Frequently asked questions

My mission was designed as the first human spaceflight for the UK. A company was created to manage the mission to put the first Briton into space on a commercial basis. I carried out various scientific experiments and I spoke with UK media during and after the flight.

A launch to low Earth orbit gives a maximum of just under 4 g of acceleration (however, returning to Earth can be more physically demanding). The launch does not gradually build up to 4 g but it is lumpy and bumpy: as fuel is used up the rocket becomes lighter so acceleration increases; when the fairing or a rocket stage is jettisoned there is a bump and between stages there is a gap when the acceleration drops. As soon as the final stage is jettisoned, acceleration immediately falls to zero and the astronauts feel weightless.

As soon as the final rocket stage is used up and jettisoned, the spacecraft starts to fall, being pulled towards the centre of the Earth by gravity. Although acceleration due to gravity decreases the further away from Earth we are, in Low Earth Orbit, about 400 km from the surface of the Earth, the acceleration due to gravity is still very strong (about 90% of what it is on the Earth’s surface). However, the rocket has made the spacecraft travel along at 8 km per second (18 000 miles per hour), which is so fast that as the spacecraft falls, the Earth’s surface curves away below. The spacecraft continues falling around the Earth and the astronauts are falling inside it. In Low Earth Orbit, we feel weightless because we are constantly falling, floating inside the falling spacecraft.

Feeling weightless is something that I still dream about. It feels natural, free and relaxing. At first, body fluids tend to move more towards the head and our faces feel puffed up, but the human body adapts and over a few days, we excrete an additional two litres or so of urine. Then we feel more comfortable. I forgot what it is like to have weight and to sit down and stand up. Sleeping on the wall or the ceiling is an entirely reasonable thing to do in space!

I investigated the effects of microgravity on our bodies and plants; I used an experimental air lock to put a rack of ceramic films outside the Space Station to find out how they responded to the vacuum and radiation of space; I grew protein crystals; I investigated new materials and I monitored the colour of certain parts of the Earth’s surface. I used an amateur radio system to make contact with students in UK schools and I took some seeds with me that became part of a UK school experiment with another, control set of seeds.

The food was mostly dried and tinned for me. Some, like the cream cheese and certain types of fruit juice, was in tubes rather like tubes of toothpaste. Soup, fish in tomato sauce, bread and tea were staples. Nowadays, there is more variety of space food and with modern processing and packaging, some of it can resemble the type of food you might be given on an airline.

An oxygen valve stuck open during my launch, an antenna on the outside of the spacecraft was damaged, resulting in us having to do a manual docking to the Station and there was insufficient electrical energy being produced by the solar panels due to a new module blocking some of the sunlight and a computer failure. Like any complex piece of engineering, a space station needs maintenance and repair.

Gliding into the Space Station and greeting the two people who had been there already for six months was a great feeling, as was floating about feeling weightless. The views out of the window were magical and something we never tired of watching. But most of all, I enjoyed being part of a crew that was part of a network of teams where everyone worked together for a purpose we all shared.

It was an honour and a privilege to become an astronaut and I wanted to share my space flight with as many people in the UK as possible. I also wanted to put my experience to good use so I toured the UK talking about space to communicate science to school students. I spent eight years after my flight travelling around the country, giving talks, presenting science and working with school students to help to make science interesting and accessible. I was not employed by the Mission after the end of 1991 and most of this work was unpaid but I consider it amongst the most valuable outputs of my Mission.

I give talks and lectures to a wide range of organisations about space flight, the parallels with working lives on Earth and inspiring people to challenge themselves and achieve beyond expectations. I also advocate for science and I talk about the science that is part of life in space, sometimes working with schools. Additionally, I am delighted to work part-time for Imperial College London as Imperial’s UK Outreach Ambassador. If you would like to enquire about me speaking at an event, please contact DBA Speakers on 01932 228544 or go to their website »

Space agencies are looking for people who can apply the skills and knowledge they already have to new areas, where they will perform a wide variety of tasks in a new environment. A proven ability to work under stress is good, as is not needing all the usual comforts and distractions that surround us on Earth.

Experience of teamwork and with complex operations is useful and can be gained in many places, e.g. in industry or a hospital, and I think it will be important to demonstrate you can be flexible, adaptable and gregarious and that you have emotional stability with a temperament that does not easily anger or upset.

It is likely that you will be asked to show an aptitude for spatial orientation and manual dexterity, along with good health and fitness. University level education in a STEM subject will be a basic qualification for most astronaut jobs in the foreseeable future, with additional practical research or development.

A knowledge of different languages would be useful but not essential (languages can be learned as part of the training).

I expect that, as human space flight becomes more commercial, access to space will increase for many different people, whether they be an employee of a pharmaceutical company that wants to experiment on protein crystals as part of new drug development, a company that needs more information about combustion for household product development, or people who will be working in space factories producing materials that cannot be made on Earth. Those astronauts will not be career astronauts, employed by a space agency, but instead they will spend periods of time in space just as they might spend periods of time in different workplaces on Earth. It is an exciting time for human space flight expansion.