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Join us on our quest for the extraordinary!
Sam McKee (@polymath_sam) has 9 university qualifications across 4 subjects including doctorates in history and philosophy of science and molecular biology. He researches both at two British universities and contributes to both space science and cancer research. Meet fellow polymaths and discipline leaders working on the frontiers of research from all over the world. Be inspired to pursue knowledge and drive the world forwards.
Watch and share interviews with professors, lecturers, researchers, engineers, scientists and astronauts, right here! We talk to the most extraordinary people working on the frontiers for humanity, driving research forwards and changing the world that we live in. We dive deep with thinkers, academics and true icons - many of whom you won't yet have heard of.
Listen to us here and on podcast whilst you drive, exercise, do chores, and be inspired to pursue extraordinary in your own life.
www.sam-mckee.co.uk
Polymath World (00:01.323)
Hello and welcome to the Polymath World channel and I am so delighted today because we're speaking to someone who inspired me so much when I was in primary school. It is such an honor and delight today to be joined by the first ever British person in space, Helen Sharman, who flew in 1991 to the space station Mir. I am wearing today my British Interplanetary Society tie, of which I'm a proud fellow. And Dr. Sharman here is a very important figure at the British Interplanetary Society. And I've also brought my copy of Seize the
The Original Book of Your Time and Space. Thank you so much for joining me today Helen.
Helen Sharman (00:37.144)
Thank you, Sam, for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here.
Polymath World (00:40.703)
Yeah, your story has been told many, many times, but I remember being seven years old and having, holding my Union Jack flag and waving it proudly with everyone else in school as you took off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan to be the first British person in space. I'm not sure where to start really, but no, we always start in the beginning. Would you tell us about your background, how you got interested in science in the first place, how you took up chemistry?
Helen Sharman (01:09.09)
Wow, I liked a lot of stuff actually. was not particularly better at any one subject at school. I just enjoyed learning, I suppose. And I really enjoyed foreign languages, liked music, did enjoy the sciences. And in the end, actually, I was quite pragmatic in the end to choosing my A levels. I chose sciences at A levels and maths because I thought actually they would give me more options later on. I could...
relatively easily go to another country and learn to speak that language much more easily than I could pick up a science later on in life anyway, had I not continued with my science studies at school. So that was my reason for doing science. I did maths, physics, chemistry at A level and also my reason for choosing a science at university. I it could have been engineering to be honest, but I didn't know much about engineering. And so I sort of plumped with a fairly safe option, which was chemistry, because it was kind of
You know, I could have perhaps gone on the more physical side or the more biological side and I still didn't know what I wanted to do. I just knew that there was a lot of stuff going on in the world and a lot of stuff I didn't know about, but science could open doors. And I'm so glad that that's the way I chose. I decided I did enjoy my sciences anyway at university, I knew I would, and then continued to use my, I mean, of course you don't use all your degree when you start work, even if it's in research.
But I was working in, I got a job in the electronics industry. Because I, again, I wanted to experience a bit of variety. And so I was in, I wanted to find out what manufacturing was like. And so I worked on display screens and being the only chemist in my department. So everybody else was, but they were physicists, were electronic engineers, right? And then there was this chemist, but I was working on the materials involved in the display screens and the water quality and so on. And I loved that.
After a few years though, I did move on, stayed in industry, because I did get the manufacturing bug. And I went to Mars Confectionery making then ice cream and moved into the chocolate department in the end. Loved that. Had not thought about moving on until one day driving home from work, I heard an announcement on my car radio and the words began, astronaut wanted no experience necessary. And that began some basic criteria.
Helen Sharman (03:29.185)
Have you got a STEM subject education? I thought, yeah, I've got that. So that was the first criterion, right? So if you haven't got a STEM subject education, then you couldn't even sort of get past the first hurdle. But so, and any STEM subject education, right? Because the training was going to train us up to do what we needed to do. But if you've got a basic STEM background, actually you can learn, learn really what you need to do.
not just in space, but in so many different aspects of life, which is why it's so great to have a STEM education, really. So yeah, they wanted to pick somebody who was interested in languages, because all the training was going to be done in the Russian language. So we had to learn that pretty quickly. thought, hey, wow, yeah, I like languages. Don't speak Russian, but I do enjoy languages. And, you know, physically fit, the right age. You know what? I've got those criteria. I could apply for that, but they'll never choose me.
They're never going to choose somebody who works in making chocolate sweets. They're bound to choose somebody who, in my brain, I remembered from my childhood, you said you were in primary school when I flew. Well, because I was in primary school when the Apollo astronauts were flying. And so the great hype that we had then, you know, people going to the moon, all these amazing fighter pilots, were test pilots, they were military people.
They weren't like me, right? I was never going to be like them. So for me, was that space was never on my agenda. And when I heard this announcement for a new space mission that was asking for British people to apply, thought, you know, that they'll choose somebody like, like I remember from those Apollo days. But by the time I got home from work, I realized, of course, that if I didn't apply, I stood absolutely zero chance.
And so it was worth that. And actually, even just going through an application process of a job that's something quite different from what you might have otherwise expected, it starts your brain thinking, how might you deal with certain situations? Would you enjoy doing certain activities? And I think whatever that job might be, it's always nice sometimes just to push ourselves out of our...
Helen Sharman (05:43.563)
our normal comfort zones. So I realized it wasn't actually a total waste of time, even if I didn't get past the first part of the application. So I decided to have a go.
Polymath World (05:53.334)
I just wonder, had space ever registered in your brain before? I mean you took about a general STEM interest but as a child were you, you know, were you fascinated with Apollo? Were you looking up at the night sky and visiting planetariums? Did that come into play at all?
Helen Sharman (06:12.789)
I was honestly just the same as all my friends in that regard that we, space was there. We got a bit bored with Apollo because it was, God, another Apollo project that we've got to do a school. And it became, everything was Apollo this, Apollo that. So we said, we not do something different, honestly? We didn't really understand much about it. I didn't appreciate, I think, the technology and the risks that were being taken to get astronauts to the moon.
