Helen Sharman: ‘There’s no greater beauty than seeing the Earth from up high’

The astronaut, 56, on self-belief, G-force - and being the only girl in science class

Almost everything about my childhood was normal and mundane. Our nuclear family lived in a comfortable house in suburban Sheffield. I went to school at the local comp. No one exciting ever visited. It meant I thought only normal things could happen to me.

When I was choosing my A-levels, a German teacher found me in a corridor and pointed out that if I were to pick physics and chemistry, I'd be the only girl in those classes. That was the first time I considered my gender in relation to science, and I decided pretty quickly that it wasn't going to stop me.