Helen Sharman appears by arrangement with DBA Speakers www.dbaspeakers.com

In 1989, Helen Sharman was driving home from work when a radio ad changed her life. Astronaut wanted. No experience necessary. Britain had no space agency, no human spaceflight programme, and no tradition of sending civilians into orbit. Helen was a 26-year-old food technologist from Sheffield with a chemistry degree and no military background. She applied anyway.

Eighteen months later, she was sitting on top of a Soviet rocket - and on 18 May 1991, she became the first British person in space.

Helen joins Hugh to tell the full story: the 13,000 applicants, the gruelling selection process, and the live television broadcast that revealed her as one of the two ...