The first British person in space

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260518-helen-sharman-the-story-behind-the-first-british-person-in-space

by xoxxala • 2 months ago

107 59 2 months ago

That's a fantastic story. The "no experience necessary" ad is wild to think about now. It really shows how different the space industry was back then—and how a random moment can change everything. Sharman seems genuinely humble about it too. Thanks for sharing.

rob742• 2 months ago

I wasn't aware of it until now, and I was surprised to find out that it took until 1991 for a Briton to fly to space - and with the Russians/Soviets no less, not with the Americans. But, if you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_space_travel_by_na..., it looks like the Soviets recognized the propaganda value of giving a ride into space to citizens of "allied" nations (putting it in quotes because the Eastern European nations weren't really given the choice if they wanted to be USSR allies or not) much earlier than the Americans. When the US took West German Ulf Mehrbold into space with them in 1983, the Soviets had already done the same for ten (!) foreign nationals, including East German Sigmund Jähn in 1978 and Frenchman Jean-Loup Chrétien in 1982.

OK, to be fair, the US simply didn't have any crewed space launches between 1975 and 1981, that probably goes a long way to explaining this disparity. But still, once they started taking foreign citizens with them, I would have thought that Britain would be among the first on that list. Between 1984 and 1985 there were a Canadian, a Saudi, someone from the Netherlands and a Mexican, and then there was a long pause until 1992, presumably because of the Challenger disaster.

goodcanadian2• 2 months ago

Canada effectively bought its participation in the US space program with Canadarm.

neom• 2 months ago

Not feeling particularly charitable to your country folk this morning eh Good Canadian? The US didn't include Canada in the shuttle program as a favor or because Canada wrote a check, they included Canada because the technology was excellent and necessary. Canada had world class engineering skills at that time, and was invited by NSAS to participate. I don't think we bought our way on, I think our country happened to have an ounce of ambitions during that period and we preformed incredibly well.

https://parks.canada.ca/culture/designation/evenement-event/...

another-dave• 2 months ago

Exactly like the article describes Britain doing with the Soviets - " At the time the British government wasn't involved in space exploration, so paying for a spot on a flight was the only way to get there."

nephihaha7• 2 months ago

The Soviets picked up on this early on. They got the first woman into space long before the USA did. First black man and east Asian too. They took quite a few people from eastern bloc countries including Cuba and East Germany (which is mentioned in the film "Goodbye Lenin".)

avmich• 2 months ago

First remotely-Turkish descent person in space was Andriyan Nikolaev, the third Soviet cosmonaut (and the husband of Valentina Tereshkova).

nickdothutton2• 2 months ago

Brits more or less completely abandoned space in any meaningful way. Successive governments didn't value it at all in comparison to other areas of policy. Even after we developed our own independent orbital launch capability. The story is much the same today, a couple of satellite companies, very little real primary capability. Our "spaceports" are mostly artist impressions or computer generated imagery. Meanwhile we will spend £250b annually on the health service by 2028, up from £45b in 2000.

celticninja• 2 months ago

What is the point re the health service? We should be enriching people like musk instead of looking after the health of citizens? We spend money on loads of stuff just wondering why you think the NHS needs to be singled out as if it is using resources that could be used to find space exploration/launches.

TMWNN• 2 months ago

But still, once they started taking foreign citizens with them, I would have thought that Britain would be among the first on that list. Between 1984 and 1985 there were a Canadian, a Saudi, someone from the Netherlands and a Mexican, and then there was a long pause until 1992, presumably because of the Challenger disaster.

Without the loss of Challenger, a Briton would have flown in space on the shuttle in the 1980s. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zircon_(satellite)>

nephihaha7• 2 months ago

I'm sure they had a West German as well, in response to East Germans being taken up by the USSR. I may be wrong.

throawayonthe• 2 months ago

the Eastern European nations weren't really given the choice if they wanted to be USSR allies

that's generally how alliances work, out of necessity...

drumhead2• 2 months ago

It was really sad how she doesn't get the recognition she deserves for being the first Briton in space. Whether it's because she's a woman or because it was with the Russians she hasn't received the level of respect or adulation you expect for the achievement.

ascorbic2• 2 months ago

I was a child at the time and I absolutely remember her getting adulation and celebrity. The may have faded from a lot of memories since, but at the time she was definitely recognised

drumhead2• 2 months ago

I was an adult and other than being on the obvious shows like Blue Peter and newsround, there was nothing. You'd expect a knighthood or a peerage, all she's got is an OBE. England football team in 1990 got a parade through London for getting to the semi finals, and our first astronaut got...nothing.