And some of the, you know, the communications angle, the lunar dust and all of those details just completely bypassed me at the age of six, seven years old, you know, when it was all happening. So, yes, it was just a bit of a hype and we knew that people were on the moon, but I didn't even appreciate how far away the moon is. I didn't really understand how the tides worked at that time. you know, life was, it was all, yes, it all really,
was over my head, if I'm quite honest, but literally as well as figuratively. So no, was something that happened. It was in our consciousness, but also it wasn't happening to Britain. I know it was, I know the Americans, NASA will say, well, we went on behalf of the whole world.
Polymath World (07:21.557)
Yes.
Helen Sharman (07:28.119)
But it was America, we knew it was America and Britain wasn't involved in anything as exciting as that in space, as far as I understood. And I never really got the hype of space until I started to become interested because suddenly there it was, there was an opportunity that I could actually get involved with myself.
Polymath World (07:50.624)
Yes, and there's also the fact in play that, I mean, Valentina Tereshkova had been the first woman to fly. Then you have the first...
the first six NASA astronauts who were women from that famous 78 class who had been beginning to fly in the 80s, so Sally Ride, Kathy Sullivan, Anna Fisher, those sorts, Shannon Lucid, they were flying. But then you've got that gap after Challenger of two and a half years where the shuttle wasn't flying at all. So there's not been a lot of women flying as well. Did that factor in at all to your concerns?
Helen Sharman (08:30.059)
think gender came into it actually at all. I'd been used to being the only girl in school studying physics, the only girl doing chemistry. I'd been used to being one of the few women studying chemistry at university. There was more than me, but we were certainly in a minority. I was not phased by being the only woman in technology in my department when I started working in electronics. There were a few more women working in...
sort of research and development at Miles Confectionery when I joined there. So yeah, it's just, I've just always just sort of done, suppose, what I wanted regardless of my gender and being glad to have done that. It's difficult to know how life would have been had I been male, of course. So yeah, I've just been able to, I suppose, not have that as a barrier in my own brain. So yeah, it didn't bother me.
Polymath World (09:25.055)
It's an interesting time where women flying to space is becoming more normal and it's quite exciting and that it's still breaking ground, but it is still such a male dominated space in terms of the astronaut corps. But tell us a bit of what the process was like then, because it's not a typical astronaut application and a lot of people did apply. So could you give us an insight into what that process was?
Helen Sharman (09:50.062)
Yeah, was, after this basic announcement, there was a phone number. So basically a call center was set up and we were asked some basic questions at the end of a phone and then application forms were sent out. And I think they received something like five, five and a half thousand completed application forms from about 13,000 initial application, initial queries. And then we started sort of, that was filtered.
So there were then medicals and psychological tests and then more medicals and more psychological tests. Gradually they whittled us down. There were 22 of us, I think, who went to the Institute of Aviation Medicine as it was then at Farnborough. And we did more specific space flight medicals. So things like being spun around in a centrifuge, which was my first experience of that. So I'm fascinated to see how that was. And there's some, are we...
motion sick, so therefore is there a tendency to space sickness? So there's an awful lot of those sort of those medicals that went on there. And then eventually there were four of us who went out to Moscow for a couple of weeks. We were basically living in a hospital there while the space doctors completed yet more psychologicals and topped up any of the medicals that they hadn't yet managed to find for us. And yeah, and the end of those two weeks, we were brought back to the UK. There was a live
TV program on which we it was announced who was going to be training in the Soviet Union as it was then, you know, so yeah, this very 1989. So Soviet Union towards the end of the Cold War, it was still very other, you know, it was, yeah, a really exciting place to visit, actually, not just to, you know, let alone live and train with the cosmonauts. So that was all part of the reason why I wanted to go to be quite honest to experience that.
Polymath World (11:27.733)
Yes.
Helen Sharman (11:43.784)
of the world to explore that. Never really expecting that not only would I not get chosen to do the training, but there were two of us doing that training and one of us would eventually go into space and one would remain on the ground as a backup, but for most of that training we didn't know who would get which role. it was Major Timothy Mace who was in, had been in the Army Air Corps. So I mean very similar in many respects to Tim Peake and his experience.
Polymath World (12:10.806)
Yes.
Helen Sharman (12:12.449)
But Tim Mason and did our training together. Eventually it was decided that Tim would be the backup and I would be the prime. So I then trained mostly with that prime crew. But yeah, was, so yeah, very exciting times. Spent two winters in in Star City near Moscow. What a fascinating place to be.
Polymath World (12:30.324)
Yeah.
Polymath World (12:33.843)
Yes, very hallowed ground. And here in the UK, there was the excitement building. You gained the moniker, the girl from Mars, because of your working at the Mars chocolate place. Your mission is called Juno. I'm interested in how it came about. You know that it would be seven or eight days to the space station Mir. How did Juno emerge as an opportunity in the first place?
Helen Sharman (12:41.677)
I
Helen Sharman (13:01.663)
yeah, this was, back to Soviet Union times, there'd been a really successful, what the Soviets call their intercosmos program. So this was a space program where the Soviet space agency flew astronauts from communist friendly countries. So there'd been a Polish astronaut, a Cuban astronaut, for instance, a Bulgarian astronaut and...
That program was sort of had had a bit of a hiatus. then Gorbachev, President Gorbachev was sort of starting to reach out to the West politically, right? And the Soviet Union was starting to become much more open. And the Soviet Space Agency sort of decided that they would have a sort of continuation of their old intercosmos program, but this was with Western countries. So President Gorbachev reached out to the UK, to Austria.
and a number of Western countries actually, eventually, so the UK came on board, so did Austria and Germany, and later on France, actually they sent their second astronaut with the Soviet Union then as part of that program, their first had gone a bit earlier. Also Japan, so this was not the Japanese space agency, but actually a Japanese company, a media company, Turkey Broadcasting Systems Services, I think, that they sent a couple of people. So that was done very much on a commercial.
basis. My mission also was sort of commercial because although was Gorbachev had approached the UK as a government, our government then had no, had a policy actually of not flying humans into space. So it was difficult to turn that policy around quickly enough to do anything. Although Margaret Thatcher, course, great buddies with Gorbachev and was very supportive of my mission and met me a couple of times and
Polymath World (14:53.579)
Yes.
