AN ELSTEAD woman watched her son blast off in a rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week to become only the third British-born person to enter space.

Seventy-four-year-old Lindsay Sellers of Milford Road, was at the Orlando space centre to see the take-off and subsequent first mile of NASA's Atlantis space shuttle's journey to the International Space Station.

On board on Monday evening was her 47-year-old son Piers Sellers, originally of Crowborough, East Sussex, who, along with five other astronauts, will be space walking to attach a 350 ft truss to the space station.

Mr Sellers is hoping to break the record for the longest space -walk after his 11-day mission was delayed for a week by Hurricane Lili.

Speaking to The Herald within an hour of returning home on Tuesday morning, Mrs Sellers said: "It was a great thrill. Even if it weren't my son on top of that firework I would have felt the same.

"I spoke to him the morning of the take-off and he was cheerful and said he had had a good night's sleep and was raring to go."

Mrs Sellers, who has lived in Elstead 15 years and was married to John, a colonel, before he died, said her son was one of 5,000 applicants for about 40 space-walk places and has been in training for the last six years.

"You spend an awful lot of time in a simulator and under a water tank to simulate the lack of gravity."

Asked about her son's spaceward leanings, Mrs Sellers said: "It started from the time of the moon landings, that really grabbed him. You never discourage people who are enthusiastic about things though I didn't think it was ever likely to happen, but he was very determined."

Television viewers the world over were able to watch live pictures of the lift-off, which took place at 7-46 pm GMT, from a "shuttlecam" mounted on Atlantis.

The camera showed clear pictures of the Kennedy Space Center disappearing for about a minute of the shuttle's eight-and-a-half minute flight into orbit.

Mrs Sellers, who is a member of Elstead Women's Institute, said Piers, who had to become a US citizen to achieve his goal, was not raised in the area but visits from time to time.

She said her son will perform three space-walks, each averaging seven hours.

But Mr Sellers hopes to beat the eight hours and 56 minutes record set for a single spacewalk set in 2000.