The First Brit in Space: Helen Sharman

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Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Hugh: What did the ad say?

[00:00:01] Helen: Astronaut wanted no experience necessary. They weren't gonna choose somebody like me, right? They were bound to choose a military person, a pilot. You realize how we can adapt to so many different circumstances. I mean, potentially nobody could come back to Earth Alive.

[00:00:19] Hugh: Welcome to the Art of Adventure, a podcast brought to you by Arthur Bill Outfitters to Explorers and Adventurers for over 500 years. I am delighted today to be joined by Helen Charman, who's the first British person ever to go into space. Helen spent six days on the Mere Space Station in the summer of 1991, just six months after the fall of the Berlin Wool.

How did she get on that adventure? We are looking forward

[00:00:46] Helen: to finding out.

[00:00:52] Hugh: What I find particularly fascinating with your stories, most of the people we have on here were, you know, they started sailing almost from their cots. You know, they started going up mountains when they were very young. You sort of, you know, space was, or even venture was, was not on your radar as a child.

Perhaps. Tell us the journey about how you went from Sheffield or North of Sheffield to actually being selected for this incredible adventure.

[00:01:17] Helen: Well, thank you for having me because you are absolutely right. I would never have imagined as a child that I would be coming on some sort of podcast talking about adventure.

Right. Um, I was brought up really to be, um, to do everything safe, to be as normal as absolutely possible. And going into space, of course just wasn't possible in the uk. Nobody was going into space. We didn't have a space program. In fact, for a lot of. Um, the time when I was growing up, um, Britain actually actively had a policy of not funding human space flight, so there was no possibility if you wanted to be.

An astronaut. And you were British, right? That that was,

[00:01:53] Hugh: it was, it was very much Russia and it was almost part of the Cold War, wasn't it? It was USA versus Russia. No one else is involved and no one else is allowed to participate.

[00:02:01] Helen: Yeah. There's a Soviet Union and they invited some, um, other countries in terms of astronautics, at least other countries to.

As part of their inter cosmos program to, to come on board. Um, let's say, so the, the communist friendly countries, so there was a Polish astronaut, a Bulgarian astronaut, a Cuban astronaut, and they all flew with the Soviet Union. Um, then yes, there was the, um, NASA and, and what America was doing. Um, and again, perhaps, you know, later on, one or two other countries that.

That came on board with them. But you know, this was just, wasn't part of my understanding then either growing up it was, um, um, we did projects on the Apollo missions because that was all the hype, right? But we didn't hear much about what was going on in the Soviet Union. And it was just, you know, if you just not going to be part of my life.

So science was my thing. Um, loved it. Went to university, studied in chemistry. I got jobs in British industry, so I was in the electronics industry and I worked in confectionary. Um, just loved it. I loved applying my science, thinking about new ways to do different things, and was working in teams of people not thinking about space still, because as far as I was concerned, space was still for other countries, other people, people who were the big macho kind of American fighter pilots and military people, not people like me.

Right. And then all of a sudden. Things change. Right. And there became an opportunity. So, um, I heard actually on my car radio as I was doing my commute on my way home, but there was an announcement that a new mission had been created and the Soviet Union still then it was 1989 and um, towards the end of the Cold War, but the Soviet Union was starting to open up to.

Western Nations, Margaret Thatcher. Then our prime minister had, you know, a really close friendship as we were often told with President Gorbachev of the Soviet Union. Um, so, so Britain was one of the countries that the Soviet Union wanted to open to, but the Soviet Space Agency was approaching a number of western countries offering them a flight for one of their people on their space program.

So, very much similar to the old inter Cosmos days when communist friendly countries had gone into space. It's a way of sort of. Soft diplomacy really. Then suddenly this UK mission came about

[00:04:11] Hugh: and you heard about it on a radio ad. I mean, to, to what did the ad say?

[00:04:15] Helen: Um, astronaut wanted no experience necessary.

[00:04:18] Hugh: I mean, we are roughly from the same decade. If I'd heard that, I would, I would've thought, well, even though they want no experience, I'm not super fit. I'm not a airline part, you know, a fighter pilot. I'm not a astro scientist. I wouldn't have contemplated. You know, picking up the phone, what even makes you think that actually I could do this?

[00:04:37] Helen: Yes. Bit of a jump. Um, I suppose part of the, part of what made it easier was that I really thought I had no chance.

[00:04:44] Hugh: Right,

right.

[00:04:45] Helen: So, right. That's, that's I think quite important, really. Um, and there was a basic criteria, so you had to be the right age range, which I was. Um, they wanted a, an a science for engineering type of background in medicine possibly.

Um, but sort of some sort of what we call now a STEM career,

[00:05:01] Hugh: right? Yeah.

[00:05:01] Helen: Some experience after university, some manual dexterity. So I flew in 1991, so back then spacecraft worked. Quite basic. They weren't autonomous like they are now so much. And so you did really have to fix stuff and operate them much more.

So all of these were basic criteria and I knew I could satisfy those And the, you know, this announcement, detailed those a bit. Yeah, I could do. That'd be fantastic. Amazing opportunity. Not so much to go into space, actually, but I was thinking about that chance to go and train with cosmonauts to become fluent in the Russian language because that would, was, Russian was necessary to speak and to understand as part of the training.

