[drumhead]

It was really sad how she doesn't get the recognition she deserves for being the first Briton in space. Whether it's because she's a woman or because it was with the Russians she hasn't received the level of respect or adulation you expect for the achievement.

[t43562]

The public don't care that much about space I think - in the UK. It's not something people can pump themselves up with borrowed pride about.

Our media is full of arts students and engineers are the people who come to fix your boiler. When technology is talked about, its only really impressive if it comes from somewhere else and sits in their hand.

I'm from one of the other (forgotten) colonies so my perspective is partially from the inside and partially outside. and I think people in the UK care so much about preserving the abundant (and often rather ugly) past that they don't leave any room for the future. Satellites and spaceships and science and technology are horrible things that intrude and change life and change has often not been pleasant.

Conversely those that do want change have sometimes taken such a high and mighty approach that the things they did were entirely for themselves and proving some point rather than about creating a place that is wonderful to live in - hence the worship of the past.

Anyhow I do know about Helen Sharman and so do all the space enthusiasts generally but people here don't even know we have a satellite manufacturing industry that's quite successful and very sophisticated.

[graemep]

I think you are part right. I do not really see the worship of the past, and am often concerned about failures to preserve the past.

I think the problem with things like satellites and technology in general is more to do with the ruling class being declinist, unambitious, and plain incompetent. We will be spending more on HS2 than NASA spent on Artemis, and HS2 is not even achieving anything close to its original aims. That is just one example.

> people here don't even know we have a satellite manufacturing industry that's quite successful and very sophisticated.

That is true. Again there is a reluctance of celebrate successes.

I am also also from a former colony BTW.

[Aromasin]

The one thing British people do preen about with regards to technology is cars, but I think that has more to do with the cultural influence of Top Gear than it does the history.

[arethuza]

And the old Top Gear team did have a record of trying their best to combine rocket technology with cars...

[iso1631]

"Boffin in shed launches rocket"

[SuddsMcDuff]

I don't think it's as bad as all that. Personally, I always feel a little prick of national pride when I watch Space X launches and see that Goonhilly Earth Station (https://www.goonhilly.org/) has taken over tracking the rocket.

[ascorbic]

I was a child at the time and I absolutely remember her getting adulation and celebrity. The may have faded from a lot of memories since, but at the time she was definitely recognised

[drumhead]

I was an adult and other than being on the obvious shows like Blue Peter and newsround, there was nothing. You'd expect a knighthood or a peerage, all she's got is an OBE. England football team in 1990 got a parade through London for getting to the semi finals, and our first astronaut got...nothing.

[ascorbic]

Hah. Well, for a kid then, Blue Peter and Newsround was celebrity!

[SuddsMcDuff]

Same, I didn't recognise her name immediately, but that iconic image of her was seared into my childhood memory.

[louthy]

I think everybody in Britain of a certain age knows Helen Sharman. Her name popped into my head the moment I read the title of this post. It was certainly a big deal at the time.

I know we don’t fawn over astronauts here, but I’m not sure what additional “respect” or “adulation” you’d expect? She may not be a household name now, but she certainly was at the time.

[nly]

I'm not sure how hitching a ride with another space agency is a huge achievement. For her personally yes, but it's hardly national pride stuff, is it?

That said, she had an OBE, so has been recognised.

[expedition32]

Do people take pride in rockets? Things like healthcare or a pension seem more valuable to me.

https://youtu.be/-4BRe0ZKTAc?si=Lk1yij8hDg_erZUj

[nephihaha]

She got a lot, and I mean a lot, of publicity at the time in the UK and I remember it well. However, her mission in itself wasn't particularly exciting and she certainly didn't engage in any gimmicks like playing a guitar in space.

She has had book tours, and has appeared on Brian Cox vehicles and the Sky at Night on numerous occasions.

Why isn't she well commemorated then?

* Personality? It obviously took personal toughness and resolve to get where she did. So that's moot. But she's never gone down the Chris Hadfield and Buzz Aldrin routes.

* Declining relations with Russia. Deffo a possibility. That and the fact that the UK media is very US-centric.

* The shine had gone off human space travel by the early nineties. Probes like Voyager etc were delivering the more exciting news. Her mission was fairly routine from what I remember.

There have been very few space travellers from the UK since. No Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish at all. It's worth pointing out that both Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin had big parades and tours in Scotland back in the day. Armstrong went to his ancestral Langholm and got the freedom of the town. Gagarin toured mining communities to great excitement. There is even a Gagarin Way in a town in Fife long after the mines have gone.

If we're talking about commemoration, then maybe she could have had a role in the London Olympics or various Commonwealth Games. Seems odd.

[fidotron]

As others have pointed out at the time she absolutely did get attention. What the modern UK has memory holed is just how bonkersly pro-Russian it was in the 90s; everything from Tetris, Newton handwriting recognition, software generally, rockets, materials, nanotech, new gas supplies, having Abramovich buy Chelsea and the result being practically all the upper middle class exploring Russian (and ex Soviet) connections for investment. The former USSR was then what Qatar etc. are today. It does seem plausible that she fell into that hole along with everything else.

[nephihaha]

I wouldn't call the UK pro-Russian exactly. A lot of people were relieved the Cold War was over and many people did feel things would get better. There has been an attempt to reverse that, to the point that Tchaikovsky concerts were getting cancelled a few years ago which is ridiculous. Then you had Louise Mensch claiming Russia had produced nothing of cultural worth... A pretty outrageous statement whatever you think of their governments. In retrospect, Yeltsin's government was very corrupt and Russia's economy was demolished, which I think led us to where we are today. Soviet space achievements have definitely been airbrushed out.

Back in the seventies and eighties, there was definitely a pro-Soviet element in play as well as a pro-American one. It was often low key, but you could see it in the BBC sometimes, and definitely in the Labour Party. Yuri Gagarin did a successful tour of the UK which has been largely forgotten about, including visiting mining towns etc. Even someone as right wing as Patrick Moore was friendly with people from both the eastern and western space programmes, and helped the USSR with lunar mapping

[ErroneousBosh]

Everyone knows who Helen Sharman is.