alt.hn

5/20/2026 at 3:47:26 PM

The first British person in space

 https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20260518-helen-sharman-the-story-behind-the-first-british-person-in-space

by xoxxala

5/22/2026 at 7:11:36 AM

I wasn't aware of it until now, and I was surprised to find out that it took until 1991 for a Briton to fly to space - and with the Russians/Soviets no less, not with the Americans. But, if you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_space_travel_by_na..., it looks like the Soviets recognized the propaganda value of giving a ride into space to citizens of "allied" nations (putting it in quotes because the Eastern European nations weren't really given the choice if they wanted to be USSR allies or not) much earlier than the Americans. When the US took West German Ulf Mehrbold into space with them in 1983, the Soviets had already done the same for ten (!) foreign nationals, including East German Sigmund Jähn in 1978 and Frenchman Jean-Loup Chrétien in 1982.

OK, to be fair, the US simply didn't have any crewed space launches between 1975 and 1981, that probably goes a long way to explaining this disparity. But still, once they started taking foreign citizens with them, I would have thought that Britain would be among the first on that list. Between 1984 and 1985 there were a Canadian, a Saudi, someone from the Netherlands and a Mexican, and then there was a long pause until 1992, presumably because of the Challenger disaster.

by rob74

5/22/2026 at 11:57:55 AM

Brits more or less completely abandoned space in any meaningful way. Successive governments didn't value it at all in comparison to other areas of policy. Even after we developed our own independent orbital launch capability. The story is much the same today, a couple of satellite companies, very little real primary capability. Our "spaceports" are mostly artist impressions or computer generated imagery. Meanwhile we will spend £250b annually on the health service by 2028, up from £45b in 2000.

by nickdothutton

5/22/2026 at 12:19:42 PM

What is the point re the health service? We should be enriching people like musk instead of looking after the health of citizens? We spend money on loads of stuff just wondering why you think the NHS needs to be singled out as if it is using resources that could be used to find space exploration/launches.

by celticninja

5/22/2026 at 3:07:51 PM

Healthcare is a bottomless pit. Demand is effectively infinite so no amount of funding will ever be enough. That's not to say we should eliminate it, but there has to be a balance. We shouldn't dump so many resources into healthcare that it strangles other sectors like space launch that are pushing human society forward for the long term. Whether that enriches certain individuals or not is completely irrelevant.

And you present a false choice. No matter what it does, the NHS can only ever have a relatively minor impact on the health of UK citizens. In terms of lifespan — and more importantly healthspan — it's less significant than lifestyle factors: exercise, diet, substance abuse, sleep hygiene, violence, toxin exposure, etc.

by nradov

5/22/2026 at 6:54:17 PM

The listed figure is about 3,500£ per year per person. Seems quite low for what it is.

For comparison, the US government spends something like $5,500 per year per person on health care, and doesn't come even remotely close to covering the entire population with that spending.

by wat10000

5/22/2026 at 8:51:32 PM

OK, so what? The US also has a much higher GDP per capital and is the world leader in pretty much everything related to space. If the UK wants to avoid being left behind then they need to adjust priorities. Or they can stick with stagnation.

by nradov

5/22/2026 at 8:56:32 PM

The point is that this "bottomless pit" you describe is not actually very expensive in practice. You imply that too much is spent on the NHS. Based on what?

by wat10000

5/22/2026 at 11:11:06 PM

If the UK wants to have a place in the future global economy then they're spending too much on things other than space launch. The NHS is one of those other things. In order to achieve different results they would have to reallocate spending priorities, and generally shift from a managed decline policy back to a growth policy. But if UK citizens prefer to have continued stagnation then that's also an option.

by nradov

5/23/2026 at 9:31:30 AM

The UK is part of the ESA, and has a space port plan for Caithness.

by nephihaha

5/23/2026 at 9:30:51 AM

As I was saying the other day, I think the main problem with the NHS is misallocation of funds. It receives a lot of money and has some good buildings (when it doesn't sell them off), yet that doesn't always translate into good patient care.

However the notion that we have a binary choice between American style healthcare where you pay through the nose and the NHS where you wait for years is a false one. It would be better to study continental Europe and Japan maybe.

by nephihaha

5/22/2026 at 1:02:43 PM

The NHS consumes about half of all day to day public service spending. It is singular in its ability to suck spending out of UK government.

by cs02rm0

5/22/2026 at 1:25:47 PM

That seems like a lot. Can I ask where you got that figure? Is "day-to-day" denoting some kind of specific budget?

