Countdown to UK’S FIRST ASTRONAUT

HER first encounter with space travel was making a cardboard rocket at school to mark the first moon landings when she was seven.

Little did Helen Sharman know that 20 years later she would follow in the footsteps of NASA’S heroes as Britain’s first astronaut.

She was a chemist working for confectionary firm Mars when she was picked from 13,000 applicants for Project Juno.

This was a private UK mission to put a Briton in space by paying the Soviet Union for a place on one of its flights to the Mir station.

After 18 months of training she became the first woman to visit Mir, aged 27, in May 1991.

During her eight days in orbit she photographed Britain and performed medical and agricultural tests.

As US space agency NASA marks its 60th anniversary, Helen, 55, looks back proudly at its history and how it helped pave the way for her journey into space.

She said: “It’s important people go further than ever before. We always need to push forward our boundaries as human beings.

“NASA has trail-blazed. Their prime role is to explore, not just sending things or people into space, but also finding out about the universe.

“And although their aims would be similar to other space agencies across the world, their communications about space travel in general are the best in the world.”

Since it was established in 1958, NASA – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration – has shed light on the wonders of the universe. The world has been gripped by its achievements – from Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s first steps on the moon in 1969 to the incredible images of the Red Planet beamed from Mars rovers in recent years. It has found evidence of water on Mars, researched supernovas, exploding stars and black holes, and even tried to look beneath the surface of a comet. But for Helen, it is the Hubble Space Telescope that stands out as one of NASA’S most remarkable achievements. Launched in 1990, a year before Helen’s own mission, the telescope’s position on the other side of the Earth’s atmosphere gave us the first clear views of the universe beyond our galaxy. “Hubble is an absolutely fabulous technical venture,” said Yorkshire-born Helen, who now works as an operations manager for the chemistry department at Imperial College London. “The stuff we have