SuddsMcDuff3• 2 months ago

Same, I didn't recognise her name immediately, but that iconic image of her was seared into my childhood memory.

t43562• 2 months ago

The public don't care that much about space I think - in the UK. It's not something people can pump themselves up with borrowed pride about.

Our media is full of arts students and engineers are the people who come to fix your boiler. When technology is talked about, its only really impressive if it comes from somewhere else and sits in their hand.

I'm from one of the other (forgotten) colonies so my perspective is partially from the inside and partially outside. and I think people in the UK care so much about preserving the abundant (and often rather ugly) past that they don't leave any room for the future. Satellites and spaceships and science and technology are horrible things that intrude and change life and change has often not been pleasant.

Conversely those that do want change have sometimes taken such a high and mighty approach that the things they did were entirely for themselves and proving some point rather than about creating a place that is wonderful to live in - hence the worship of the past.

Anyhow I do know about Helen Sharman and so do all the space enthusiasts generally but people here don't even know we have a satellite manufacturing industry that's quite successful and very sophisticated.

Aromasin• 2 months ago

The one thing British people do preen about with regards to technology is cars, but I think that has more to do with the cultural influence of Top Gear than it does the history.

graemep• 2 months ago

I think you are part right. I do not really see the worship of the past, and am often concerned about failures to preserve the past.

I think the problem with things like satellites and technology in general is more to do with the ruling class being declinist, unambitious, and plain incompetent. We will be spending more on HS2 than NASA spent on Artemis, and HS2 is not even achieving anything close to its original aims. That is just one example.

people here don't even know we have a satellite manufacturing industry that's quite successful and very sophisticated.

That is true. Again there is a reluctance of celebrate successes.

I am also also from a former colony BTW.

SuddsMcDuff3• 2 months ago

I don't think it's as bad as all that. Personally, I always feel a little prick of national pride when I watch Space X launches and see that Goonhilly Earth Station (https://www.goonhilly.org/) has taken over tracking the rocket.

louthy• 2 months ago

I think everybody in Britain of a certain age knows Helen Sharman. Her name popped into my head the moment I read the title of this post. It was certainly a big deal at the time.

I know we don’t fawn over astronauts here, but I’m not sure what additional “respect” or “adulation” you’d expect? She may not be a household name now, but she certainly was at the time.

ErroneousBosh• 2 months ago

Everyone knows who Helen Sharman is.

nly• 2 months ago

I'm not sure how hitching a ride with another space agency is a huge achievement. For her personally yes, but it's hardly national pride stuff, is it?

That said, she had an OBE, so has been recognised.

expedition32• 2 months ago

Do people take pride in rockets? Things like healthcare or a pension seem more valuable to me.

https://youtu.be/-4BRe0ZKTAc?si=Lk1yij8hDg_erZUj

nephihaha7• 2 months ago

She got a lot, and I mean a lot, of publicity at the time in the UK and I remember it well. However, her mission in itself wasn't particularly exciting and she certainly didn't engage in any gimmicks like playing a guitar in space.

She has had book tours, and has appeared on Brian Cox vehicles and the Sky at Night on numerous occasions.

Why isn't she well commemorated then?

* Personality? It obviously took personal toughness and resolve to get where she did. So that's moot. But she's never gone down the Chris Hadfield and Buzz Aldrin routes.

* Declining relations with Russia. Deffo a possibility. That and the fact that the UK media is very US-centric.

* The shine had gone off human space travel by the early nineties. Probes like Voyager etc were delivering the more exciting news. Her mission was fairly routine from what I remember.

