First British Astronaut Into Space.

First for the International Space Station but not the first Briton in space.
A woman was first.

Dr Helen Patricia Sharman OBE FRSC (born 30 May 1963), is a British chemist who became the first Briton in space and the first woman to visit the Mir space station in 1991.
Sharman was born in Grenoside, Sheffield (where she attended Grenoside Junior and Infant School), later moving to Greenhill. After studying at Jordanthorpe Comprehensive, she received a BSc in chemistry at the University of Sheffield in 1984 and a PhD from Birkbeck, University of London. She worked as a research and development technologist for GEC in London and later as a chemist for Mars Incorporated dealing with flavourant properties of chocolate.[SUP][1][/SUP][SUP][2][/SUP]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Sharman
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The mission lasted eight days.

Funny how women tend to get airbrushed out of history.
 

Warrigal said:
First for the International Space Station but not the first Briton in space.
A woman was first.



The mission lasted eight days.

Funny how women tend to get airbrushed out of history.
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Hence "The First British Government Astronaut"... in the title I guess. I forgot about MIR, The Russians seemed to get much more aggressive about commercializing space after the Cold War allowing third party countries to fly with them.
 
On a somewhat related note ...

Did you ever hear about "The Lost Cosmonauts"?

During the great space race back in the early '60's there was talk that Russia had lost several cosmonauts in space. A pair of brothers claimed to have recorded voice transmissions from cosmonauts dying in space, their curses and cries loud and clear on the tapes.

Seems now that this was all unproven, and that only one cosmonaut actually died - on Earth, while training.

They DID lose a lot of dogs and monkeys, though.

I stumbled across "The Lost Cosmonauts" theory while researching something else, and it was fascinating - I spent hours reading about it.
 
From the fuss they made over here you'd think he was the first overall. Men have been orbiting the earth for more than fifty years.

Yes, it's a personal achievement but so is rowing the Atlantic or climbing Everest.

It's been done before.
 
Has anyone else ever seen the capsule that John Glenn rode in during his historic flight of being in outer space and traveling around the world at speeds in excess of 15,000 m.p.h.? When I first saw it in D.C., I could not imagine being stuffed into that thing (I am 6'4") for, I think 5 hours. I also believe there was a maximum height requirement because of the limited amount of space in the capsule. This man was/is a true hero. If you ever get to D.C., you should go to the National Space Museum.
 
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