All the training was done in the Russian language. But that idea of being in the Soviet Union at a time when this, the Cold War was sort of starting to, to come to an end, but a very exciting time. It was still very. Worldly. It was very exotic. Right. Very different to anything I'd known. And we didn't know much if we're honest about the detail of living on the ground in the Soviet Union and all that was very, it was just fascinating.

[00:06:01] Hugh: Was it 13,000 people applied?

Yeah.

[00:06:03] Helen: 13,000 applied for it. Um, had I known that, I might not have done so. Right, but what really put me off having a go, even though I was really attracted to it and I knew I had those basic, you know, I had that ba basic criteria, so I, I could do it. But the idea that they weren't, they weren't gonna choose somebody like me.

Mm-hmm. Right. They were bound to choose a military person, a pilot, somebody who had these kind of, these more, let's say, macho type of credentials. Yeah.

[00:06:30] Hugh: Which is what I would've assumed as well, actually. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:32] Helen: The first, especially the first British astronaut. Yeah. And even now, I think we are in a different place socially in terms of that sort of, that gender expectation.

But many countries still send their first astronaut. And first few astronauts are often men rather than women. Yeah. So I think there's still a social, a society's expectation that that first one will not be a woman, uh, and will be a military pilot. Right. Yeah. So all of those things, so that expectation made me think I'm not gonna get it.

Also the idea that my colleagues would probably laugh at me for having the audacity to even consider it for myself. Once I had decided that actually it was worth, worth a go, I could cope with somebody laughing at me. And if I didn't have a go, then there was zero chance. And I knew I could do it, and I really wanted to do it.

And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted it. So I decided it was, it was, it was worth. A possible waste of time. But actually the more I thought

about it, the more I realized just filling in the application I was going to gain something. 'cause I was going to be thinking about how would I operate in that situation?

What would I think was I right for that kind of environment? So I knew I was going to learn about myself. Right? So actually. Even just trying was not a waste of time. That pushed me to having a go.

[00:07:49] Hugh: Yeah, you obviously got, got whittled, whittled down and I, and it sort of, it was almost like a game show format, wasn't it?

[00:07:54] Helen: There were four of us in left in the final selection after, after the 13,000 that originally applied, so after medical psychological tests and so on and, um, and, and, yes. Then, um, I think it, well it was partly because the, the, the way it was all run was on a very much of a commercial basis. So a company had been set up because the UK.

Government still had a policy of not funding human space flight. So a company was set up to manage the whole mission, and the idea was that it would gain funds in a variety of different ways. And I think that this, um, this TV program, this show as it was, um, was really part of the advertising of the whole.

Project and to try and get, um, other companies excited enough to come on board and, um, and help to fund the mission. So yeah. So it was, it was one of those sort of, um, the first time I'd really been thrust into the spotlighting in quite such a, a big way. Um, yeah, a very uncomfortable feeling, if I'm quite honest.

[00:08:46] Hugh: But, but I mean, a lot of people watched it. Yeah,

[00:08:49] Helen: I guess, I mean, I was, for me it was very much all, all the four of us, we'd just spent two weeks in Moscow in a hospital in Moscow going through final physicals, medicals, and other parts of the selection. So. We would, we, we were brought back to the uk, we're rather sleep deprived, and the very next day we were going to be doing this.

Um, uh, this t TV show. Um, and we'd never been on live TV before, right? So it was all a bit daunting. And, you know, what do I do? Do I sit here? Do I, when, when do I have to go and shake somebody's hand? What do I do? Do I look in the camera? What, you know, all of that stuff that is trivial. But actually for us, it was like, it was quite a big deal at the time.

Yeah. And we were still, um, we didn't know which one of us was going to be selected. We really didn't.

[00:09:27] Hugh: And did you get, was it very competitive between the four of you?

[00:09:31] Helen: Well, obviously we knew that two of us were gonna be selected for the training. Yeah. Two wouldn't. Yeah. And those two that would not, um, were going to spend at least a few months, probably a year actually in the UK supporting the mission.

So they had a role.

[00:09:43] Hugh: Right. Okay. They weren't being discarded.

[00:09:45] Helen: No. But nonetheless, that role was unlikely to actually get them.

[00:09:49] Hugh: Yeah,

[00:09:49] Helen: into space. Um, the, the idea was that actually in the first few months, as long as they'd, they were picking up Russians and other things, they were familiar, obviously with the mission as well, that they could have slotted into the training program later if necessary.

But, but not for very long. 'cause the training program was quite intense. Um, so yeah, so there was an element of competition, but actually mostly by then we'd become fairly close. And so there was actually, I would say, much more support amongst the four of us than there was competition. But also, of course, we were all hoping that, you know, I wanted to go Exactly and do the training.

[00:10:20] Hugh: Yeah,

[00:10:20] Helen: exactly. Yes. I didn't really want to be one of the backups.

[00:10:21] Hugh: And the other British person selected was, um, major Timothy, major teammates. Yes. And, and obviously he's probably more what you would've, what one would've expected the archetypal. He'd, you know, astronaut to have been.