There have been very few space travellers from the UK since. No Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish at all. It's worth pointing out that both Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin had big parades and tours in Scotland back in the day. Armstrong went to his ancestral Langholm and got the freedom of the town. Gagarin toured mining communities to great excitement. There is even a Gagarin Way in a town in Fife long after the mines have gone.

If we're talking about commemoration, then maybe she could have had a role in the London Olympics or various Commonwealth Games. Seems odd.

fidotron• 2 months ago

As others have pointed out at the time she absolutely did get attention. What the modern UK has memory holed is just how bonkersly pro-Russian it was in the 90s; everything from Tetris, Newton handwriting recognition, software generally, rockets, materials, nanotech, new gas supplies, having Abramovich buy Chelsea and the result being practically all the upper middle class exploring Russian (and ex Soviet) connections for investment. The former USSR was then what Qatar etc. are today. It does seem plausible that she fell into that hole along with everything else.

nephihaha7• 2 months ago

I wouldn't call the UK pro-Russian exactly. A lot of people were relieved the Cold War was over and many people did feel things would get better. There has been an attempt to reverse that, to the point that Tchaikovsky concerts were getting cancelled a few years ago which is ridiculous. Then you had Louise Mensch claiming Russia had produced nothing of cultural worth... A pretty outrageous statement whatever you think of their governments. In retrospect, Yeltsin's government was very corrupt and Russia's economy was demolished, which I think led us to where we are today. Soviet space achievements have definitely been airbrushed out.

Back in the seventies and eighties, there was definitely a pro-Soviet element in play as well as a pro-American one. It was often low key, but you could see it in the BBC sometimes, and definitely in the Labour Party. Yuri Gagarin did a successful tour of the UK which has been largely forgotten about, including visiting mining towns etc. Even someone as right wing as Patrick Moore was friendly with people from both the eastern and western space programmes, and helped the USSR with lunar mapping

alansaber• 2 months ago

I remember Tim Peake being touted as the first British astronaut, and being a little confused (having previously met Helen Sharman at Imperial College London) had to dig this story up myself.

iso16312• 2 months ago

I remember Tim Peake being a big thing, but I don't remember anyone saying he was first

jrmg• 2 months ago

People will argue that Sharman was a cosmonaut because she went into space with the Soviet Union.

The distinction is Cold War propaganda that has never made any sense to me. We have two English words to describe the same thing, but one is only used if the act was done or facilitated by Russia?

philipwhiuk• 2 months ago

We also have taikonaut but it's not taken as seriously ;)

IAmBroom• 2 months ago

People will argue. ESPECIALLY on HN.

I've yet to see a discussion that doesn't have a major subthread on an apparently unrelated subject. This is the Internet's vacation spot for "Well, ackshually" interjections.

Per the unwritten guidelines, each thread must also contain at least one reference to Musk, AI, or Tim Cook.

nephihaha7• 2 months ago

Technically that is correct, because Helen Sharman was a cosmonaut rather than an astronaut or taikonaut.

But NASA does that all the time. They recently claimed to perform the first flight and sound transmissions from another planet. The Soviet Venera missions had already done this during the 1980s from Venus. NASA performed the first powered flight on Mars.

WWWWH• 2 months ago

The story I remember is that at the time she worked for Mars (developing the Mars ice cream), so one of the tabloids had the headline:

"Woman from Mars goes to space!"

simonh• 2 months ago

Peak British journalism.

KineticLensman• 2 months ago

No, that was "Foot heads arms body", when Michael Foot became the chair of CND.

SuddsMcDuff3• 2 months ago

Funny this should show up today. Tomorrow evening (23rd of May), Helen Sharman is appearing at a live QA session at the National Space Centre - https://www.spacecentre.co.uk/whats-on/an-evening-with-helen...

It is sold out...

ThinkingGuy• 2 months ago

Couldn't help but be reminded of Eddie Izzard's old "Career Advisor" bit:

"I want to be a space astronaut, go to outer space and discover things that have never been discovered!"

"Look, you're British, so scale it down a bit, all right?"

https://youtu.be/xGGeLHnDQk8?si=XNEC8Pg8xER6EBOX&t=12

lo_fye• 2 months ago

Even in space, it's One Group vs The Others. To quote Trump, "Sad."

The first British person in space

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