Astronaut Special
The Infinite Monkey Cage
BBC
4.7 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 10 July 2017
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Astronaut Special
Brian Cox and Robin Ince transport the cage to Trondheim Norway, host of this year's Starmus Festival, for an extraordinary gathering of astronauts. They are joined on stage by NASA astronauts Sandra Magnus and Terry Virts, ESA astronaut Claude Nicollier, and Apollo 16's Charlie Duke, one of the last people to have walked on the moon. They talk about their personal journeys to fulfill their long-held dreams, and literally reach for the stars. They hear from Charlie Duke about the extraordinary Apollo missions he was part of, including his role as Capsule Communicator for the very first moon landing, before taking his own first steps on the lunar surface as part of Apollo 16. They explore the different experience of astronauts from Charlie's era, and those who now become residents of space, spending months and months aboard the International Space Station, and the challenges each mission brings. And Claude Nicollier describes his epic spacewalk to repair the Hubble Telescope.
Producer: Alexandra Feachem.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:03.0 | Hello, I'm Robin Ents. |
| 0:04.4 | And I'm Brian Cox. |
| 0:05.4 | And welcome to the podcast version of The Infant Monkey Cage, |
| 0:08.4 | which contains extra material |
| 0:10.0 | that wasn't considered good enough for the radio. |
| 0:12.1 | Enjoy it. |
| 0:13.0 | Hello, I'm Robin Ents. |
| 0:14.1 | And I'm Brian Cox, |
| 0:15.0 | and we are in Trondheim for a very special edition |
| 0:17.6 | of The Infinite Monkey Cage. |
| 0:19.0 | Normally, on Monkey Cage, Brian believes he has kind of parity |
| 0:23.1 | with the guests. |
| 0:24.0 | You know, he's done similar research |
| 0:25.5 | or has a similar breadth of scientific knowledge. |
| 0:28.6 | But not today, because despite some of the heights |
| 0:31.4 | that Brian has been to, yeah, he's been up 60,000 feet |
| 0:34.7 | in an English electric lightning, |
| 0:36.8 | I myself have spent quite a lot of time up in the loft, |
| 0:39.6 | but never have I been to the same dizzying heights of our guests, |
| 0:43.9 | because our guests have orbited the earth |
| 0:46.3 | and stood on the moon. |
... |
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