Helen Sharman (14:53.805)
Yeah, I was very happy to have her photograph taken with me or have my photograph taken with her was more like and yeah, it was an interesting time in that respect. So, you know, where there's a will there's a way. A company was set up to manage the mission. So taxpayers money was not directly involved. There was some commercial funding that they did manage, this company did manage. It wasn't totally successful commercially, if I'm honest. there was a...
problem of within a few months of me starting training where the mission might not actually succeed because sufficient funds hadn't been being gained. But in the end, then there was a new agreement with the Soviet space agency. I don't know how much diplomacy went on behind the scenes. I would be surprised if there was none. But eventually I flew Soviet experiments. That was part of the arrangement.
I don't think the company paid as much as a Soviet space agency had originally agreed with them, but I got to fly into space. And the UK had got its astronauts.
Polymath World (15:58.912)
Yes, I wanted to ask you about your meeting with Margaret Thatcher. That's quite a thing to happen. It's sort of the first female Prime Minister who was such a force of nature and the longest serving Prime Minister we've had, well, almost ever. And then yourself, the first British woman in space. must have been a really amazing experience.
Helen Sharman (16:21.773)
And the Russians were, or the Soviets were very happy to remind me that of course we also had our head of state as a queen. So they were very, they thought this was all a wonderful trio. So the fact that I could even be mentioned in the same sentence as the prime minister and the queen was quite an honor really. so, but Mark Thatcher met Tim Mace and myself a couple of times and it was, yeah, was quite...
or in Spine, really, it was the first time I'd been into 10 Downing Street. you see all the, you go up the staircase, you see all the pictures of previous prime ministers. But it was a great experience. And of course she wanted to find out from us how the mission was progressing and was keen to make sure that she could support where possible. And yeah, I always felt as though the UK was, terms of the politically, was very much in support of the mission, even though they were trying to keep it at arm's length.
for reasons we just discussed.
Polymath World (17:22.593)
Yes, and there has been this tension and it does come up a lot in discussion at the British Interplanetary Society that although Britain has been a major player in terms of satellites and technology and industry, we've never really seemed that interested in human spaceflight and all the inspiration that could come with it. Did you get the sense that it wasn't just a case that this was such a novel thing that was happening, but that there was interest in government in
in human spaceflight for all those reasons and more.
Helen Sharman (17:55.32)
Well, I think, I mean, certainly back in, as I discovered, well, after it had happened, but back in the 1980s, of course, there'd been our four British people, military and civil servant, who were training with NASA as part of satellite program. And one of them would have been the first British astronaut had the Challenger accident not happened when it did. That then created that hiatus in space shuttle launches.
And it was in that intervening time that the UK then pulled out, the astronauts had to come back home, they couldn't continue their training until NASA fixed all of its safety problems. But that was when the UK decided it did not want to continue with funding that particular mission with humans. And to be quite honest, did you need humans to actually launch a satellite? Well, they would have done other things, I'm sure, as well. But we were quite happy to launch satellites much more...
know, automatically these days. So I kind of get possibly why we didn't need a human, but the sad thing was, of course, that there was a lot of other science that was lost, a lot of that could have been instigated and we could have been much more part of the European astronaut program from a much earlier stage. But Britain continued to sort of keep to this line on the rationale actually that it was
Far too longer term investment really. It's very expensive putting humans into space and it's true it is. Not really understanding how much science you can benefit from so quickly with humans but nonetheless the idea was that it's expensive, it's very long term investment so it's better to put our money into shorter term investment programmes like remote sensing, so earth observation.
where we've become really big in this country. And of course we had already a burgeoning satellite industry and in particular small satellites. So, that has been very successful for the UK. I just have always felt sad that we're still very late to the party in terms of human space flight. And the European Space Agency has not forgotten that and is not going to suddenly decide, the UK sort of.
Polymath World (20:05.696)
Yes.
Helen Sharman (20:17.429)
minimally funding now human spaceflight, we're going to allow loads of space missions. We've still got astronauts training in ESA, but they can't get a flight until the UK funds it properly.
Polymath World (20:29.47)
Yes.
Yeah, we had a wonderful chat on this channel with Megan Christian, who could be the next British ESA astronaut, if all things work out, and of course Rosemary Coogan as well, and John, good luck to them, but I feel they're in a tricky situation where if we don't stump up the money, they just won't fly. And nothing inspires young people like seeing people fly in space. As much as NASA and ESA and all the various programs, private ones are littered with amazing
Helen Sharman (20:43.446)
Absolutely.
Polymath World (21:00.195)
British minds, nothing inspires them like yourself or Michael Fowle or Pierce Sellers and others who've flown.
Helen Sharman (21:07.635)
That is true. I don't think though that we should go into space just for that, just for that inspiration. I think that's something that we gain by investing in the programmes for other reasons, right? So because you could argue there are all sorts of ways to inspire, but I agree, it is a fabulous way to inspire people. We need to, of course, keep it going, but yeah, and you can only really inspire so much. The space industry and all of that, that comes by being part of
an international sort of landscape really of industries, political investment, of political interest. And so I think that that's where it will really could benefit much more rather than just sort of dipping our toe in the water and then taking it back out again. And I know it's expensive, right? But it's in the vast scheme of things.
If you compare with the defence budget, the education budget, the healthcare budget, they all are very important. But space flight, even a human space flight programme is so small. And we will reap the benefits. It's just a long term investment. And Britain needs to wake up to the fact that if we don't invest in the long term, as well as the medium and the short term, then we will be behind everybody else when it comes to that longer term.
Polymath World (22:34.261)
Yes, absolutely, 100%. I'm curious as to how much time you got to train with your crew for Juno. How long was your preparation for flight? Because it was a different kind of experience.
Helen Sharman (22:49.409)
The whole training was 18 months. So very short when it comes to, if you like, a career astronaut training where you're trained for a couple of years in almost everything because you don't know what sort of mission you're going to have and then you will have a few months specifically training for your mission. This we knew exactly that it was one particular mission. We knew what time of year it was going to happen. We knew the experiments that we're going to need to do and we knew all of the systems that we were going to be working in. So it wasn't as though we don't know what spacecraft we're going to use. So we could really focus the training.
