The New Explorers
Throughout history, we have been fascinated by the unknown. Hundreds of years ago sea-faring explorers set off in their ships to discover unknown lands across the seas. They discovered ‘new worlds’ and different ways of life. In more recent times, our need to explore has taken us on new voyages of discovery...
 
Helen Sharman
                                                    
Helen Sharman is the first British astronaut. Here are some of the things she said about the time she spent on Mir performing scientific experiments and experiencing the unique feeling of being in a ‘new world’.
“Inside an orbiting spacecraft you feel weightless. Because you’re travelling so fast, you’re pulled towards the Earth as it curves away below you. It’s as though you’re constantly falling round the Earth. Wonderful!
We go into space because of the useful things we can find out there, but no astronaut ever tires of just looking out of the window. If you look towards the Earth you see vast oceans of rich blue, sprinkled with snow white clouds that are so bright with reflected sunlight that it hurts your eyes to look at them for long.
 	Deserts are brick-red, crossed with sandy coloured roads that seem to have neither beginnings nor ends. If you look away from Earth into space, you see millions and millions of stars that seem to go on forever.”		

		

	
Q1.
Circle the correct option to answer the question below.
Who are New Explorers?
 
1 mark
Q2.
Look at the table called Space History.
Tick one box on each row to show whether each statement is true or false.
 
 	 	True	False	
 	The first man landed on the moon in 1961.	 	 	
 	Skylab was the name of a space station launched in the seventies.	 	 	
 	Two astronauts landed on Mars in 1976.	 	 	
 	People can stay in space for longer nowadays than they could at first.	 	 	
2 marks

Q3.
What makes Helen Sharman special in this country?
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1 mark

Q4.
The Space History Table has no column headings.
Use the information in the table to think of helpful headings for each column.
One has been done for you.
Write your headings here.
 
2 marks
Q5.
What does Helen say is the main reason for going into space?
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1 mark