Helen Sharman Quotes

Author Image

Helen Sharman

Profession : Scientist

Birth : May 30, 1963

I'm not going into infinity. I'm going into low earth orbit.

Helen Sharman

Britain should definitely be part of a Mars mission.

Helen Sharman

You can do more science on the ground than you can in space for the same amount of money. But there is some science you can not do on the ground.

Helen Sharman

It's very exciting that people could actually live on another planet.

Helen Sharman

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.

Helen Sharman

From space, the earth appears predominantly blue; the clouds are brilliant white. Surprisingly, you don't see much green, although Ireland looks green, and so do Scandinavia and New Zealand. The deserts are brick red and really stand out.

Helen Sharman

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 Ocean, which was this wonderful deep blue, with clouds just over the top, and sunlight streaming in through the window.

Helen Sharman

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 in 24 hours. Every so often you'd look towards the earth, and often you could see lightness and darkness together, and dawn and sunset were spectacular.

Helen Sharman

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, and began luminescing all around us.

Helen Sharman