Original subtitles

Tonight, we're asking the question,

what does it take to train as an astronaut...

- And lift-off! - ..and go to space?

Well, on Esa's checklist,

you either need to be a test pilot or engineer,

or have a Master's level degree in a Stem subject.

Your height needs to be between 1.5 and 1.9 metres.

And, of course, you have to be in peak physical condition.

But that's just the beginning.

The European Space Agency received over 22,000 applications

in the last call for new astronauts.

Just 17 were selected, and three are from the UK.

And tonight we're meeting them. Welcome to The Sky At Night.

The high standards required to become an astronaut

mean they don't let just anyone through.

We're going to find out exactly what it takes to go to space.

This has got to be the greatest sight ever.

You ought to see it up here.

And witness these new recruits,

following in the trajectories of the pioneers.

We'll see how flying planes helps to fly a spacecraft.

And now the latest virtual reality technology

can help daily life on board the ISS.

There's stuff flying around.

But before we meet the rookies,

I've come to the new Space Gallery

at the Science Museum in London to meet the very first British person

to have made that journey into space...

..Dr Helen Sharman.

Helen, how nice to see you, in front of your own spacesuit as well.

I know, it's a treat, isn't it?

And it looks like I wore it yesterday.

It looks almost brand-new, doesn't it?

Helen was just 27 years old

when she was selected to fly to the Soviet space station Mir,

on a mission that would last eight days.

How does it feel seeing this after, what, 30 years?

You know, I still remember, of course, how it felt, you know,

the stiff pipes around the chest,

the bulk of the material behind the knees.

So, where did you first hear about the chance to be an astronaut,

and did you think, "Yes, I'm going to get that"?

Well, physically, I was sitting in the seat of my car.

I was driving home from work.

So, an announcement had been made that this British mission

was going to happen, and the announcement was made on radio.

It was also made in the national newspapers.

Because this was back in 1989, right,

so we didn't have internet news and social media and stuff.

That's how we got our news then.

But I heard of the opportunity and immediately, of course, realised

what an amazing thing that would be to do.

What was your selection, and what was your training like?

I didn't really think I would get selected.

- I almost did not apply. - Right. - And then I thought,

"Well, you know, I've got the basic criteria - Stem degree,

"I can speak different languages, I'm the right age.

"I'm physically fit. This is such an opportunity. I can't miss it."

So, yeah, I decided to apply.

How do you think your training compares to

what the astronauts going to the ISS do today?

I think the basic training is really very similar.

You need to understand how to be safe,

how to operate as part of a team, very importantly,

and how to do the experiments that you need to do.

If you're going, as I was, for a short mission,

which was just about doing my experiments,

then of course the training could be quite short itself.

But if you're training generally to be a career astronaut,

so you don't know what your mission might be,

and also when you're on longer missions,

you'll be doing more maintenance and repair of the spacecraft,

- whichever spacecraft it might be. - Right.

So, your training is going to have to incorporate not just

the one space station and the one spacecraft that I flew in,

but perhaps others as well.

Guest presenter Jen Gupta is off to meet

one of Britain's latest astronauts, doing just that.

I'm at the Epag NG flight school in northern France to meet

European Space Agency astronaut Rosemary Coogan.

Let's go inside and find her.

Learning to pilot a plane teaches astronauts

about everything, from air navigation to meteorology.

But today,

Rosemary's instructor, Paul, has a new challenge for her.

She's going to fly the plane blind.

- OK. - How are you doing, Rose?

Morning.

We're hoping to do an IFR flight.

IFR flight? Is that right? What is that?

Rose is used to flight with very good visibility.

If we can enter a cloud, or simulate that we will enter a cloud,

then we will have to trust our instruments

- instead of looking outside what will happen. - Yeah.

During what's known as IFR conditions -

that's instrument flying rules - pilots must abandon

their sightlines, trusting their instruments alone.

During space travel, an astronaut's vision

can be impaired by storms, dust, and even plasma.

- Very good. - So this is an important exercise.

So, you will have to focus on the artificial horizon.

- Don't lose it from sight more than one second. - Mm-hm.

95% of the time, you will be on the artificial horizon,

meaning that 5% of the time you will be on the other instrument,

so it will just be a quick glance of less than one second,

and you will analyse what you see, looking at your artificial horizon.

- Mm-hm. - Yeah? Does that make sense? - Yeah.

As an Esa career astronaut,

Rosemary is looking at a long-duration mission to the ISS...

..giving her the opportunity to train these additional advanced skills.

Checks complete, we climb in and line up on the runway.

Merville Tower, FRX069.

TOWER RESPONDS INDISTINCTLY

Now the aircraft is at altitude,

Paul can cover Rosemary's view of the horizon.

