What is the future of space travel?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 28 December 2018
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
CrowdScience goes interstellar this week to answer listeners’ questions about the future of space travel.
Marnie Chesterton heads to Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, where she hears about the engineering challenges of creating a spacecraft that could eventually take us all the way to Mars. Then there are the challenges of engineering the humans for that momentous journey. In space, no-one can hear you scream, which is probably a good thing if you’re going to be trapped in a metal box for two years with the same people, as you cruise through the void on your way to the red planet. So how do astronauts prepare for the physical and psychological impacts of long-term space travel? We also discover how space travel can be made greener and cleaner as the European Space Agency implement the next phase of their plan to tackle the millions of pieces of space debris floating around our planet that potentially, could impact a mission before it even leaves Earth orbit.
(Image: An astronaut in outer space. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. Don't panic, your radio slash other listening device isn't broken. |
| 0:39.2 | That fuzzy crackly noise is the sound of the first ever manned mission to space. |
| 0:45.0 | This is crowd science from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:49.0 | I'm Marnie Chesterton and that |
| 0:51.0 | is Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin reporting down to mission control. |
| 0:57.0 | Mezagarin said that the flight was going on successfully normal visibility was good and that he himself |
| 1:06.7 | was feeling good as well. The year |
| 1:13.4 | year travelled 181 miles above the earth |
| 1:17.0 | circling it once at 25,000 miles an hour |
| 1:20.5 | before coming back down again a mere two and a half hours later. |
| 1:25.4 | His trip happened at the height of the space race when the USSR, as it was then known, and |
| 1:30.7 | the US were competing for the K-DOS of being first in space. |
| 1:35.0 | There were lots of milestones to hit and the Russians won this one. |
| 1:40.0 | Nearly 60 years on and Russia and the US no longer race, they collaborate, |
| 1:45.4 | working together on the International Space Station |
| 1:48.0 | and orbiting laboratory home to a steady rotation of astronaut crews. But space is still the preserve of the professionals. How |
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