Major Tim Peake

The first Briton in space was Yorkshire-born Dr. Helen Sharman (1963-) in 1991, who spent eight days in the Russian space station, Mir, in orbit above the Earth. The second Briton, Major Tim N. Peake (1972-) from Sussex spent 186 days in the International Space Station from December 2015 to June 2016. He had previously been in the British Army Air Corps and was a helicopter pilot before training at the European Space Agency.

He was able to set up or contribute to more than 250 experiments during his 3,000 orbits of the Earth. Most of these are long-term. Some, like his rocket seeds experiment, are aimed at getting schoolchildren interested and involved. Major Peake has been a leading figure in new school projects designed for the STEM subjects ~ science, technology, engineering and mathematics ~ in the hope that they will inspire British youngsters to take up careers in space technology in the future.

(Top image: NASA Johnson at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC 2.0)