- OK, turning left. - Left.

4,200 feet.

Continuing climb.

- Eight degrees as a pitch. OK? - Yeah.

Find the pitch. Very good.

This small plane may not look much like a spacecraft,

but they have much more in common than you would think.

One of the big skills

that you get out of piloting an aircraft,

and something that will really support us when we're in space,

is that sense of situational awareness.

When you're flying, there's a huge number of parameters

that you need to be monitoring and adjusting simultaneously -

looking at your altitude, your speed,

perhaps your vertical climb speed or descent speed,

if you're doing manoeuvres, your bank angle,

your airspeed.

The parallel to that is all of the different parameters

in the systems on the ISS. In unexpected situations, you need

to be able to digest lots of pieces of information

and act upon that really quickly.

In a flash, an hour is up, and we've safely touched down.

And slowly, slow the aircraft and maintain.

And now, I get the chance to ask Rosemary about this experience

and what's next up for this astronaut, born in Northern Ireland

and reaching for the stars.

Oh! Wow!

Wow! Rosemary, that was absolutely incredible.

How do you feel after that flight?

It was very interesting. We are so trained on kind of never keeping

the outside out of your sight,

because that is really what tells you what's going on,

so having to just put all of that to one side

and trust your instruments, as they say, is, er, yeah...

And so, you've got about a month left of your pilot training,

and then you're kind of back into other astronaut training

and then being assigned a space mission.

So, what are you looking forward to, with that regard?

It's going to be a busy end of the year.

We're doing some field medical training.

We're doing a lot of training in mission control

to talk to the station, so really getting that side of it,

being the people the astronauts talk to on ground,

which I think will be a really nice kind of full circle.

When the time comes to be assigned for a mission,

a lot of what we're doing here will really get put into practice.

You know, we'll be trained very specifically on the capsule,

the vehicle that we will be going to the ISS in,

and I'm really looking forward to putting this into practice,

seeing what those displays are, which different pieces

of information that we need to monitor there,

and really learning how to use that system.

Back in London with Helen, we can see just the type of capsule

that Rosemary is hoping to fly in in the future.

Of course, since your trip to Mir,

we've had several Brits go into space.

The best known, of course, is Tim Peake.

And this is his spacecraft - or, at least, the Soyuz craft

that he used to launch and then to return to Earth inside,

so, you know, it's quite phenomenal.

There we go. There's Tim. All right.

So, this would have been very similar to the Soyuz you flew in.

- Which was your seat? - It was on the right-hand side of the spacecraft,

the same one that Tim would have had.

And the lovely thing about being on one of the sides,

rather than the commander who sits in the middle - on the sides,

you have a window. Now, on the launchpad, of course,

it's covered, the whole rocket,

and the spacecraft is covered in a protective fairing,

which stops the atmosphere from damaging the spacecraft

as we go through it.

But once you're out of the atmosphere,

that fairing is jettisoned

and light streams through that window.

The whole thing is over really quickly, in less than nine minutes,

and that's where we need to be in space.

The final engine cut-off, jettisoned, and immediately,

instead of being pushed back into your seat,

you're then starting to feel weightless, still strapped in,

- but feeling that, every time you move... - Yeah.

..you move your finger, it feels weightless. It's just fabulous.

It does sound terrifying, I have to say.

Is it scary?

If you know what's happening and what you need to do

and what you might need to do

in almost every consequence there could be...

- Mm. - ..there is no unknown, and we're scared of the unknown.

So, you know, there is no unknown to be scared of.

- So, yeah, no fear. - Sounds very logical.

I think I'd still be terrified, I have to say.

Staying rational in terrifying circumstances

is a crucial character trait for an astronaut.

It's tested most when things go wrong.

When things do go wrong in space, you can't just call for help.

There was one, maybe not scary,

but dramatic moment during your mission on Mir,

when the station seemed to lose power.

- Can you tell us about that? - One evening,

emergency signals go off. The commander of the space station

sort of floats off to the control panel,

quickly returns and says, "Now, we're going to lose power.

"The lights are going to go out,

"and the fans are going to stop turning,

"cos we've not got enough electrical energy stored in the battery."

So, we think it's a combination of the angle of the solar arrays,

combined with this battery problem that we had.

The lights, not so much of a problem because, you know,

- you know your way around with your eyes closed, right? - Yeah.

But the fans are more of a concern, because the fans

keep the air circulating, which means that the carbon dioxide

that you breathe out is taken away from your head,

or you'd build up a bubble of carbon dioxide

that would get more and more concentrated around your head,

and you'd end up suffocating in your own breath.

My knowledge said, "OK, I know about convection.

