Launching a commercial space station
Tech Life
BBC
4.3 • 227 Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A company called Vast hopes to put Haven-1 into orbit in 2026. If successful, it'll be the world's first commercial space station. We speak to the company's CEO, Max Haot.
Also on Tech Life this week: find out about robots in Japan that will help people cope with dementia. And the local language avatar providing growing tips to farmers in Africa.
Presenter: Shiona McCallum Producer: Tom Quinn
(Image: A future illustration of the commercial space station Haven-1 in orbit above Planet Earth. It is docked with a Dragon spacecraft. Credit: Vast.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | My Christmas Mix is pure 90s festive nostalgia. |
| 0:11.1 | You know, the Christmas songs you listen to on repeat. |
| 0:14.0 | Oh, ho! |
| 0:15.7 | No, no, no. |
| 0:17.5 | I'm all about the big hitting Christmas anthems. |
| 0:20.4 | Come on, guys. What about those tunes that really slay? It's Christmas kitchen disco season, surely. |
| 0:26.4 | Give me hip-hip-christmas bangers every day. Those Christmas tracks that are straight out of lapland. |
| 0:30.9 | Get all kinds of Christmassy. Just search Christmas music on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.9 | Hello and welcome to TechLife, the programme about technology and how it affects your life. |
| 0:42.4 | I'm Shona McCallum and this week we're looking skyward to the stars and the next human |
| 0:47.9 | habitats in space. I'll be speaking to the head of the company hoping to launch the world's |
| 0:53.2 | first commercial space station next year. That's in a moment. Japan has a large elderly population and an increasing |
| 1:01.3 | number of people with symptoms of dementia. We'll have a special report on robots and other tech |
| 1:06.9 | designed to help. Robots should supplement, not substitute human caregivers, |
| 1:13.5 | so while they may take over some tasks, |
| 1:15.8 | their main role will be to assist both caregivers and patients. |
| 1:19.8 | And I'll be finding out about the Swahili-speaking avatar |
| 1:22.8 | helping farmers make the best of their crops in Africa. |
| 1:47.9 | Music helping farmers make the best of their crops in Africa. Today we're looking at the next step for humans in space with something that's not been done before. |
| 1:50.5 | First though, a little history lesson. |
| 1:52.5 | Let's go back in time to May 1973 |
... |
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