The Life Scientific - Tim Peake

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What's it like living underwater for two weeks? What's the trickiest part of training to be an astronaut? What are the most memorable sights you see from space? Several extreme questions, all of which can be answered by one man: Major Tim Peake.

After a childhood packed with outdoor adventures, via the Cub Scouts and school Cadet Force, Tim joined the British Army Air Corps and became a military flying instructor then a test pilot; before eventually being selected as a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut. In 2015, Tim became the first British ESA astronaut to visit the International Space Station.

Over the course of a six-month mission, he took part in more than 250 scientific experiments and worked with more than two million schoolchildren across Europe.

In a special New Year’s episode recorded in front of an audience at London’s Royal Society, Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to Tim about his lifelong passion for adventure, the thrill of flight and why scientific experiments in space are so important.

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili Produced by Lucy Taylor

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, podcast fan. Consider this your invite to the UK's biggest podcasting party. We're heading to Sheffield from the 4th to the 6th of July for the BBC Sounds Fringe at the Crosswires Festival. We'll be joined by some of the biggest names in podcasting, including Sarah Cox, Charlie Hedges, Russell Kane, and some bloke called Greg James doing his Radio 4 show called
0:22.1	Rewinder. You can watch live shows of your favourite podcasts, and the best part is free. To book your
0:28.5	free tickets, go to crossedwires.com, forward slash fringe. Hello, and thank you for joining me here
0:35.1	at London's Royal Society for a special end-of-the-year edition of the Life Scientific.
0:40.4	My guest today is an aeronaut, aquanaut and astronaut.
0:44.6	He's thrown through the skies, lived under the sea and soared through space.
0:49.2	After childhood via the Cub Scouts and school cadet Force, Timpe joined the British Army Air Corps
0:55.0	before eventually being selected from thousands of hopefuls to train as an astronaut.
1:00.3	In 2015, Tim visited the International Space Station for a six-month mission,
1:04.6	during which he became the first ever British astronaut to complete a spacewalk
1:08.7	and took part in more than 250 scientific experiments.
1:13.4	He also found time while in orbit to present the singer Adele with the Brit Award,
1:19.5	launched the BBC's Six Nations rugby coverage and run the London Marathon on a treadmill.
1:25.6	Major St. Pete, welcome to the life scientific.
1:27.5	Thank you very much, Jim.
1:28.3	It's great to be here.
1:29.2	Thank you.
1:33.6	Well, Tim Peek, let's find out about what made you, the sort of man, who goes into space.
1:42.7	You were born in Chichester in 1972 and grew up in
1:46.4	West Sussex. What was your childhood like? I had a brilliant childhood. I think I described it in
1:52.3	my autobiography as ordinary, which seems disingenuous now because actually I think every parent is
1:57.9	trying to provide an ordinary upbringing. I certainly am for my two boys.
	...

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