And yeah, so 18 months, three months of learning the Russian language, because then the rest of it was done in that language and doing physical training as well. And then we really got to grips of a lot of the theoretical work and then it got more practical. You do emergency training, you do simulator training. But it's with my actual crew, I trained with a number of astronaut cosmonaut trainees, including my crew and what became the backup crew.
and also the crew who launched in the mission before mine, because actually they were the crew who I ended up returning to Earth with. So yeah, you train with a lot of different people, but as time approaches the mission itself, it becomes more and more focused around the actual crew that's going to go together.
Polymath World (24:05.983)
And how was the launch? Tell us about launching on the Soyuz. Could anything really prepare you for that? How did you find that whole experience?
Helen Sharman (24:15.767)
Yeah, mean, we were well prepared, I think. But yes, the first time, of course, you've never actually felt it. You've never actually heard that rumble of the engines as they're firing and so on. it's actually, I mean, I suppose it's a spectacular time for the people on the ground, for all the people watching a space mission. It's the only time that we can really see anything is the launch, right? And so we get very excited for the launch.
For astronauts, it's the beginning of a mission. It's just the first bit that you've got to get over. It's a bit like, what is your job? Well, you need to somehow often reach your job. You travel to your workplace of work and it's that, well, you get it once you've done your travel, you then start. And so in a way, it's a bit like that. Yes, of course, it's, you know, there are a few hazards during the launch. There are more, I would say for the landing, for the return to earth, but you don't see that so much from the ground.
But yes, three different stages in a Soyuz rocket. The first two work simultaneously, so it's kind of one and a half really, but you feel, you know, that thrust does build up slowly actually to start with. It was quite windy and I could feel the rocket just sort of being blown around a little bit on the launch pad. But then as the acceleration increases, you feel the drop in acceleration when the boosters are used up and jettisoned. Central Core continues to work. That's what we call then the second stage.
but then that's jettisoned and then we drop down to about half a G before the third stage kicks in. you know, maximum about four, four and a half G of acceleration. It's over very quickly, right? So 526 seconds, I think it is. So that's less than nine minutes where exactly where we need to be. And we sort of released that final rocket stage. And then suddenly, of course, instead of being pushed back down and back into your seat, feeling heavy,
Polymath World (25:49.537)
Thanks.
Helen Sharman (26:05.005)
you're then immediately feeling weightless, a glorious feeling.
Polymath World (26:08.349)
Yeah. So nine minutes to orbit, how long does it take for you to rendezvous with the space station Mir?
Helen Sharman (26:16.329)
well, back when I flew, was two days and it still is occasionally two days depending on the actual, you know, the launch profile where the space station is compared to the Soyuz rocket. But mostly these days they get managed to get to space station within a few hours, much more comfortable in some respects. Because of course the Soyuz spacecraft itself is quite small.
I mean, everybody's going on about, the Orion spacecraft that's going to send four astronauts to the moon. They're the old cooped up in this tiny spacecraft. And I'm thinking it's enormous compared to Soyuz. But yes, appreciate, we did only have two days in it. But yeah, there are two compartments that the crew actually can go in. There's a third which contains all of our electronics, fuel tanks, that kind of thing.
Polymath World (26:41.121)
Yes.
Helen Sharman (27:03.469)
But there's the bit that we sit in for the launch, which is just big enough for three of us to sit side by side. So your elbows are pretty, just about touching wearing big bulky spacesuits with the control panels there. And then above your heads, there's a hatch that you can then use to go through into what we call the sort of the living module, the bit of what sick. And that's where we could sort of, there was a bit more room just to be, right? But still only just enough room there for the three of us to sleep.
So most of the time we'd have one person in one of the modules and two in the other, just so that we could space out a little bit. But yeah, it's not huge, but it's comfortable enough. It was a bit chilly. That was the main discomfort, just not very warm. Feet got cold because blood supply to your feet isn't as it is on earth. So yeah, we had little boots, but still a bit chilly. But apart from that, no, was comfortable.
and a of a problem docking, so we had to do a manual docking, but something we were trained to do. Got to the space station and then of course met two people who'd been there for six months. So yeah, that was an amazing time. I remember opening that hatch, the bear hugs, the joy on their faces. Yeah, mean, we were being isolated from Earth. There's two people on board, on board space station Mir, there were typically two people for about six months.
They only had the radio for communication with the earth. Very occasionally there'd be a bit of a, sort of a very basic video link up, but mostly it was just the radio. So yeah, quite phenomenal.
Polymath World (28:45.329)
It's interesting looking back at Mir. I think people are probably in danger of being blinded by the wonder and brilliance of the International Space Station to how revolutionary Mir really was. It really was a massive jump in terms of space technology. We also remember it for all the faults and failings and how much of a disaster it was for poor Jerry Lininger and Michael Fowl and those who had to endure.
some pretty torrid times on Mir, later in its life, but it really was a sort of a crown jewel of the Russian space program. How did you find it when you got there? It had probably been there for about five, six years, I suppose, by the time you got there.
Helen Sharman (29:31.342)
Yes, yes, I flew in 1991. I think it was launched in 86, wasn't it? But of course, then gradually modules had been added. So some of it, parts of it were newer than others. Yeah, it was, it was big, right, huge compared to Soyuz spacecraft. Only one third of the size of the International Space Station in terms of the pressurized parts of it. But nonetheless, it felt quite roomy.
I found it was full of, it felt like it was just full of junk. So as with anything, any lab, laboratory, anywhere, you sort of, you struggle to throw things away and there's not enough storage because, when it was designed years back, you didn't know that you're going to need that piece of equipment and this piece of equipment. So gradually we did put more and more stuff and kit on the walls. For instance, the sort of the spare toilet.
room, a little sort of little room on the PlayStation. That had been filled full of bags and boxes and bits of kit just for somewhere to put stuff. So that's how it was really. So a bit frustrating trying to find things. One of the jobs of my crew after I'd gone was to put little barcodes on everything so that you could fairly easily sort of scan and find exactly where everything had been stowed.
So yeah, what else was the, we had an electrical issue. So there'd been a new module added just not long before my space flight, which was actually shielding some of the solar arrays from the sun. And then when we arrived, of course we were draining the batteries a bit more. Suddenly there were five people on board the space station instead of the two that were there before. And while it was thought that that would be okay, it was all understood that we would drain a bit more battery power.