[00:10:32] Helen: So he was, yeah. Um, flew helicopters for the army, for the UK army, um, blonde hair, blue eyes.

I was sure he was going to be the one that went into space. I would end up being his backup. We both had to do all of the training. We knew that, um, if one of us got sick even shortly before the launch, then the other one would fly instead. Um, and, and it continued really throughout the whole whole time that, that, that level of.

Sort of support because we were in this thing together and we were different people in some respects. You know, he came from a, a military background and so he was familiar with the fact that we were living on this military base. I came from a science background, so I was familiar with the science experiments, so we were able to sort of.

To give each other a bit of knowledge support, if you see what, but it was as much at the beginning, it's that, um, that, that idea that you understand the culture that you come from, you understand how each other is perceiving the world around you, which is totally different from anything else that we'd experienced.

And, you know, he'd not lived in the Soviet Union before. So in many respects, we were, we were living it anew.

[00:11:32] Hugh: I, I went to East Berlin quite a few times before the wall came down and the stark contrast to the west. Of the, sort of the Soviet Union. I mean, that must have been like you were already in a different world.

[00:11:43] Helen: Yeah. Everything. Uh, and in a way quite overwhelming because every little detail, how you do your shopping, right. How the shops work, that you don't go to a supermarket, pick off your stuff and then go to a till and pay. Right. So it everything, absolutely everything was different.

[00:11:57] Hugh: How were you treated on the base?

I mean, were, were you treated slightly differently to the Russians because, you know, historically the sort of Soviets are quite as a distrust of people outside the Soviet Union.

[00:12:08] Helen: Ironically, it was almost the opposite, that they were really keen to find out about our lives and about us as individuals, and they were keen to share their lives too.

I think. Star City had been, had long been because of this. It's the Inter Cosmos program where they'd had different, um, astronauts from different countries coming, albeit communist friendly countries. But they'd also actually, um, in, in 1970s, there'd been this Apollo Soyuz or that Soyuz Apollo as the Russian would say, um, project.

So there'd been Americans also living in Starc City training in Starc City. And, um, and, and part they knew that part of their. There re on dra actually, for some of them at least, um, those that had been astronauts, so I'm thinking of Alex Lior, Valentina ish Cova. Um, they, they continued to do this international, um, sort of publicity, if you see what I mean.

And so they were very keen that we would be part of that. Um, there was an anniversary of, um, Yuri's Space flight every year, the 12th of, of April. Um, and the whole of the cosmonauts would go out to Yuri Gagarin's birth town. Um, and there would be a community center and we would get, give speeches and that even the first year.

So I'd only been learning Russian for a few months, but I was expected to stand upon that stage and really, oh, Helen, would you just say a few words, you know, after that I was always prepared with something to say because I knew that, that we would always be required to stand up and, and talk in public like that, but.

I was very happy actually to be part of that community. And of course the more I found out about it, the more relaxed I became in it.

[00:13:39] Hugh: And how long was the train from when you arrived to when? When actually the mission, you know, took off? Yeah. What was, what was the timeframe for that

[00:13:46] Helen: 18 months or so?

[00:13:47] Hugh: 18 months.

When was that moment that you thought, actually I can do this? I can be the first Brit in space.

[00:13:53] Helen: I think right at the beginning I knew that I was capable of doing it. Um, I, uh, never really doubted that, that, uh, that, that I could do it. It was more whether or not I would be. Selected, I just assumed that somebody like me would not be selected.

It's really now looking back that I realized perhaps much more about the bigger picture that they were looking for. So it wasn't just doing experiments in a space station and learning to speak Russian and getting on with the cosmonauts. Um, it was that whole idea of, of teamwork. So although I was selected to be part of the training.

I always assumed that I would end up being the backup and Tim Mace would fly into space be instead of me. But that whole way that I think that I worked with other people, and I picked that up off actually by working in industry with teams of often quite different people, working together, um, solving problems, getting on with each other, sometimes rubbing up the wrong way, but learning how to do, how to get on, even if you might not particularly like that person, you can still work together well.

Communicate well and achieve what you need to do together. And um, and actually looking back, I think there was a lot of that teamwork. That's the idea of give and take. Sometimes take the lead when necessary, but be prepared to step back and let somebody else take the lead where, where they need to as well.

So it's that tolerance, the flexibility, the give and take. Um, that actually is really important. When you are an astronaut, especially in a cramped spacecraft with just a few other people, um, you, you need all of those things. You need that openness. You need, you, you need, I mean, no space for egos. Yeah, absolutely not.

Um, but I think I still couldn't really believe it until the day I was suiting up. Yeah, we're actually sitting on top of that rocket waiting for the launch.

[00:15:39] Hugh: I can imagine. And when you, I mean, let's, let's talk about the actual, the launch and everything. I mean, a few years before we'd had the unfortunate challenge of disaster, so it was quite, you know, going into space was not without risk, did you think, what am I doing here?

You know, this is, how did, how did I get there? And, you know, is it all gonna be okay? Or,

[00:15:58] Helen: so this is why training is so good. Of course. So in the training. Not only are you understanding what, what is going to happen and what you need to do, but also you're working through with all of the other teams. The teams of teams, right?