I just tried to Google it and their AI responded with "The NHS and social care account for roughly half (49%) of all day-to-day public service spending controlled by the Westminster government.", linking me to a report from the The King's Fund [1].

But on reading that report, it seems to say only that 49.5% is the cost of staffing the NHS from its own budget, which it states as £205 billion in 2024/25 - that's more like 20% of the year's public spending [2]. Which seems more in line with what I had assumed.

[1] https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/data-and-c...

[2] https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/BriefGuide-M23.pdf

by dtf

5/22/2026 at 4:48:13 PM

It was widely covered at the time of the Spending Review last year, based on government figures.

Day-to-day is the routine, required cost of running the state, without long term infrastructure spending.

by cs02rm0

5/23/2026 at 10:00:24 AM

How much of that comes right back to the government, in the form of tax income?

by cjrp

5/23/2026 at 5:37:48 PM

I'd imagine a similar ballpark to any other day-to-day government spending. It might affect perception around the absolute number on the balance sheet, but it won't significantly affect the proportion of spending.

by cs02rm0

5/22/2026 at 1:18:36 PM

That’s the second C-suite I’ve seen on here today posting about how your entitlement to things should be directly proportional to your wealth.

Has a new memo gone out? Have we moved on from AI to ultracapitalism as the c-suite talking point?

by badgersnake

5/22/2026 at 11:33:32 AM

The Soviets picked up on this early on. They got the first woman into space long before the USA did. First black man and east Asian too. They took quite a few people from eastern bloc countries including Cuba and East Germany (which is mentioned in the film "Goodbye Lenin".)

by nephihaha

5/24/2026 at 3:27:38 AM

First remotely-Turkish descent person in space was Andriyan Nikolaev, the third Soviet cosmonaut (and the husband of Valentina Tereshkova).

by avmich

5/22/2026 at 5:04:30 PM

>But still, once they started taking foreign citizens with them, I would have thought that Britain would be among the first on that list. Between 1984 and 1985 there were a Canadian, a Saudi, someone from the Netherlands and a Mexican, and then there was a long pause until 1992, presumably because of the Challenger disaster.

Without the loss of Challenger, a Briton would have flown in space on the shuttle in the 1980s. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zircon_(satellite)>

by TMWNN

5/23/2026 at 9:33:02 AM

I'm sure they had a West German as well, in response to East Germans being taken up by the USSR. I may be wrong.

by nephihaha

5/22/2026 at 11:13:12 PM

> the Eastern European nations weren't really given the choice if they wanted to be USSR allies

that's generally how alliances work, out of necessity...

by throawayonthe

5/22/2026 at 7:31:40 AM

Canada effectively bought its participation in the US space program with Canadarm.

by goodcanadian

5/22/2026 at 8:56:42 AM

Not feeling particularly charitable to your country folk this morning eh Good Canadian? The US didn't include Canada in the shuttle program as a favor or because Canada wrote a check, they included Canada because the technology was excellent and necessary. Canada had world class engineering skills at that time, and was invited by NSAS to participate. I don't think we bought our way on, I think our country happened to have an ounce of ambitions during that period and we preformed incredibly well.

https://parks.canada.ca/culture/designation/evenement-event/...

by neom

5/22/2026 at 10:41:36 AM

I did not mean for it to be taken as uncharitable. I am extremely proud of Canada's contribution. My point was more that even when foreign nationals were included, the U.S. did not hand out seats for propaganda reasons. There was a quid pro quo.

by goodcanadian

5/22/2026 at 9:26:26 AM

Exactly like the article describes Britain doing with the Soviets - " At the time the British government wasn't involved in space exploration, so paying for a spot on a flight was the only way to get there."

by another-dave

5/22/2026 at 10:14:44 AM

The story I remember is that at the time she worked for Mars (developing the Mars ice cream), so one of the tabloids had the headline:

"Woman from Mars goes to space!"

by WWWWH

5/22/2026 at 10:47:12 AM

Peak British journalism.

by simonh

5/22/2026 at 1:53:14 PM

No, that was "Foot heads arms body", when Michael Foot became the chair of CND.

by KineticLensman

5/22/2026 at 1:55:10 PM

TBF, that pun was to good to pass up. Although (after looking up the CND) "Foot heads no-arms body" would have been more correct (and maybe even funnier, depending on your sense of humour)...

