I saw the Earth for the first time as the fairing was jettisoned during the launch,
so still with probably about 3G, something like that, pushing me down and back into the seat.
The fairing is jettisoned and immediately light streams through this window,
and there was the Pacific Ocean with white clouds and black black space above.
That's Helen Charman, the first British astronaut in space.
Describing the moments after she had burst through the Earth's atmosphere aboard a Soyuz TM-12 spacecraft in 1991.
Depending on how you measure it,
Helen is one of only about 680 people and only 70 or so women to have ever been into space.
With more companies getting into space exploration and the cost of launching rockets dropping,
could we see a lot more people adding into space in the future?
What kind of possibilities does this new space age bring?
And what dangers should we be worried about?
Welcome to LSE IQ, the podcast where we ask social scientists and other experts to answer one intelligent question.
I'm Mayan Arad from the IQ team,
where we work with academics to bring you their latest research and ideas and talk to people affected by the issues we explore.
In this episode I'll be asking, who owns outer space?
We'll hear about Mining on the Moon,
our loose crew in space could cause lies and whatever happened to the flag that Neil Armstrong and Paul Zaldrin planted on the Moon 55 years ago.
In 1989, Helen was a food chemist for Mars Wrigley Confectionery in Slough.
She heard a radio advert for a job as an astronaut, which stated, No experience necessary.