IN 1989, answered a radio advertisement that would change her life. She applied to be an astronaut aboard the Soviet space station Mir, competing against 13,000 other candidates for the chance to be the first British citizen in space. She got the job. The privately funded mission, called Project Juno, almost didn鈥檛 happen because of money problems but the Soviet Union eventually picked up the bill. In 1991, aged 27, she became a household name, spending eight days in space performing scientific experiments.
After her return to Earth, she wrote books, visited schools and undertook speaking tours about science. Ironically, given her cosmic voyage, she became known for her down-to-earth manner. 鈥淚t took me 2 hours to get round the supermarket to buy a can of beans because everybody wanted to know what it was like in space,鈥� she says, smiling.
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Sharman retreated from public life in the noughties, before joining the National Physical Laboratory in 2011 and then moving to Imperial College London to become operations manager at the department of chemistry in 2015. Now, she has narrated a voiceover for with Danish renewable energy company 脴rsted, to help democratise access to the 鈥渙verview effect鈥�, the unique perspective astronauts get of Earth and its fragility.
In our conversation, Sharman is warm, loquacious and passionate when talking about everything from the future of space flight to the environment and Brexit.
What was your first view of Earth from space like?
As soon as you鈥檙e out of the atmosphere, the fairings jettison and light can come through the window. Luckily for me, I was on the part of the spacecraft that was pointing towards the Earth so I could see the Pacific Ocean, with the curvature of the Earth and black space above. It was really, really bright.
How would you describe the overview effect?
When you look down on the Earth, you can鈥檛 see the political boundaries. Politics means absolutely nothing because you鈥檙e seeing the natural world. When you鈥檙e zipping around in low Earth orbit, in 92 minutes you鈥檝e gone completely around the Earth. So instead of it being this huge place that you can apparently do anything to that鈥檚 really robust, it鈥檚 actually a very tiny place where everything is affecting everything else.
We鈥檙e all part of the Earth and the Earth is as much part of us as we are of it. I am angered by the fact that we are apparently destroying the very thing that鈥檚 given us life, as opposed to what we could be doing, which is living symbiotically.
鈥淓ncouraging people to take an interest in science protects the environment鈥�
What did being in space make you realise?
Physical possessions, material stuff is absolutely meaningless. I had everything around me that I needed. I had the basic clothes that I needed. I had food, warmth and shelter.
That鈥檚 not to say it鈥檚 not nice to have the occasional nice item of clothing or that I am against fashion at all. I do buy new clothes every so often. But I think we put too much emphasis on what we own. And we identify quite often with the car we drive.
We use our possessions as an extension of ourselves. We should just think about what鈥檚 really important, and generally consume less.
You almost sound like an environmentalist. Would you describe yourself as one?
I describe myself as a scientist and as somebody who cares for the world we live in. But I鈥檝e never been an environmentalist in the sense of somebody who鈥檚 devoted their life to protecting the environment. Being a scientist and trying to encourage people to take an interest in science or logical thought protects the environment as much as anything else.
What are your biggest environmental concerns today?
Climate change over and above pretty much everything else, because that will affect every single one of us. It鈥檚 affecting us now, but it could easily make the world uninhabitable.
How do you square the carbon footprint of space flight with climate concerns, especially when you have entrepreneurs like SpaceX鈥檚 Elon Musk sending a Tesla car into space?
We didn鈥檛 need to send an electric sports car, did we? But I think space gives us a huge amount of information on the environment. What concerns me most is the debris we are creating around the Earth, particularly in low Earth orbit and geostationary orbit. I think that鈥檚 probably one of the biggest challenges for space flight in the future.
In 1991, New Scientist was quite critical of the scientific accomplishments of Project Juno, which you participated in. What do you think it achieved?
The science was part of the Soviet space programme of science experiments. There was a large amount of agricultural science, Earth observation, materials science. It was all in there but they just weren鈥檛 British experiments. I do feel sad that they weren鈥檛 British experiments.
Looking forward, what do you think Brexit will mean for the future of UK space science?
One could argue that if the UK is not going to contribute to the EU that it might at least contribute towards the European Space Agency and CERN. But Brexit isn鈥檛 worth it because we would lose so much more in terms of the collaborations and the science.
In parallel to the official agencies, an increasing amount of space flight today is private. Do you think that is a good thing?
I think mostly good, because it鈥檚 going to reduce the cost of space flight and increase access to space for scientists. But it鈥檚 got to be managed effectively. The UN possibly needs to be more involved. We need to make sure that we don鈥檛 just allow individuals and space agencies to make their own rules.
Is NASA鈥檚 plan to return to the moon the right one?
The right idea is actually to go to Mars, and in order to get there we need to return to the moon. In order to go to Mars, a lunar base is probably what we need. We don鈥檛 need to go back to the moon for its own sake.
Are the timelines for humans landing on Mars realistic, such as SpaceX鈥檚 plan to get there in 2022, or Donald Trump鈥檚 target of 2024?
So Trump and Musk I probably don鈥檛 believe. Astronauts seem to think that towards the end of the 2030s could be a reasonably realistic estimate of when people actually set foot on Mars for the first time.
