Seize the Moment

Helen Sharman was chosen from thousands of applicants to be the UK cosmonaut on a joint Soviet/UK space flight. She travelled three million miles in space with Soviet cosmonauts, on a successful mission that also had its share of controversy, and in this book she tells her story.

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Helen Sharman was born in 1963 and was in primary school when man first landed on the Moon. She trained as a scientist and in 1989, when working as a research technologist for Mars Ltd, she heard about Project Juno (an agreement under which the UK would fly a cosmonaut on a Soviet/UK space flight) on the radio, whilst driving home from work. She jotted down the phone number as she waited at traffic lights, and then found herself on a list of thousands. But she made it to the short-list of four, and her final selection put paid to suggestions that she was the "token woman". Helen travelled three million miles in space with Soviet cosmonauts, on a successful mission that also had its share of controversy, and in this book she tells her story.