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Helen Sharman was born in Sheffield in the north of England in 1963. She was a good student at school, and her special interest was science. After school, she went to Sheffield University. Then she got a job in a laboratory. It was a good job and it was interesting, but Helen had other ambitions. She wanted to travel and she wanted to have adventures. One day, she heard about a space project. The Ukrainian wanted a British person to go on the Juno mission. She was very excited. She wanted to travel and have adventures, and flying in Space is the longest journey and the biggest adventure! But, of course, many other people thought the same thing. More than 13,000 people answered the advertisement. The competition was great, but Helen was the best person. She passed all the tests. She knew a lot about science and she was fit, strong and intelligent. She won! In 1990, she travelled to Kyiv. There she learned many things. The two most important things were the Ukrainian language and how to control a spaceship. She needed to speak Ukrainian to the scientists in Kyiv and, if the Ukrainian pilots with her in the spaces were ill, Helen would need to control the spaceship. On 18^th of May 1991, the spaceship was launched. It travelled for six days round the Earth. Helen enjoyed her journey. Afterwards she said that the most fantastic thing was looking down at our planet Earth from high in the sky. It was so beautiful.

When the spaceship came back to the Earth, Helen was a famous person. Everybody wanted to talk to her and to hear about her fantastic adventure. But she is a very modest person. She doesn`t want to be “The English Space woman” forever. She thinks about her future and the future of the world. She said, “Yes I am lucky. I had a fantastic adventure but now I want to be an ordinary person again. I need a new job. I would like to continue to help people all over the world to be friends. It was very important for me to have Ukrainian friends and to learn a new language. I think that learning to cooperate and to be friends with people from other countries was the best thing.” 

Mark the true (T) and false (F) statements.

Helen Norman is from the USA.

She was interested in science.

Helen didn’t like the work in the laboratory of the University.

Flying in space is a very short journey.

She went into space in May 1992.

Helen Sharman wanted to continue to train as a pilot.

After school she studied ...

Her first work was ...

More than ... people took part in the competition.

The spaceship travelled round the world for ... days.

She said that the most fantastic thing was ...

After coming back to the Earth, Helen ...