So there's huge numbers of people involved, but you're working through all of these contingency situations. So I knew if we ended up in the sea rather than on dry land. How we would be rescued, how the, some the teams would be operating, what they would be doing as well. Um, if it, it often just became, well, this is plan A and if this doesn't work, then it's plan B.

Um, so I can't remember which one of us, but it was one of our space suits. Once, you know, you check your suits. Um, and then once you actually sit on top of the rocket, you then close the helmet and you pressure check them again because there could have been some, like a hair drop between the seal of your helmet, for instance, and that might let out a bit of, bit of oxygen.

So you check your pressure and one of us didn't have the right pressure. Um, so we had to wipe everything and check and do again. So again, it's just plan B is this is, it's not, oh my God, there's something going wrong. It's. It, it's just a question of going through what you've been trained to do, what you've rehearsed.

Um, the training is good. It gives you background knowledge. So I think there's two things is the, the general understanding of not just the science experiments, but much more about the, the electronics, the life support system. So you understand how they're operating when you turn a ball valve, you know, in, in, in some sort of system.

You feel it cl clunk in you. Um, you understand what that is doing. It's not just a question of push that button because we're telling you to at this particular time. So you understanding that process. So. There's no unknown to be scared of.

[00:17:34] Hugh: Yeah.

[00:17:36] Helen: The contingency and the, the, uh, um, is all part of that planning and the, um, uh, the training that not just we as astronauts go through, but all the, the rescue teams, the doctors, um, the people in mission controls, so we're all doing this together.

Um, so yes, it is completely different I think for people looking on from the outside. We see the astronauts coming out and, um, going up into the, into the rocket and then off they go. Uh, and we wonder how we would be in that situation, but. We are not yet trained. Yeah. Once you've been through that preparation, that's what makes it firs

You are the, the risks, I mean the hazards are always going to be there, but you reduce the risk and you reduce the risk by ha thinking it through. First of all, you can rehearse something, but there are many things you can't, you can't know every single thing that's going to happen, especially when spacecraft are not so reliable.

So then, because you understand. The electronics behind the scenes. If you need to fix something, you can. Right. So there's that, that, that whole element of understanding on the big scale, understanding specifically what you've got to do and the rehearsing and the contingency, so it reduces the risk to something that's acceptable, minimizes it in many situations.

[00:18:50] Hugh: I, I think it's still pretty daunting, but, uh, um, so your, your mission was obviously to take off to dock with the Russian Space Station or the Soviet Space Station. Muir, spend six days there, do some experiments and come back. So how long does it actually take from launch to get to the state or to do the docking?

[00:19:08] Helen: For us, it took two days,

[00:19:10] Hugh: right?

[00:19:10] Helen: Nowadays you can get, um, from launch to Space Station in a few hours. Um, but then, um, we needed to take two days to gradually adjust our orbit, um, and make sure we were in just the right place to get that docking going.

[00:19:23] Hugh: So the first bit's obviously very quick, isn't it? When you are, you are launched into space and then the slow bit is,

[00:19:28] Helen: it's less than nine minutes to actually do the launch,

[00:19:30] Hugh: right?

And that gets you what, 2, 250? Kilometers

[00:19:33] Helen: actually that yes, that gets you just over couple of hundred kilometers high. You still need to get much higher. So the space station is typically about 400 kilometers. Right. So you still need to boosting your o orbit after that. Um, but the rocket gets you the, you know, the, the say does most of the heavy lifting as you'd say.

Yeah.

[00:19:50] Hugh: Right. And obviously you get to the docking, but which was, didn't exactly go according to plan, did it?

[00:19:55] Helen: Yeah, a few, few, um. I, how far it was probably a couple hundred kilometers away from the space station, and we realized that something wasn't quite right. Now, we didn't know at the time what it was, but we, all we knew is that we were getting some odd information.

So some of the information from the computers, which of course were very basic in those days, but some information seemed, yeah, that seems about right, but what we'd expect and others was not quite right. We also to the wrong angle to the earth, so there was something going wrong with the navigation systems Then.

We were only in contact with mission control when we were over the Soviet Union, over sort of stations that could relay our connection to mission control. Nowadays, of course, satellites give you pretty much constant communication, but then that was not the case. We were around the backside of the earth when we to, to mission control where when we realized this, um, so we had to make a decision on our own.

Now we had to, I suppose there were three choices really. Um, you can sort of think, oh, well, we'll let it carry on and automatically we'll take our chance. A bit of a dumb situation when you know that automatically things don't seem to be going very well, um, you can take over manual control and, um, manually dock stock onto the space station.

Now, there are risks involved in that, of course. Now that was something that we, of course, we had trained and one of many scenarios that we'd trained for, most of which we didn't need to use, but this was one that we did need to use. We knew that if we got it completely wrong, missed the space station by a mile.

Actually, that's fine 'cause you're still safe, you're still in orbit. We had enough fuel to go all the way around the world again and have a second attempt at this docking. But if you miss your docking port by just a few centimeters, then you risk damaging the space station and your spacecraft two cosmonauts on board Space Station.

