On 18 May 1991, Sheffield-born Helen Sharman became the first British astronaut. Helen was only six years old when Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first people to land on the surface of the moon.
Early years in Sheffield
Helen went to Grenoside primary school and Jordanthorpe Comprehensive School (now Meadowhead School) before studying for a degree in Chemistry at Sheffield University. She graduated in 1984 with a 2.1 and went on to work as an engineer in London. After that she got a job as a Research Technologist at Mars confectionary. Whilst she was working for Mars she also began studying for a PhD at Birkbeck College, London.
Astronauts needed
Helen was driving home one night in 1989 when she heard an advert on the radio which simply stated, “Astronauts wanted, no experience necessary.” She says, “I scribbled the phone number down on a petrol receipt in the car and when I got home, literally just phoned the number. Somebody at the other end asked me a few questions, really just to gauge that I did have the criteria that I was saying I did, and then I was sent an application form and it all went on from there.” The opportunity was presented as part of Britain and Russia’s joint Project Juno experiment, through which, due to a total lack of government space funding, private UK companies attempted to get a Briton into space. Helen was selected from more than 13,000 other applicants.
Preparing to go into space
She recalls, “They started off with psychological tests and medical tests. There were a few of us, I think the final sixteen, we went to the Institute of Aviation Medicine in Farnborough. We got whirled around in centrifuges to test our reactions to G-forces, and to see how motion-sick we are because quite a lot of people are actually sick, space sick, the same as being car sick or sea sick, it’s the same feeling. So they wanted to make sure that we wouldn’t be sick in space, and eventually four of us went off to Moscow for final psychological tests and medical tests, and then in November two were chosen to go and begin the training.” After a 17 month selection process Helen was chosen to go where no Briton had been before. Armed with a brooch given to her by her father and a portrait of the Queen, she was launched into space aboard the Soyuz TM-12 craft and orbited the Earth on the Mir space station for a week.
Since 1991 Helen has given many talks about her amazing experience and continues to work as a scientist and an ambassador for British science. Helen was awarded an OBE in 1992, and remains to this day the only British astronaut who hasn’t had to attain US citizenship before venturing into space.
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