EDIT: looks like this is one of the most well-known headlines that was never actually used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foot#%22Foot_Heads_Arm...

by rob74

5/22/2026 at 2:53:20 PM

If you'd like a real one, try the occasion in 2000 of Caledonian Thistle beating Celtic 3-1, sparking the headline SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC, CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS

by amiga386

5/22/2026 at 7:37:28 AM

It was really sad how she doesn't get the recognition she deserves for being the first Briton in space. Whether it's because she's a woman or because it was with the Russians she hasn't received the level of respect or adulation you expect for the achievement.

by drumhead

5/22/2026 at 8:27:35 AM

The public don't care that much about space I think - in the UK. It's not something people can pump themselves up with borrowed pride about.

Our media is full of arts students and engineers are the people who come to fix your boiler. When technology is talked about, its only really impressive if it comes from somewhere else and sits in their hand.

I'm from one of the other (forgotten) colonies so my perspective is partially from the inside and partially outside. and I think people in the UK care so much about preserving the abundant (and often rather ugly) past that they don't leave any room for the future. Satellites and spaceships and science and technology are horrible things that intrude and change life and change has often not been pleasant.

Conversely those that do want change have sometimes taken such a high and mighty approach that the things they did were entirely for themselves and proving some point rather than about creating a place that is wonderful to live in - hence the worship of the past.

Anyhow I do know about Helen Sharman and so do all the space enthusiasts generally but people here don't even know we have a satellite manufacturing industry that's quite successful and very sophisticated.

by t43562

5/22/2026 at 11:02:38 AM

I think you are part right. I do not really see the worship of the past, and am often concerned about failures to preserve the past.

I think the problem with things like satellites and technology in general is more to do with the ruling class being declinist, unambitious, and plain incompetent. We will be spending more on HS2 than NASA spent on Artemis, and HS2 is not even achieving anything close to its original aims. That is just one example.

> people here don't even know we have a satellite manufacturing industry that's quite successful and very sophisticated.

That is true. Again there is a reluctance of celebrate successes.

I am also also from a former colony BTW.

by graemep

5/22/2026 at 9:13:46 AM

The one thing British people do preen about with regards to technology is cars, but I think that has more to do with the cultural influence of Top Gear than it does the history.

by Aromasin

5/22/2026 at 10:15:24 AM

And the old Top Gear team did have a record of trying their best to combine rocket technology with cars...

by arethuza

5/22/2026 at 11:33:41 AM

"Boffin in shed launches rocket"

by iso1631

5/22/2026 at 11:40:19 AM

[dead]

by SuddsMcDuff

5/22/2026 at 11:50:09 AM

I don't think it's as bad as all that. Personally, I always feel a little prick of national pride when I watch Space X launches and see that Goonhilly Earth Station (https://www.goonhilly.org/) has taken over tracking the rocket.

by SuddsMcDuff

5/22/2026 at 8:22:12 AM

I was a child at the time and I absolutely remember her getting adulation and celebrity. The may have faded from a lot of memories since, but at the time she was definitely recognised

by ascorbic

5/22/2026 at 8:33:07 AM

I was an adult and other than being on the obvious shows like Blue Peter and newsround, there was nothing. You'd expect a knighthood or a peerage, all she's got is an OBE. England football team in 1990 got a parade through London for getting to the semi finals, and our first astronaut got...nothing.

by drumhead

5/22/2026 at 4:31:31 PM

Hah. Well, for a kid then, Blue Peter and Newsround was celebrity!

by ascorbic

5/22/2026 at 3:14:45 PM

Same, I didn't recognise her name immediately, but that iconic image of her was seared into my childhood memory.

by SuddsMcDuff

5/22/2026 at 8:27:56 AM

I think everybody in Britain of a certain age knows Helen Sharman. Her name popped into my head the moment I read the title of this post. It was certainly a big deal at the time.

I know we don’t fawn over astronauts here, but I’m not sure what additional “respect” or “adulation” you’d expect? She may not be a household name now, but she certainly was at the time.

by louthy

5/22/2026 at 8:53:07 AM

I'm not sure how hitching a ride with another space agency is a huge achievement. For her personally yes, but it's hardly national pride stuff, is it?

That said, she had an OBE, so has been recognised.

by nly

5/22/2026 at 11:35:32 AM

She got a lot, and I mean a lot, of publicity at the time in the UK and I remember it well. However, her mission in itself wasn't particularly exciting and she certainly didn't engage in any gimmicks like playing a guitar in space.

She has had book tours, and has appeared on Brian Cox vehicles and the Sky at Night on numerous occasions.

Why isn't she well commemorated then?

* Personality? It obviously took personal toughness and resolve to get where she did. So that's moot. But she's never gone down the Chris Hadfield and Buzz Aldrin routes.

* Declining relations with Russia. Deffo a possibility. That and the fact that the UK media is very US-centric.

