The future of space travel
BBC Inside Science
BBC
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Are we, at last, getting the spacefaring future we were promised back in the 1960s? This week, NASA has been outlining ambitions for a base on the Moon and, perhaps more surprisingly, the development of a new class of spacecraft powered by nuclear electric propulsion. Dr Hannah Sargeant at the University of Leicester explains the potential of nuclear-powered space travel, how it could take us further into the solar system than ever before, and why it has taken decades for the technology to reach this point.
Meanwhile, a lorry carrying a very unusual cargo has been making careful laps around the campus of CERN in Switzerland. This week science reporter Caroline Steel has been enthralled by the controlled transportation of antimatter. With insights from Dr Harry Cliff at the University of Cambridge, explore why trapping and moving antimatter is such a milestone for physicists.
Plus, rising beaver populations in the UK and the science of brain preservation. Caroline Steel joins Tom for her pick of the week’s science news.
Presenter: Tom Whipple
Producer: Harrison Lewis and Katie Tomsett
Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
Editor: Martin Smith
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | An early start here. It's time to kick off. |
| 0:10.0 | Your day. Morning! |
| 0:11.9 | What a line-up. |
| 0:13.3 | Oh, thanks very much. We do get some great guests on the show. |
| 0:16.1 | The crowd is loving this. |
| 0:18.3 | Thanks, guys. Thank you. Too kind. |
| 0:20.2 | From morning chaos to match day commentary. |
| 0:23.6 | And everything in between. |
| 0:25.0 | BBC sounds packed with personality. |
| 0:28.8 | Hello, I'm Tom Whipple and welcome to Inside Science from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:35.5 | What we thought this week would constitute the ultimate science magazine show? |
| 0:41.4 | Well, there would have to be space in it, obviously, but proper space, with interplanetary |
| 0:47.2 | travel, satellite imagery, and properly space-aged things like atomic thrusters. |
| 0:53.7 | There would also need to be some mind-boggling particle physics, antimatter, or something like that. |
| 1:00.5 | And naturally, you would need Caroline Steele to talk about the week's news. |
| 1:06.0 | Well, we have the lot. |
| 1:08.2 | Welcome, then, to the ultimate science Science Magazine Show and welcome Caroline. Caroline, |
| 1:15.1 | what have you got to rival antimatter, atomic thrusters and satellites? I've got beavers. |
| 1:23.1 | Good, that's enough. That's all we need to know. Let's start with this. |
| 1:28.5 | Are we at last getting the spacefaring future we were promised way back in the 1960s? |
| 1:34.6 | Next month, it now looks likely that humans will, at last, blast off on a mission around the |
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