They're not very happy about it. For us three, getting to the Space Station, we're not very happy about it either. I mean, potentially nobody could come back to

Earth Alive, right? So that's, that's the situation. So we had to make sure that we were each. A, not just a physical position, but a mental position and, and prepared to go through with what we needed to do.

Again, nowadays a manual docking will be done just by the commander, but then each one of us had to actively participate in that. So I had a, um, operations of the outside, like a Periscope camera so that the commander could actually see where he was going.

[00:22:03] Hugh: Right,

[00:22:04] Helen: right. Um. The flight engineer was working out what information he thought was reliable and verbally giving the commander some of the information and sort of velocity, um, distance, that kind of thing.

And then the commander had his joystick controls. Yeah. So that's how we got to the space station.

[00:22:18] Hugh: And presuming I think you have two attempts, don't you? If you can't do it, two attempts, you've just gotta go home.

[00:22:22] Helen: Well, there's enough fuel to have, um. I suppose there's enough fuel technically to have a third attempt, but then you've got no, no way to get home.

Yeah. So yeah, so you, you have a second attempt at the docking if then you didn't make it, you would just have to abort the mission and come back. And that, that was, I suppose our, that was our third alternative was instead of going for the manual docking, we could just go for an abort straight up.

[00:22:40] Hugh: Yeah.

[00:22:41] Helen: But, um, but no, we, we, we realized that, you know, communicating and so on and um, and we realized that yes, that was absolutely fine. We could, we could go ahead with that and we were each and trusting of course of each other. So you trust each other. Totally right. It's your life. It's their lives as well. Um, which.

Didn't feel difficult to do 'cause we'd worked together. Um, we knew what each other, almost, what each other would've felt in each various situations. So we nearly knew each other quite well by then. Um, we knew that we'd rehearsed

this particular situation together. And that, and we could trust each other to get on and do it.

So yeah. So we, we, and we did, um, make contact the first time, fortunately. Yeah. Which is all very nice. Um, but then there's an agonizing hour and a half where you're checking the seals, um, making sure that you're not leaking air between your spacecraft and the space station before you can open your hatch.

[00:23:31] Hugh: And the space station had, uh, there were two Russian cos and they'd been there for how long?

[00:23:37] Helen: They'd been there for six months.

[00:23:38] Hugh: Right.

[00:23:39] Helen: So imagine actually, right, six months. Just two of you. Yeah. On board a space station where. There is no. No satellite communication. The only way you're communicating with the Earth is by your radio.

So you communicate with mission control. Um, mission control can also relay that sometimes they will make a special effort and they'll, they'll allow families to come into mission control and they can talk with their families. Sometimes they could send a special station, um, receiver to the family's homes.

Um, but that, that was, that was not normal. Um, so yeah, it was really just the two of them. They also had a, an amateur radio station by the time I got there, and what they really loved was to be able to make friends. In various parts of the earth, right? I'm just using this amateur radio station. So, but yeah, that's how out of contact they really were, how isolated they had been.

So you can imagine they were really looking forward to having the three of us arriving a bit of extra company, somebody else to talk with and physically, you know, the bear hugs, right? That like touching somebody else. I mean, you might think, oh, that's the last thing you want in a cramped spacecraft. But no, that they were, they really wanted to have that.

Human experience

[00:24:47] Hugh: connect. Yeah. And presumably you brought supplies as well. Yeah. So you were,

[00:24:50] Helen: we had, um, not, not much because of course most of our cargo was us and our experiments, um, they have cargo ships that arrive every couple of months as well. But, um, but yes, we brought some treats, let's say. Yeah.

So things that they wouldn't normally have, um. We managed to, um, find some fresh oranges, which is quite a rarity actually in the Soviet Union then, and we'd, um, we'd packed some fresh oranges, which of course, in there compared to space food. Yeah. Um, something fresh that smells so delightful.

[00:25:16] Hugh: Is it easy to eat a, an orange in space?

[00:25:18] Helen: When it springs, of course the, the, um,

[00:25:20] Hugh: yeah, the juice goes,

[00:25:21] Helen: the bit of juice carries on going. Yeah. Um, uh, and so yeah, so you get a bit sticky. Um, but it, that smell was so nice 'cause you don't get that the fresh smells so much. It was an orange with pips in it. Um, and it, I brought, brought my flight soup back with me, um, when I returned to Earth and when, when I unpacked it, I found some pips in one of the pockets.

[00:25:42] Hugh: Excellent. So you were, you were in space for six days and obviously at the time the sort of. Almost the instigator of the whole Soviet Space program and the reaching out to outside of the, the sort of the Iron curtain was Gorbachev. And did, did he ever contact the space, uh, station or talk to you or anything like that?

[00:26:01] Helen: On the first night of just after we docked, after we'd had this rather sort of. Anxious, let's say a manual docking. Um, yes. I, I had no idea he was going to do this, but mission control, we, they radioed up and one of the first things they said, great, we, we got there finally. Um, but there's somebody very special who'd liked to talk with you, um, from the Kremlin, Helen over cute by goodness, if I'd known right.

