Helen Sharman

Helen Sharman is a British chemist who became the first British citizen to fly in space, launching aboard a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in May 1991 to the Mir space station as part of a privately and government-sponsored British program called Project Juno. She was selected from thousands of applicants who responded to a radio advertisement seeking astronaut candidates, with no prior background in the space program, and she spent about eight days in orbit conducting scientific experiments.