* The shine had gone off human space travel by the early nineties. Probes like Voyager etc were delivering the more exciting news. Her mission was fairly routine from what I remember.

There have been very few space travellers from the UK since. No Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish at all. It's worth pointing out that both Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin had big parades and tours in Scotland back in the day. Armstrong went to his ancestral Langholm and got the freedom of the town. Gagarin toured mining communities to great excitement. There is even a Gagarin Way in a town in Fife long after the mines have gone.

If we're talking about commemoration, then maybe she could have had a role in the London Olympics or various Commonwealth Games. Seems odd.

by nephihaha

5/22/2026 at 2:58:54 PM

As others have pointed out at the time she absolutely did get attention. What the modern UK has memory holed is just how bonkersly pro-Russian it was in the 90s; everything from Tetris, Newton handwriting recognition, software generally, rockets, materials, nanotech, new gas supplies, having Abramovich buy Chelsea and the result being practically all the upper middle class exploring Russian (and ex Soviet) connections for investment. The former USSR was then what Qatar etc. are today. It does seem plausible that she fell into that hole along with everything else.

by fidotron

5/23/2026 at 9:43:36 AM

I wouldn't call the UK pro-Russian exactly. A lot of people were relieved the Cold War was over and many people did feel things would get better. There has been an attempt to reverse that, to the point that Tchaikovsky concerts were getting cancelled a few years ago which is ridiculous. Then you had Louise Mensch claiming Russia had produced nothing of cultural worth... A pretty outrageous statement whatever you think of their governments. In retrospect, Yeltsin's government was very corrupt and Russia's economy was demolished, which I think led us to where we are today. Soviet space achievements have definitely been airbrushed out.

Back in the seventies and eighties, there was definitely a pro-Soviet element in play as well as a pro-American one. It was often low key, but you could see it in the BBC sometimes, and definitely in the Labour Party. Yuri Gagarin did a successful tour of the UK which has been largely forgotten about, including visiting mining towns etc. Even someone as right wing as Patrick Moore was friendly with people from both the eastern and western space programmes, and helped the USSR with lunar mapping

by nephihaha

5/22/2026 at 8:35:25 AM

Everyone knows who Helen Sharman is.

by ErroneousBosh

5/22/2026 at 9:55:59 AM

[dead]

by aaron695

5/22/2026 at 3:40:52 PM

Couldn't help but be reminded of Eddie Izzard's old "Career Advisor" bit:

"I want to be a space astronaut, go to outer space and discover things that have never been discovered!"

"Look, you're British, so scale it down a bit, all right?"

https://youtu.be/xGGeLHnDQk8?si=XNEC8Pg8xER6EBOX&t=12

by ThinkingGuy

5/22/2026 at 6:45:25 AM

That's a fantastic story. The "no experience necessary" ad is wild to think about now. It really shows how different the space industry was back then—and how a random moment can change everything. Sharman seems genuinely humble about it too. Thanks for sharing.

by huzaifasinan

5/22/2026 at 10:10:33 AM

I remember Tim Peake being touted as the first British astronaut, and being a little confused (having previously met Helen Sharman at Imperial College London) had to dig this story up myself.

by alansaber

5/22/2026 at 3:27:35 PM

Technically that is correct, because Helen Sharman was a cosmonaut rather than an astronaut or taikonaut.

But NASA does that all the time. They recently claimed to perform the first flight and sound transmissions from another planet. The Soviet Venera missions had already done this during the 1980s from Venus. NASA performed the first powered flight on Mars.

by nephihaha

5/22/2026 at 12:49:59 PM

People will argue that Sharman was a cosmonaut because she went into space with the Soviet Union.

The distinction is Cold War propaganda that has never made any sense to me. We have two English words to describe the same thing, but one is only used if the act was done or facilitated by Russia?

by jrmg

5/22/2026 at 3:29:26 PM

We also have taikonaut but it's not taken as seriously ;)

by philipwhiuk

5/22/2026 at 3:33:13 PM

People will argue. ESPECIALLY on HN.

I've yet to see a discussion that doesn't have a major subthread on an apparently unrelated subject. This is the Internet's vacation spot for "Well, ackshually" interjections.

Per the unwritten guidelines, each thread must also contain at least one reference to Musk, AI, or Tim Cook.

by IAmBroom

5/22/2026 at 11:32:38 AM

I remember Tim Peake being a big thing, but I don't remember anyone saying he was first

by iso1631

5/22/2026 at 5:25:58 PM

Even in space, it's One Group vs The Others. To quote Trump, "Sad."

by lo_fye