I think the age of the batteries hadn't been taken into consideration, so they discharged more quickly. We had a few times actually where the lights went out, right? And the fans that circulate the air that you need because you don't have convection to have that air circulation. So you need, so the fans stopped working. So we had to physically move around to make sure we were breathing fresh air. It was pretty dark until we came back into the sunlight again and then we could absorb a bit of energy.
Helen Sharman (31:55.598)
through those solar arrays into the batteries and the lights came back on and the fans started working again. So yes, things do go wrong, And a bit like any old car, we're not so used to that these days because cars tend to be much more reliable as a lot of technology, right? Space stations are more reliable than they used to be. But we're always sort of fixing stuff. And even now on ISS, there'll be fixes that happen most days, mostly fairly minor, some a bit more major. Often they're done before
We know that the batteries need replacing, for instance, so they can replace those in advance. But as we learn more about the technology that we need. But yeah, basically an amazing place. Like you say, in the 1980s and 90s to have a space station that could support human life for months and years actually at a time, quite a phenomenal thing and allow so much science to happen on it too.
Polymath World (32:52.159)
Yes, and I wondered if you could tell us a bit about some of the science that you got to do there. I imagine you were very busy. People who go on short missions tend to have much busier timetables as a result. Can you remember much of the science work you were doing there?
Helen Sharman (33:08.267)
The science experiments, were all Soviet experiments. So they were Soviet research. And that was the deal that was made for my space flight in the end. it ended up being actually much more collaborative mission than had ever been intended. for me, that was, in some respects, quite nice. I would have loved to have done some of the British experiments and there'd been some that had been designed and quite well developed actually. And many of which did fly on other subsequent missions or they were...
They were used in other research, nonetheless, I was happy to do some science. But the great thing for me was that the Soviet scientists really wanted to use this mission as a bit of a showcase on the scope of science that they were doing, which was great. So I got this great variety of doing some biological stuff with plants, with our own bodies. So taking blood samples, looking at how we were adapting in other ways to space.
feeling weightless right in space. We did some new materials, so mixing various metals together, protein crystallization, that was really an amazing thing to be able to do. Some stuff out of the window, that was great. I probably sort of missed something pretty major, but yeah, was lovely to have that variety and scope. Sad thing was that, of course, when I did then come back, all of the results were straight back to the Soviet scientists.
And so I don't really know the really, let's say the outcome of much of that. It would have gradually formed part of the knowledge basis of science worldwide. But yeah, it would have been, it would be nice to have been able to have been a bit more involved in those experiments afterwards as well to follow through a little bit. There was a nice mini experiment I took up for British school children with some seeds. Tim Peake did something similar as well. So it was where I took up some seeds with me and there were some seeds that were
did everything except for going into space with me. So they were the control sample. And then all of these seeds were distributed and children grew them. And the idea was to understand about control samples, really. And I also was able to talk to some British school children through the radio. There was a radio experiment that was kindly set up by somebody who was a member of the Radio Society of Great Britain. And that was just a joy to be able to have that connection with the UK while I was in space.
Polymath World (35:30.751)
I'm interested as to how you adjusted to weightlessness. Did you enjoy weightlessness? Did you get space sick at all?
Helen Sharman (35:37.622)
I loved feeling weightless. Yes, for me it just felt very natural. I forgot what it's like to sit down, to stand up and your body does adapt. Some people do take a bit of a while, as you've mentioned, this sort of space sickness, how our ears get a bit confused, the vestibular system, the balance system, and it can create a feeling of nausea. And some people do actually vomit, less so these days because of the anti-emetic drugs that they can take before the space flight.
Yeah, I wasn't sick. None of my crew was actually. I do wonder had one of us been sick, maybe a bit of a chain reaction because of course, you know, especially in a small constant contained space and spacecraft, it's not the most pleasant thing. But no, just felt lovely. mean, every time you move a finger, there are signals going to your brain to tell you that you feel weightless. so I think your body does naturally.
adapt very easily to that and just moving around again. It seemed quite natural to push off from one part of the space station and move our way through to pull ourselves along with ropes to instead of using handles, sort of hook your knee or your ankle underneath a foothold or something. And so that's how you keep yourself in one particular part of the space station to do whatever you need to do there. It's relaxing. It's too relaxing actually for the human body, which is why we, know, our bones and muscles decondition and we lose
lose mass, muscle mass, bone mass, and that can provide longer term problems. We are understanding much more than we understood when I flew. So, so things like our eyes and how our eyes change shape in space. And we think it's because of the fluid shift that comes towards the head and upper body, which actually is a bit uncomfortable, if I'm honest, for the first few days until your body adapts. And so we get rid of this extra fluid and redistributes a bit and we.
We don't feel so sort of fat and puffed up anymore in our faces. But yes, our eye shapes change sometimes permanently. So some astronauts require vision correction in space where they did not on Earth. NASA provides a variety of glasses for astronauts to wear after they've, you even if they had perfect vision on Earth, the idea is that some of them may not have, may need a bit of help to read while they're in space. So when some astronauts return to Earth, sometimes their vision corrects and their eye shape.
Helen Sharman (37:59.436)
goes back to what it was, sometimes it doesn't. So yeah, there's a lot of work on that. Our immune systems, we didn't know much about then when I flew either. So yes, it's interesting, I think how rapidly we've gained in our understanding of the human body in space and some of the considerations. Radiation we've always known is a problem. And on Soyuz, there wasn't so much shielding from cosmic rays as there was on the space station. And yeah, when I...
close my eyes particularly I could see these flashes every few seconds which we think is a result of radiation coming through the walls of the spacecraft and you know through our own bodies.
Polymath World (38:38.889)
Yes, yes, lot of work on that. Some of own work has been on space radiation and DNA. Were you able to sleep? Either just because of the excitement or looking out the window or because some astronauts sleep is the best sleep they've ever had and some really struggled to fall asleep. How was it for you?
