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
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.
clouds covered earth outside pacific protective rocket soon streaming sunlight view wonderful
During launch, the outside of the rocket is covered in a protective fairing, so we couldn't see outside, but as soon as that was jettisoned, my first view of the earth was over the Pacific Ocean, which was this wonderful deep blue, with clouds just over the top, and sunlight streaming in through the window.
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.
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.
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.
amount ground money science
You can do more science on the ground than you can in space for the same amount of money. But there is some science you can not do on the ground.
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.
I would much rather fly on Soyuz than the shuttle.
establish operated tv
I operated a periscopic TV camera so the commander, Anatoly Artsebarsky, could establish where we were heading. It is real teamwork on Soyuz.
physiology suited
I had been lucky that my physiology is well suited to space training.