StoryGnat #13: Space Lady

Hi hi StoryGnatters,

Another week, another story to share. Like many of these stories, this one comes with strong childhood memories for me.

A few years ago, Tim Peake caught the attention of the nation, becoming the first Brit IN AGES to go into space.

But he wasn’t the first Brit in space.

I remember that individual very well.

Because she was a woman, and I was an impressionable 10 year old watching the story unfold on Blue Peter and Newsround.

Helen Sharman

I’m not sure you can really say there’s a typical route to becoming an astronaut, but if there is, Helen Sharman’s wasn’t it.

She applied after hearing a radio ad on the way home from work.

Yep, “Astronaut wanted. No experience necessary.”

And she beat almost 13,000 other applicants to win her place and went on to train intensively for 18 months in Moscow’s Star City.

When she went into space in May 1991, she was 27 (nearly 28). She spent eight days up there, mostly at the Mir space station. Her trip was part of Project Juno, a Soviet–British mission sponsored by a group of British businesses which aimed to boost UK-Soviet relations as tensions between the two countries thawed.

Helen Sharman never returned to space, but she’s never looked back. Since that great adventure, she’s focused on engaging the public in science and spaceflight by communicating them in a way that’s exciting and easy to understand.

Over the years, she’s added more than ten honorary degrees from UK universities to the undergraduate degree and PhD she already had before her journey into space started. But I like to think her Blue Peter badge beats them all.

There’s a great interview with her here.

Do you remember Helen Sharman? Were you at the other end of another TV screen, watching Blue Peter with ten-year-old me?

Until next week,

Meg