I would've thought of something very, uh, clever to say to him, I'm sure. But, but I, um, you know, it was honestly, it was just a chat and it was Gorbachev. Just basically making a mark and saying This mission is important. Of course, it wasn't me personally, but it was this British mission. It was part of this opening up of the Soviet Union.

Um, and it was a chat, right? So it was very jovial. He was cracking jokes about his food, that dinner that night in the, in, in the Kremlin compared to our space food. And he was sure he was going to enjoy his more than we were going to enjoy ours. Yeah. Um, it was, it was so lovely. What a privilege. Um, to be with such a person who was, was at that point still steering the Soviet Union, um, through this transition, um, into becoming so much more of an open country to the rest of the world.

[00:27:12] Hugh: You've mentioned several times, you're incredibly well drilled and trained and you know, any sort of anxiety and sort of worry about the mission was almost overcome by this excellent training. But there must have been times when, you know, perhaps you had a bit of downtime or before you went to bed or when you were looking, or when I said to bed, you know, after your hammock.

Um, but what you know, or when you're looking out the window where you sort of almost had to pinch yourself and sort of say. You know, what is going on here? This is just incredible. And almost forget the training and just marvel and enjoy that moment.

[00:27:41] Helen: Yes. I'm say you've had to forget hammocks, right?

[00:27:43] Hugh: Sorry.

What is, it's not a hammock, is it?

[00:27:45] Helen: Because that relies on gravity. It's, it's so funny how we naturally, we, you know, you have to, but when you are in space, you take yourself outta this feeling that everything, you know, that it's, it's natural. You put something down, you don't need to think about it. Yeah. But once you are there, you adapt so quickly.

And so yes, it's, it's a sleeping bag that you tie the wall and you just. Snuggling your back, but there we go.

[00:28:06] Hugh: No, that's, that's a great good correction. Yeah. But

[00:28:08] Helen: the downtime, yeah, it's, there's, all life is scheduled and, and by nature it, it needs to be a mission control. Actually probably does a very good job of making sure that we use our time most efficiently.

But certainly in the evenings we had downtime where we would, we were scheduled to be together where we would. Eat dinner together. Um, enjoy feeling weightless still, and, and exploring our, our environment. Um, and often, um, once we had done what we needed to do, food cleared away. Anything else that was preparing for the next day, there would often be a good half hour where we could do what we wanted.

And every night we gathered around the biggest hatch we could find. Um, and just looked out, just together. You, these are five little heads around a sort of circular, um, circular window and just looking out, um, at the earth below us. If the station happened to have reoriented, then we'd see the stars. Um, but we would just gaze sometimes we'd talk about what we could see, um, families and friends that we'd left behind there.

Sometimes we would just gaze and just be, um, and yeah, that moment of. Wonder, um, and, you know, we might call it some sort of meditative kind of thing now, but, um, um, or even mindfulness, but then it was just our time just to, to be in our own brain with each other in that environment.

[00:29:30] Hugh: Fantastic. So you did your, your, your six days at the space station and it was time to leave.

So how many of you then left?

[00:29:36] Helen: Three of us left. I left with the old crew. Right. So with the people who'd been there already for six months,

[00:29:41] Hugh: so there was just gonna be two left on board. Yeah. Would you like to have stayed longer?

[00:29:45] Helen: I'd have loved to have stayed longer. Yeah. I did actually ask, but there had no go.

Um, yeah, it would've been great.

[00:29:50] Hugh: And, and obviously you were, you were traveling back with the two astronauts who were obviously previously there leaving the two who you'd spent. 18 months training with, um, was that tough?

[00:30:02] Helen: Oh, it was awful. Um, and I mean, I knew I had to come back. It was, I knew the time was there and I'd had a great time and space and it was just part of what you need to do.

Uh, I was coming back with two people who'd been there for six months. They were looking forward, obviously, to coming back home. I was not because I hadn't had enough time in space. I wanted to be there for longer. But yes, I had to say goodbye to Tolio and again, my commander, flight engineer, um, two of the best friends I'd ever had, the two people with whom I had.

Trusted my life, um, to people who I've become so close to. Um, and yeah, um, it, it, I mean it was just tears all round. Um, really, uh, there was, we, we, we knew what we were going through. We, we knew how we were all feeling. Um, so words were just completely insufficient. It was just hugs, hugs and twos.

[00:30:48] Hugh: And did you, on the sort of return journey, were you just feeling a bit down because.

You left your colleagues you'd quite like to have been there, or

[00:30:55] Helen: well,

[00:30:56] Hugh: mixed emotions.

[00:30:56] Helen: Well, no, you're always onto the next thing, sadly. I mean, so, so you, um, even though it is much more of a sort of, I suppose a, a ride on the way back, there's not so much to do. There's a little bit of mental calculation. Um, and I actually had a pencil, I had to sort of scribble some calculations, mental calculations down on the, on part of the spacecraft.

That's how basic we were in those days. Um, so it wasn't completely sort of relaxed and just, just enjoy the ride. But there, there was a lot of that, um. We had our radio still, right? So we could still talk with the people on the space station even after we left it.

[00:31:27] Hugh: Right?

[00:31:27] Helen: And, and we did chat. Um, and Talia could say, you know, I could see you, I can see you go further and further away.

