'Astronaut wanted. No experience necessary' - the surprising story behind the first British person in space1 day ago Fiona Macdonald
(Credit: Courtesy of Helen Sharman)It's 35 years since the first British person went into space. Helen Sharman was a 27-year-old food scientist when she stumbled upon a job ad to be part of an Anglo-Soviet commercial venture, Project Juno. Sharman told BBC News in 1991: "All along the selection process, I never really believed that it could be me."
One of the lesser-known moments to take place during the Cold War space race involved the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. On his way to the launchpad in 1961, just before he became the first man in outer space, he asked to stop the bus and took a last-minute toilet break.
It grew into a tradition that all cosmonauts flying from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan repeat just before take-off, as recounted by Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut, in her 1993 autobiography. "This was one tradition they would not expect me to join in," she writes. (...)
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260518-helen-sharman-the-story-behind-the-first-british-person-in-space