Helen Sharman

During launch, the outside of the rocket is covered in a protective fairing, so we couldn't see outside, but as soon as that was jettisoned, my first view of the earth was over the Pacific Ocean, which was this wonderful deep blue, with clouds just over the top, and sunlight streaming in through the window.

Politicians and the government have become too interested in short-term gains. Of course, if you look at the direct financial returns in the short term, human space flight is expensive. But they need to look longer term.

I watch TV on my TV pretty exclusively. However, when I'm on that long flight between Los Angeles and New York, a great way to pass that time is to download movies on iTunes and watch them on my laptop.

I am so tired of ruggedly handsome heroes. I don't know too many ruggedly handsome people who are necessarily nice people. In fact, the beautiful people have a big handicap because they rely too much on their appearance and don't bother to become interesting.

I kind of stumbled into acting, even though I've always been fascinated by people and kind of their motives, and it's been amazing to me, everything I read before about psychology, philosophy, just to put it into practice somehow.