And then, then there was a time when, um, we were so far away that the radio was just breaking up really. And it was difficult to make out what we were saying. Um, and Talia said, I'm just gonna play you. Some music to say goodbye. So yeah, it was just a beautiful way to leave the space station behind.

[00:31:46] Hugh: Must have been very emotional.

And, and what is the journey back like? Is it like the splashing into, let's see, that we see on, on the movies or how, how exactly does it go from exiting the spacecraft to getting back onto land?

[00:31:58] Helen: Well, it's hours, um, from exiting the spacecraft. So you sort of, you, you get into your own Soyuz return vehicle.

Um, close the hatch on the space station and then. Literally springs are really just sort of pushing us away from the space station when we're a safe distance, we can fire our retro rockets. Um, that then slows us enough to come back through the atmosphere. Um, but, um, from, from firing those retro rockets, there's only about 20 minutes or so.

So we fire those over the South Atlantic, um, sort of actually South America, really sort of the eastern part of South America. And then our trajectory takes us over the Atlantic. Uh, and we're aiming to land in Kazakhstan on a nice, sort of flat, dry part of the, of the world. So, yes, so, so

[00:32:38] Hugh: actually on land as opposed

[00:32:39] Helen: to sea, but really it's dry land.

So we have, um, dry, dry land or, or water. It very much depends on your geography, right? So, um, the Soviet Union didn't really have a lot of easily accessible water from, from where they were, but a lot of flat dry land. And actually, if you're going to be, you know, if you're going to be diving into the water and then your buoyancy brings you up.

That's relatively easy. But if you just want to land on the surface of water, water doesn't really absorb much of the energy of your impact, right? So, although it doesn't seem intuitive, actually you can, you know, imagine a nice plowed field. You can imagine how that would absorb much more of the energy of the impact.

Um, so it's not so bad actually landing on dry land, right? Um, and then about a meter above the ground, retrorockets fire. So we have a few, what they call soft landing. Rockets, but it's not a soft landing. It's been described as a car crash to be quite honest.

[00:33:31] Hugh: Oh really?

[00:33:31] Helen: You do bump quite heavily. Um, you have a, um, a shocker.

You just brace

[00:33:35] Hugh: yourself,

[00:33:35] Helen: right? You do. And you know, so the, the control panel tells you when you are sort of imminently about to hit the ground, um, your, your seat has already risen up, so there's like a shock absorber, right? Sort of with gas. Um, so you physically you've got a little bit of a cushioning effect.

Um, and also the seat is molded to fit our back so we're in, in overall contact. So that also helps to spread the load a little bit.

[00:33:56] Hugh: Step back to earth, literally with a bump.

[00:33:58] Helen: Yeah.

[00:33:58] Hugh: Yeah. I mean that's, that's quite strange to suddenly think, you know, almost two totally different worlds in the space of a day.

[00:34:07] Helen: I guess, um, but it, it was, I suppose you're just always getting on with the next part of what you need to do. Um, again, I think it was, when we look at this from afar, we see the astronauts being sort of dragged outta the spacecraft possibly. We see them sort of sitting, almost prone, sort in their, uh, in their seats.

'cause, 'cause you, you're feeling gravity again and you don't really want blood to be pulled away from your head if you could help it. Um, so. To stop being them fainting. So yes, they're, um, we see that and then we see them getting taken off maybe a wave if we're lucky. Yeah. And we don't see them again. We imagine that that's sort of, that's it.

But of course you'd be getting the medical debriefing and the technical debriefing happens very, very quickly. Sometimes immediately, some of it. Um, but um, it, it's, it's also getting used to physically feeling gravity again, seeing all these people and there. Basic needs. Right. I've been in my spacesuit for, what, six hours or something?

There was an emergency toilet on SOS if I really needed to, but you don't want to be un undoing my spacesuit, so, um, I needed to pee, right? Yeah. So there's some really basic stuff here and you're in the middle of. Ka desert there, a great big tents set up. Um, and so, you know, a toilet was a bucket. And so it is, it is, you don't suddenly sort of come back t

There is a, there is a transition in, in every sense of the word, but humans are so adaptable, you know, and that's the joy actually of, of feeling weightless, feeling heavy again, that you realize how we can adapt to so many different circumstances.

[00:35:39] Hugh: And what was your abiding memory of your time on the Space Station?

[00:35:44] Helen: Oh, I mean, there's so many, I suppose fragments. I think there are three big parts of it, feeling weightless, that camaraderie with the crew. Something, um, that will stay with me forever. They're, they're best friends. So they're

[00:36:00] Hugh: still best friends.

[00:36:01] Helen: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You can't forget that. And the trust that you need to put in those people, um, the trust that they put in you.

Um. That the openness, the honesty, um, how we communicated not just with each other, but also of course with all the rest of the teams in mission control and else elsewhere in the mission. But all of that just bind you very, very strongly. Not many people on earth have experienced that, so we have that to share still.

So I suppose that's also what tends to bind you onwards. You've got that experience that you can't totally explain. To other people who haven't also experienced that. But of course there's that amazing thing are those views and just looking out the window. So yeah, those three things combined, I suppose are the, are the biggie, but it's made up of so many little moments.

