth and we can gain understanding from it.
asking fascinated gets interested motivates people science
People are fascinated by space flight. It makes them interested in science, gets them asking questions and motivates them.
people
It's very exciting that people could actually live on another planet.
love
I'd love to go back to space, I don't know any astronaut who doesn't want to.
physiology suited
I had been lucky that my physiology is well suited to space training.
although classify paid though time tourist
I don't classify myself as the first space tourist because I wasn't as though I paid and had a holiday out of it - although I had a fab time.
definitely
Britain should definitely be part of a Mars mission.
We should be pushing our boundaries. After all, we Britons are explorers and adventurers.
deal food
Just because I'm a woman does not mean I have to deal with everything to do with food.
dawn earth faster lightness meant periods towards
Because we were orbiting the earth faster than earth spins on its axis, we went around the earth 16 times a day, an earth day, which meant 16 periods of lightness and 16 periods of darkness in 24 hours. Every so often you'd look towards the earth, and often you could see lightness and darkness together, and dawn and sunset were spectacular.
books central city deserves earth history huge humans left moment star thousand travel written
When the history books are written in a thousand years, when space travel would have become routine, the moment that humans first left Earth will be of huge importance. Star City is a central part of this story and it deserves more recognition.