This week I’ve been making documentaries with the BBC and doing lots of news programmes. If I’m lucky, I’ll get maybe 12 hours’ notice for a news programme. I’ve always been an insomniac, so when I do Breakfast often I haven’t slept the night before. I always wear my false eyelashes so I look awake.
I have a three-year-old daughter called Laurie. I have a map in my dining room showing all the places Laurie’s been to date. So far she’s made 64 flights. She’s been to Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and five times to the States. My husband Martin will often take leave to look after her while I’m doing my lectures.
He’s a consultant engineer, working on nuclear power stations or stealth submarines. It’s almost like indoctrination for Laurie. On the swings, when she was younger, she would say: “Push me higher, I want to reach the Moon!” Now she says: “It’s no good, I need a rocket.”
I’m also preparing for my talk at TEDx. I do lots of public speaking but TED means a lot more pressure – it could be translated into lots of languages across the world. I’m trying to get a simple concept you can share globally. I also have to get just the right TED frock. I’ll probably buy two or three and then hone it in on the day. I’m going through a 1950s vibe at the moment. I love the full skirt.
I’m looking forward to seeing the new Star Trek film. It was one of the inspirations that made me a space scientist. I was a black kid growing up in London with dyslexia – my parents split up and I wasn’t doing very well in school. Star Trek was people of the world going through space and having adventures.
It has been announced that Tim Peake will be the first official UK astronaut. I applied to ESA [European Space Agency] astronaut training at the same time as Tim. Obviously he got in and I didn’t. I was a bit gutted by that! It’s wonderful to have a UK astronaut. We’ve waited so long. It’s an inspiration. In the last few years, I’ve spoken to 160,000 school children. I tell them about space and what life is like on the International Space Station – and I do a live demonstration of going to the loo in space.
I’ve been in many situations where I’ve met a team for the first time and they give me a bit of a double take. When you stick out like a sore thumb, you’re going to be remembered whatever you do, either for something good or something bad. So it’s best to be remembered for something brilliant. I have had meetings where I’ve walked in and someone’s said: “I’ll have a coffee with three sugars, love.” But it looks bad on them rather than bad on me.
Illustration: Matt Hollings
"I do a live demo of going to the loo in space"
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