Helen Sharman

Born on 30 May 1963 in Sheffield, England, Helen Sharman is a chemist who became the first Briton in space in 1991. She received a PhD from Birkbeck, University of London and worked in industry as an engineer and then a chemist. In 1989 she heard on the radio about a commercial British space mission that was looking for astronauts. She beat out more than 13 000 applicants to join Project Juno. After a year and a half of training at Star City near Moscow, Sharman launched into space on 18 May 1991 with two Soviet cosmonauts aboard a Soyuz capsule; she was just shy of 28 years old. Sharman performed a variety of chemical, medical, and agricultural experiments throughout the seven-day mission, which docked with the Mir space station. Sharman has not returned to space since her historic mission, but she has been very active in science and science communication. She has worked at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, Kingston University London, and Imperial College London, where she is currently operations manager in the chemistry department. (Photo credit: Anne-Katrin Purkiss, CC BY-SA 4.0 )

Date in History: 30 May 1963