Name a British astronaut... how about Helen Sharman?

Three decades ago, Britain’s first astronaut, Helen Sharman, travelled into space. Now she’s turning her focus to science communication. So why do so few people know who she is, asks Mick O'Hare

‘I guess even today there are still only two British astronauts, and I was the first’ – Helen Sharman returning from the Mir space station in 1991 (Soviet Space Agency)

It’s like the old Peter Ustinov joke. When the writer and raconteur of Russian descent was at school in England, his teacher would demand: “Ustinov, name a Russian composer.” The young pupil would answer correctly “Rimsky-Korsakov, sir.” To which his teacher would snort: “Wrong. It’s Tchaikovsky – everybody knows that.”

It’s an experience Helen Sharman might recognise:

“Name a British astronaut.”