Helen Sharman (38:58.317)
No, I was tired on the first night because I'd a bit excited the night before. And so I slept in the soya's well and yeah, never changed from that. Got a bit of backache. I think it probably because of the spine elongating because you're no longer compressed by the weight of our heads in space. Very common. I didn't realise it was so common actually then, but apparently it is. so I actually just naturally corrected that when I slept by turning sideways in my sleeping bag.
and pulling one leg up, one knee up so that my spine was a little bit curved and that just somehow made me feel much better, not only at night, but for the rest of the next day as well. So that's how I ended up sleeping all the time. You mentioned radiation. So Sam, mean, I know you're interviewing me on this podcast, but would be actually just maybe now is a really interesting time just to find out a little bit about what you've discovered in terms of radiation and DNA.
Polymath World (39:52.066)
Yeah, well, so yes, I think you're there for my presentation at BIS in London in November. I gave one in Los Angeles in October, which I've actually put on this channel so I could send you the link to see.
Nowhere near enough research has gone into the human DNA repair damage side of things as there should have been. And part of the problem there is obviously so few people have been beyond low Earth orbit. So we still have some protection in low Earth orbit that you don't have if you're going to the moon and Mars. So our N is very small. We have about 18 people who've been for a total of about 12 days, that sort of thing.
but the most interesting thing for me is
because galactic cosmic rays and solar radiation causes a complete double strand break, which is the worst kind of DNA damage. We have evolved two means of repairing double strand breaks. We have homologous recombination, which is very faithful, a careful process by a body to take a template and make a complete faithful copy and then stitch them back together. Excuse the crude language, obviously they're not actually stitched together.
Helen Sharman (41:15.108)
Hahaha
Polymath World (41:15.619)
But then you also we've evolved non-homologous end joining which is very quick which is where and forgive me for anthropomorphizing here our DNA basically panics and just glues it back together and whatever's been lost you know sometimes up to a thousand base pairs is just lost and your body just sort of goes well at least it's stuck back together for whatever reason that we don't understand and this was only discovered a few years ago
When we're in space, microgravity makes our body want to lean towards non-homologous adjoining rather than homologous recombination, which is...
is a problem because that's much more dangerous. You're going to incur a lot more damage to your DNA through repeatedly using non-homologous end joining. It keeps you alive, but you're going to get a big buildup of genes getting disrupted, much greater risk of cancer.
I think a big important step would be to find out why our body is doing that and find some way of Correcting that There are positive things you can do so my supervisor and I've just written a paper on this for the bis journal actually You can upregulate a very important checkpoint protein called p53 Astronauts are able to do that sort of give their body a bit of a boost on the DNA repair processes
But I think my main encouragement is there's never been a better time for this. mean on the news all the time you're seeing this disease cured by gene therapy, this child healed through gene therapy. I mean we have CRISPR-Cas9, gene sequencing has never been cheaper, never been faster, never been more accurate. People have used some of these tools in space. I know Christina Koch used CRISPR in space.
Polymath World (43:11.361)
Kate Rubins did gene sequencing in space. Ricky Arnold did some genetics work with RNA in space. There is a bit more, but it should be a point of emphasis, genetics in space. But we've got tools that we didn't have before. So I think we've got new biological tools. We won't just have to rely on shielding, where we could proactively fix genetic problems in space.
and quite non-invasively. So that's encouraging, but much of this is theoretical. We have this on Earth, we could theoretically use it in space to fix these problems. And I think radiation is the biggest problem. The really weird thing is we've now had so many people relatively in space for six months to a year. And given the assault on their DNA, they should have got cancer.
either in space or on Earth and yet no one has. That's the weird paradox. Not a single astronaut who spent six months or longer in space, including Russians, has ever even got cancer. Which is just wild. I don't understand that. Maybe we're just really, really lucky. Ultimately we're still talking about only 30 people or so. I mean it's not a tremendous number. But, so there's a mixture of optimism and pessimism there.
Helen Sharman (44:37.995)
Yeah, it is interesting. Astronauts, of course, are chosen for being fairly healthy in the first place. And we do tend, I mean, not always, but we do tend to try and sort of keep in shape. We've got an interest in remaining healthy and fit. So I don't know how much of an element that is in terms of cancer as well. We know it's obviously multifactorial. So, yeah, but that would be interesting. Yeah.
Polymath World (45:02.315)
Yes, yeah, I'm sure your time went by in the blink of an eye. Do you have any particular memories of looking out the window and anything wonderful that you saw? What was your favourite experience?
Helen Sharman (45:15.501)
I mean, yes. Looking out at the earth when we're all together, I think is probably one of my favourite experiences. In the evening, so mission control would cram our days, but generally after we'd eaten dinner, although there was certainly some stowing and some of the stuff that did need to be done and maybe some repeat experiments, most...
most of time we would at least have an hour or two, I would say most evenings where we weren't absolutely frantic and sometimes where all of us could just chill together. And there was one particular moment where Sergei Krikuliov said, you know what? says, I know we shouldn't really, but we can all get around the sapphire window because most of the windows were pretty small, right? But the sapphire window is about 50 centimeters diameter on what was then the floor of the space station.
sapphire so that it lets a lot of ultraviolet in so we can get some great images through there, particularly of the earth. But it had a hatch on the outside to protect it. we anyway, Sergei opened the hatch on the outside so we could all together get our heads around this window and just some of the colours just absolutely gorgeous. And I guess partly because it was sapphire, it was letting in just a little bit more of the spectrum possibly that I might have pursued. yeah, just.
just watching the world, because of course the world spins below us as we are orbiting the earth. So you never get the same view again and you're going through Northern hemisphere and Southern hemisphere. So you get all of the seasons in one orbit. And one orbit, as you know, is in 92 minutes in low earth orbit. yes, it's a beautiful view. The blue of the sea, the brilliant white of the clouds as the sunlight reflects and the snow and ice, mean, mountains just glorious.
And because we are in low Earth orbit, only 400 kilometres above the Earth, if you look at an angle to the horizon, there is some perception of the very high mountains. Of course, when you just look straight down on top of them, then the perception is more of the crevasses and the rivers running through that you can see differently. yeah, just glorious. And the fact that we just all enjoy doing that together.
Helen Sharman (47:35.533)
talking about our families and friends back on Earth. That was a very special time.
