Helen Sharman Quotes

Remember, I am not trying to orbit the earth. It is a simple elevator ride for 20 minutes.

A zero-gravity flight is a first step toward space travel.

In 2009 I went up on the space shuttle. I was in space for 16 days and docked at the space station for 11 days. The entire crew did five space walks, of which I was involved with three of them. When you're doing a space walk, you always have a buddy with you. It's a very dangerous environment when you're doing a space walk.

For the last several years and culminating in six months in orbit next year, I've been training for my third space flight. This one is almost in a category completely different than the previous two, specifically to live in on the space station for six months, to command a space ship and to fly a new rocket ship.

They forbade me from flying, despite all my protests and arguments. After being once in space, I was desperately keen to go back there. But it didn't happen.

The excitement really didn't start to build until the trailer - which was carrying me, with a space suit with ventilation and all that sort of stuff - pulled up to the launch pad.

When you launch in a rocket, you're not really flying that rocket. You're just sort of hanging on.

It's hard not to be excited when you're going to find a way to land on the moon.

If you're going to go into space, you have to have an objective, a mission. Where do you want to go? Earth orbit? The moon? Mars? What's the technology to get there? You develop the technology for the mission.

The truth is, every single rocket launch off of planet Earth is risky.

I thought I was prepared for space, and it still absolutely defied every expectation and dream. It is an incredible thing to put yourself on a rocket and launch off the planet. It is an amazing thing to see the planet from space. This blue sphere is almost indescribably beautiful.

I've been lucky enough to fly to space twice.

One day, people will be able to buy tickets to visit space.

Build a rocket ship and leave the earth!

When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen.

Finally my dream came true in that there was a possibility that I could travel to the International Space Station. I've gone through the medicals and the training and now I'm officially, by the Russian Space Federation, a cosmonaut in training.

The rocket had worked perfectly, and all I had to do was survive the reentry forces. You do it all, in a flight like that, in a rather short period of time, just 16 minutes as a matter of fact.

When the space shuttle's engines cut off, and you're finally in space, in orbit, weightless... I remember unstrapping from my seat, floating over to the window, and that's when I got my first view of Earth. Just a spectacular view, and a chance to see our planet as a planet.

I wanted to get superimposed on a shuttle launch.

I've had a chance to fly a lot of different airplanes, but it was nothing like the shuttle ride.

There's going to be space travel at some point.

I'd love to go into space again if there were a mission to Mars. I'd also love to go to a completely different planetary system, out of our solar system.

Getting to space for satellites is tough. Getting to space with humans aboard is even tougher.

I've flown in space four times now, so it's going to be hard in that respect, but I certainly look forward to going back to Earth. I've been up here for a really long time and sometimes, when I think about it, I feel like I've lived my whole life up here.

Gravity is a really heavy force and you don't realize how heavy it is until you haven't felt it for six and a half months.