Um, and I hope it's those little moments I won't forget as well.

[00:36:48] Hugh: Yeah, I mean the, the, those views, I mean, which obviously a lots of astronauts reference, I mean, that must just be. Incredible.

[00:36:55] Helen: It's almost entrancing. And I think, I mean the stars are one thing and wow, just, you know, the, the more you look, the more you can see 'cause your eyes then become accustomed to the darkness.

But looking back at the earth, so beautiful. And I think it's partly 'cause it's constantly moving. 'cause of course the earth is spinning as the earth is spinning. We are orbiting the earth, so we're going northern hemisphere,

southern hemisphere. Um, so, you know, you get all the seasons. In one orbit, in 92 minutes, you've done all the seasons on earth.

You are north, south. And then when you, when you've come back to where you are, so after 92 minutes, if I in space, you're kind of back there again, but the earth has moved around by about 13 degrees. So you're not back over the earth exactly where you were before. So you get this constantly changing view.

Um, we'd talk about our families, our friends that we'd left behind that would, in those parts of the world where we were flying over. You know, so you have that emotional connection always as well. And of course then the colors, you know, we talk about the blue planet, you know, the pale blue dot, but it really is this gorgeous blue and not a dark blue, but somehow a deep blue.

And I guess it's a, perhaps, you know, the scientists in me would like to think about the mortar molecules and absorbing the various frequencies of, of, um, of, of the wavelengths of, of light coming outta the um. Outta the sun. But yeah, it's, it's still however much you understand, you can never really completely understand.

There's always this element of mystery and wanting to find out a little bit more. And, and the fact that that combines with the beauty of it is, is just so entrancing,

[00:38:28] Hugh: Helen, I mean, what you've done is just incredible and amazing and, you know, it's quite hard for most of us to get our, get our head around it and, you know, you are back, back on earth.

You know, how can you, I suppose, you know, how can you get the same intense excitement, satisfaction, joy from normal life? Having done that, did you discover other adventures or, and what, what, how did you sort of satiate that need?

[00:38:52] Helen: So, I suppose I still would like to go back into space, but assuming I don't get that opportunity, but e even not, I still want to.

Discover the world, right? I've always loved mountains and I've discovered that since my space flight. Looking down on earth, the Himalayas, I mean, just spectacular. Um, I did go to the Himalayas not long after my space mission. I just really wanted to feel how they would be within the mountains rather than just looking down on them from above.

Um, and, and just, just to explore the world. Um, find out about different cultures, which of course, I, I learned about when I started my training. And I think that's for me is that is also the value of exploration. It's not just a physical world, it's the human aspect of the world as well. We, and how we in integrate our lives with it and with each other.

Um, and any opportunity to go somewhere that's, um, that's a bit different, a bit outta the ordinary. Um. If it's up high, it's got a bit of a special nature for

[00:39:46] Hugh: me. I can imagine. And and when you're, when you're on the, the Himalayas, do you sort of look up into, into space and sort of, I mean, can you comprehend that you were there?

[00:39:55] Helen: Yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's part of my life. Um, I suppose partly because I'm not the only person in the world who has done that. So I do have people who I can talk with. Um, every year there's an astronaut congress I go to. Quite often. Um, we have a European astronaut reunion, um, most years as well that I go to.

So, um, so yeah, there are people who've also navigated their way, not just in space, but actually then through their lives afterwards. Um, so I can pick up hints and tips from them. Um, it's not so much about the, the mental crash that the, the downside, oh, I'm not, not living that excitement anymore. Um, it's just always about, about wanting to move forward in life with a challenge, whatever that challenge is.

Um, and yes, yes, it's nice to have a challenge sometimes of going out with your, with your paper map and, and, and just being on your own in the hills that sometimes is just amazing. Um, but equally to share that with other people as well also. So, yeah, so it's, it's that combination, the richness of life and, and often these opportunities in life are quite transient.

Right. So the idea that we can, sometimes, you know, you meet somebody who, that, that might be the person who not just gives you the idea, but perhaps then with them, um, you are able to strike up a relationship that can help you to, uh, to push forward a project that you might not have done before. Whether that is an exploration project or you're exploring in your mind or exploring some sort of other discovery.

Um, I think it's, uh, for me that they're all completely interlinked. Adventure is one thing in terms of physically going out into the world, but it's also an adventure in our own brains. And it's that desire to, to keep challenging

ourselves, um, and to, um, and, and to realize that, you know, we're capable of so much more than we know.

When you do give yourself. That chance to go and do something a bit different, it gives you the confidence to do something else. And I think that's possibly also why people do continue to do more and more because they realize they can. Yeah. So start small and you know, you can, you can take your life off in all sorts of directions

[00:41:55] Hugh: that, yeah, an excellent philosophy.

You know, as I said at the beginning. You know, I mean, your story's amazing in so many levels, but the fact that you weren't destined to be an adventure at tool and to turn and turned in to one of our great adventures is just an incredible story. So thank you very much for your time and for sharing your stories with us.

[00:42:12] Helen: Well, thank you for having me. It's been a delight to talk with you. Yeah,

[00:42:14] Hugh: brilliant. Thank you.