Helen Sharman’s Project Juno Mission: GotG22

Thirty years ago, Helen Sharman blasted off on her Project Juno mission, becoming the first British astronaut and the first woman to visit the Mir space station. Join Emma the Space Gardener to discover how Helen was chosen for the mission, the plants she grew on Mir, and what happened to the pansy seeds she took into space.

Gardeners of the Galaxy episode 22 script

Hello, and welcome to episode 22 of Gardeners of the Galaxy, the podcast for all of the sentient beings in the universe who have a passion for plants! I am Emma the Space Gardener, and I will be your host as we explore gardening on Earth… and beyond!

It’s 30 years since Dr Helen Sharman blasted off on her Project Juno mission, becoming both the first British citizen in space and the first woman to visit the Mir space station. In this episode, I’m going to explore how Helen came to be chosen for the mission, the gardening experiments she carried out on Mir, and what happened to the space-flown pansy seeds she brought back for British schoolchildren to grow.

First, though, I’ve got some space news to recap, and I’ll be answering another question about space plants in the new FAQ section.

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter continues to fly high on Mars. It recently completed its fifth flight on the Red Planet and its first one-way journey. It travelled from Wright Brothers Field to an airfield 129 metres to the south. Then it climbed to an altitude record of 10 metres and took high-resolution colour photos of its new neighbourhood before touching down.

NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft has started its journey home from asteroid Bennu with its precious cargo of rock samples. Osiris-Rex arrived at Bennu in 2018 and spent two years flying around the asteroid before collecting