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
deal food
Just because I'm a woman does not mean I have to deal with everything to do with food.
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.
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.
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.
We should be pushing our boundaries. After all, we Britons are explorers and adventurers.
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.
direct flight government human interested longer returns short
Politicians and the government have become too interested in short-term gains. Of course, if you look at the direct financial returns in the short term, human space flight is expensive. But they need to look longer term.
astronauts eaten lettuce produced station taken
While we've taken seeds into space, and astronauts on the International Space Station have eaten lettuce they've grown, we haven't produced fruit in space, so we can't pollinate something.
however mars morally people seriously surely trip
Is a one-way trip to Mars ever really seriously going to happen? Surely that's morally reprehensible. However old people are, however much they say they want to go on a one-way mission, people should be thinking about the possibility of returning.
developed kept
On Mir, the lights kept going out because it had developed so many electrical problems.
human science worth
You don't go into space just for the science. Economically, it is not worth it. I think the reason we should be in space is for the exploration; it's the human endeavour.
economy government human science useful
The government will see that human spaceflight is useful - for science and the economy - and inspirational.
definitely
Britain should definitely be part of a Mars mission.