Polymath World (47:41.209)
I can only imagine it's everyone's dream. When it came time to return to Earth, was yours a normal entry or was it a ballistic entry? And how did you find that experience?
Helen Sharman (47:53.25)
No, I was with textbook in the end. So all fine. You separate from the space station physically, just push yourself away with springs far enough away. Then you can fire your reentry rockets, which so that's the first sort of deceleration we really felt for a while. And then you just wait until you come back towards the atmosphere. is all then happening pretty quickly. So within the space of about 20, 30 minutes or so. So we fired our retro rockets over South America.
And then that orbit brought us up through the Atlantic over Western Europe. And then we ended up in Kazakhstan. But yes, coming back through the atmosphere, that's what slows you most. So the most deceleration, and that was about five and a half G. So it's physically harder returning to Earth, coming through the atmosphere in Soyuz than it is actually launching. And because you're coming in so fast, you build up this plasma around you as the upper atmosphere molecules get charged, bits of the...
molecules have ripped away within the heats and the friction and you get this charged plasma around you which glows. And I had a window, the two seats on the outside, my mind and also Sergei, the flight engineer, who I was returning with. So we had windows and I could, if I put my head right close, dead, you really right by the window, I sort of leaned it over a little bit, I could see the
just a bit of the surface of the spacecraft and it's ablative right so you can see it kind of bubbling up and and crisping and charring as it comes through the atmosphere but a bit weird you know it's supposed to but it is it's nonetheless a bit weird but then the parachutes open big jerks and then retro rockets fire about a meter and half above meter above the ground to to give you a slightly softer landing but it is a bump and of course then
Polymath World (49:44.481)
Yes, I've heard it's quite a bit of a slam.
Helen Sharman (49:47.342)
Yeah, and to be quite honest, these days they have six retro rockets, six soft landing engines, whereas we only had four. I mean, it has been upgraded because it was deemed a little bit tough. But you know, the seat is moulded to fit you back and we're braced for it when you were about to land like that. And usually people are fine. It's only when something goes wrong that they have a pretty heavy thump on the ground. It was okay. It was a bump, but it was okay.
We tumbled head over heels a bit because it was quite windy so the parachute until it was jettisoned just got caught the wind bit. yeah, ended up on our sides and waited for the rescue team to arrive. We knew they'd seen us. So that was all okay.
Polymath World (50:29.501)
after a week was there much adjustment or is a week really not that much of a readjustment?
Helen Sharman (50:36.517)
Muscles and bones absolutely fine. Well, they would have been degraded a bit, but hardly. The main thing for me was balance. So I wasn't feeling nauseous or anything on return to Earth. So astronauts who've been space sick tend to be Earth sick a bit when they get back as well. But for me, it was more the balance. So I just had to learn how to stand up and walk actually without being wobbly. So that was my main lessons, just picking up a leg and not leaning over to counterbalance it because it felt so heavy.
So there's this sort of this wibbly wobbly walking for a while until I learned that I could just pick up a leg and walk in a straight line. it's, again, just amazing how adaptable we can be, know, humans particularly, partly because I guess we are able to, we understand what's going on. So we're able to counteract in a certain way, but just physically we're quite adaptable too.
Polymath World (51:29.857)
I remember Nicole Stoss and others talk about the mental things of, she talked about just sort of holding a glass of water in the air and just letting it go, thinking it would just hover, and then it's smashing to her shock and people are, you know, just doing that, you know, holding a, Ricky Arnold talked about just holding a spoon and then turning around and it falling to the ground, being like, oh yeah, of course, it won't just stay there for you. You didn't talk any of that, you?
Helen Sharman (51:37.943)
hahahaha
Helen Sharman (51:52.653)
Yeah, I mean, maybe if you've been up in space a long time. I mean, I just found as though it just, I adapted really quickly, just as I did when I was in space. just felt again, a very natural way to be. Because every time you move, you're sensing that feeling of weight all over again. I had a crumbling sort of Musely Bar thing that had traveled with me to the launch site and then Tim Mase had taken it back.
to Star City after I'd launched and then he brought it back for me. it was just like a little travel bag really. I just shoved this thing in, forgetting it. by the time, after the landing, first of all, really thirsty. And secondly, felt a bit peckish. And Tim handed me this muesli bar and I just ripped it open. And the first thing I did quite naturally was to shake the crumbs out. And was only after I'd shaken the crumbs out into my mouth, I thought, you know what? I couldn't have done that in space. They wouldn't have come out.
But it seemed a natural thing to do on Earth. So, yeah, so I think, yeah, I think this, yeah, we do adapt, but perhaps if you've been in space for a bit longer, it just takes that bit more time.
Polymath World (52:47.392)
You
Polymath World (52:58.825)
Yes. Everything changed for you. You've made history. You're very, very famous now. A bit of a British icon. What was life like when you got back to the UK? And also tell us about your work now with Imperial.
Helen Sharman (53:14.253)
So, well, in order, suppose back in the UK, I wasn't trained for the notoriety and it was pretty full on then. now it's, be quite honest, I'm not sure I'm really famous at all now. My name is known in certain circles. But yes, just going to the local supermarket and people recognising me, it was quite a shock to the system. I knew it was going to happen, but it was a bit odd, suppose. Shocked to...
I suppose in realising and understanding how I was going to deal with that. But you do, you learn pretty quickly, I suppose. It was good that in many respects, I was able to use that notoriety, first of all, to share my mission, because of course it wasn't just mine. I felt as though it was the UK mission and it needed sharing. And I was invited to give a lot of talks about it. Not very good at first, I'm sure, but I learnt quickly, but particularly after I started talking in schools.
So the prime minister had then changed. John Major had invited me to Downing Street, asked me how he could help me to do whatever I wanted with my mission really. And I said, you know, I'd really love to go and to share this mission with some young people, maybe schools, I'm not quite sure the best way. he basically within a day I was in meetings with HMIs and science advisors and I was basically a tour of the UK was set up for me and going into schools, speaking with young people and.
showing them pictures, the old fashioned glass mounted slides I used to carry around the country in a little carousel. But the teachers gave me some great advice about the curriculum, but also some of the techniques of how to address an audience, young people in particular, of course, but what kind of things they were interested in. some of those, suppose that it was that combination of immediate feedback from the students as well as teachers advice.
