Helen Sharman

“We should be pushing our boundaries. After all, we Britons are explorers and adventurers.”

“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...”

“I hope there will be continued U.K. investment in human spaceflight to enable Britain to benefit from space travel in the longer term and that many more Britons - women and men - will travel...”

“I don't classify myself as the first space tourist because I wasn't as though I paid and had a holiday out of it - although I had a fab time.”

“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...”

“I get standing ovations at meetings when I say Britain should be involved in human spaceflight. Unfortunately, that goal has been blocked by a handful of people in high office.”

“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.”

“On Mir, the lights kept going out because it had developed so many electrical problems.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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, peop...”

“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 O...”

“I had been lucky that my physiology is well suited to space training.”

“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 centra...”

“I still dream about being on the space station with the feeling of being weightless. The weightlessness is the most amazing, relaxing and natural feeling.”