And that's, I think I then started to become much better at speaking to audiences. I started to enjoy it more. And of course, when you enjoy something, you're better at it and it just snowballs. And I realized that science communication was a great way for me to use my space mission. And so for the next few years, actually, while science then in this country was still not very much very accessible, I suppose, to most people, we had very few science.
Helen Sharman (55:35.15)
programs on radio, on TV. There weren't the science festivals then, and certainly in the great way that we have now, so many all over the country. It was much harder to find out about science. yes, so hearing somebody who's been into space talking about what it's like in space and actually communicating a whole load of science in the process, I found that was one way at least to start off with. And then the science communication came on its own a bit later on as well.
So yeah, so I enjoyed very much doing that. Later on came to, suppose it went back into employment rather than being just sort of self-employed. I decided I'd go back into employment because I was really missing some of that team working and I wanted to experience some sort of operational aspect as well. So I started managing science at National Physical Laboratory and at universities and I ended up at Imperial College London managing the chemistry department.
And then when Tim Peake was flying into space, getting so many requests for, again, for more talks and stuff about space, I know, this is a great opportunity. So I've then taken a part-time role at Imperial in the outreach team, actually, which allows me to go to schools and talk about science careers, STEM careers generally, and university life. So that's what I love doing, but I'm also able now to work freelance as well and do some.
some of the other things that are just fun to do. And again, carrying on sharing this passion, I suppose, for not just for space, but for all things STEM related and technology, how it can, if we use it properly, I really believe we can make life better, but it is an if. We've got to debate it socially and we need that diversity around the world of individuals. We need that diversity of people involved in science so that we're...
We're making the right impact. And we've also got, it's a better science. There are more people that bring their ideas from their diverse perspectives. The better science we create as well. It works always.
Polymath World (57:40.862)
Absolutely. I'm interested in if you mentioned Tim Peake, were you tempted to apply to be a European Space Agency astronaut whenever the opportunities came up? I know there haven't been many recruiting classes, but your book ends, Seize the Moment, ends with this wonderful sort of line perspective about the longing to go back. And I just wonder if you applied at all.
Helen Sharman (58:07.213)
I think most people would like to return to space except for those who've spent many long duration missions who've really sort of, think just had enough really. And yes, I would love to go back. I did apply, there was a couple of European Space Agency application processes in the years immediately following my space flight and I applied for them. The UK put forward actually both Tim and myself, Tim Mase and myself and...
Polymath World (58:17.185)
Yeah.
Helen Sharman (58:34.187)
and the other two who had been in that final four. But it became very apparent in those applications that the European Space Agency was not going to accept any person from the UK because we weren't funding any human spaceflight programs at all. And so it was much, much later on. So when Tim applied, we still weren't funding it. So I hadn't applied for that.
I have to be quite honest, I was probably not going to get it because I would have been out of the age range by then anyway. Tim did apply. We still weren't funding human spaceflight, but the European Space Agency was able to use the fact that we've got this BRIT training with them. And what a waste that would be if we didn't fund a human space mission. So it was a great arm twister and the UK duly obliged. But we need to do it again, because as you say, we've got some great astronauts training with ESA.
Polymath World (59:24.161)
Excellent.
Helen Sharman (59:29.099)
and they could do so much for the UK and keep us there in that international, on that platform really of human space flight and all the benefits that creates for our science, for our industry as we're thinking that the space economy is going to really, really open up. And this is not just in a small way, low earth orbit economy and then maybe even a lunar economy. We've got to be in it to get it, right?
And yeah, let's hope that they get their flight soon.
Polymath World (59:58.686)
Absolutely.
Yeah, I'm aware already that I've had you for an hour and there's a million other questions I could ask you and want to ask you but I'd like to just finish by asking what advice you would give young people, students who are watching this or who want to be in that space economy or who have ambitions to go to space themselves. What's the best advice you could give them?
Helen Sharman (01:00:22.551)
think it's to remain curious, to keep on wanting to find out more. Probably STEM subjects are still going to be the way, if you really want to be involved generally, whether or you want to go into space or just be involved in space missions or space programs generally, STEM subjects are the most likely, but they're not the only.
Only subjects we need space lawyers. Increasingly, we've got those regulations to fix. So we need diplomats, we need negotiators, we need economists, but we need a lot of STEM students. So I would say if you've got an aptitude for STEM, but enjoy it, right? So you've got to enjoy your subject. If you enjoy it, you're good at it and vice versa. So, and you'll want to study more of it and use it more as well in a variety of ways. And I think that's where.
space still is really useful is that we find out stuff in space, but we can also then apply that on earth and in different aspects on earth as well. So yeah, so I'd say keep dexterous. you know, enjoy a variety of hobbies, be it playing a musical instrument, maybe doing craft, keep fit. Because if you want to be an astronaut, then you're going to need to be sort of fit and healthy. Look after yourself and enjoy those team sports. Because, you know, whatever job we have, whether it's as a scientist, as a
and in research or as somebody in industry or as an astronaut, that teamwork is really, important. Increasingly, we need to cooperate, to collaborate, to discuss stuff. Science is not something that one person does on their own in their little laboratory, publishing a result every now and again, and then goes back to their laboratory to do another experiment. That is such a small part of science. It's very much this sort of a person, sort of a people.
subject as is engineering. So I think, yes, the idea is study something STEM, keep dexterous, enjoy your team sports, your orchestras, football, whatever it might be, and just love life. Keep on finding out more about the world and try and be useful. If we can all leave the world in a better place than it was when we arrived in it, I think that would be a great way we could move forward.
Polymath World (01:02:39.805)
Amazing. Thank you so much. It's been such an honor to speak to you and have you on this channel and I really look forward to seeing you again at the British Inns Planetary Society and and wherever else I might bump into you. Thanks for joining me today.
Helen Sharman (01:02:50.999)
Well, Sam, thank you. And I'm going to be going to be looking out more and more for that, that genetics research. think you're absolutely right. Radiation is the big thing in space right now. So, let's have more power to your elbow with that. Thank you.
Polymath World (01:03:02.85)
Thank you.