"Therefore, I need to keep moving around."

- So, yes, we just sort of... - Float around in the dark.

..kept moving around a little bit, to get a bit more of the fresh air.

And when we got back into the light, what panels we did have

that were pointing in the right direction

absorbed enough energy so that the lights came back on,

the fans came back on, and eventually a new computer fixed

the orientation of the solar arrays, and later on new batteries as well.

- Everything's fixable. - Yeah, yeah, if you've got

the right equipment with you.

Even when everything is working properly,

living in space is a challenge.

From the moment we're born, we learn to move in 1G of gravity.

Take that away, and even simple things,

like brushing your teeth, have to be learnt again.

Inside the European Astronaut Centre, here in Cologne,

cutting-edge facilities are used

to train the astronauts to give them the vital skills that they need.

Dr Meganne Christian is an astronaut reserve,

in her second phase of basic training.

She's here to learn the tips and tricks

of the International Space Station.

One of the really important things is getting familiar

with what things might be like

when we're in space, when we're on the International Space Station,

and so a really good way of doing that is using the XR lab,

or the Extended Reality Lab.

Extended reality - that sounds very exciting.

It is exciting, because we can really imagine

that we're on the International Space Station

when we're using this equipment.

We'll learn to kind of float through and use the handrails

to move along - "translate", as we call it.

We'll see some of the different modules,

might get to go and spend some time in the cupola,

which is where you can watch the Earth from space.

Hello. Good afternoon. Welcome to the lab.

Lionel is the instructor for extended reality training,

and he's quickly thrown us in at the deep end.

So, practically speaking, you need always to think

that you don't have your legs to move around.

So, you need to just grab things,

push, pull.

Using VR headsets,

astronauts get to familiarise themselves

with moving around the ISS in simulated weightlessness.

Oh, my!

And this new technology means

I'm the closest I have ever been to getting into space.

- There's stuff flying around. - Yeah, there's stuff flying around,

exactly. So, you see,

in Columbus Laboratory, how complex the environment is.

And the purpose of this software is to represent things

that we are unable to simulate on Earth.

So, for instance, if you see any

of these power supplies flying around,

they have a certain weight, like this blue brick here.

And, if you grab it and you let go,

you can see that they have a certain weight,

a certain inertia, like they will have in space.

So, what you experience here is what you'll experience on the ISS.

Exactly, yeah. And, if you carry on on a straight line,

you will see the cupola appearing, which is facing Earth.

I'd like to see the cupola.

Oh, I'm sorry! I'm sorry. Did I just hit you?

- Collision! - And it was right

when I was about to hit the ceiling as well, so it felt like I was...

See, you are improving your simulator capabilities.

Excellent. Thank you so much. You should come back more often.

I'll do that.

The XR Lab can be used to train astronauts

in everything from docking to managing medical emergencies.

And instructors think that time spent

in the simulator on Earth may also reduce

the impact of space motion sickness on astronauts

once they reach the ISS.

I want to say, wow, that was mind boggling!

It was, wasn't it? It's such an amazing experience

and, you know, more real than you would expect.

But getting used to the feel of space isn't just done virtually.

Looks good. Come on, come on, come on!

Part of Meganne's training is conducted in parabolic flight,

where the aircraft's rise and fall gives cycles

of 22 seconds of microgravity.

Another method is to be submerged in water.

Here in Cologne,

we have the Neutral Buoyancy Facility,

which is a big pool. It's ten metres deep.

- Wow! - You can put mock-ups inside it, so mock-ups like this,

you know, behind us. So, you know, we've just been on the inside.

But how do you get around on the outside when you're doing

an extravehicular activity, otherwise known as a spacewalk?

The NBF lets astronauts achieve neutral buoyancy,

where they can feel as close to weightless as possible.

Meganne is completing the gas diving certification,

testing communication and manoeuvrability.

As an astronaut's skills develop,

they will dive for up to six hours in a tethered spacesuit,

with surface airflow,

mimicking the conditions

and the duration of an operation in the hostile environment of space.

NBF trainer Herve is taking Meganne through some of the equipment

she might need to master.

So, for example, this - you recall how to open it?

- That's it, yeah. - Unlocked, press and shoot.

And that's a lot harder when you're wearing big gloves.

Exactly, exactly.

And we have additional equipment, like what we call the PGT,

so pistol grip tool. This is a device

to screw and unscrew screws.

- Basically a multi-tool. - Yeah, exactly, exactly.

I'll check it out.

A space station approaching 30 years of age

requires a lot of maintenance.

The ISS is due to be decommissioned in 2031.

But for Meganne's cohort of astronauts, currently in training,

several missions are predicted in the upcoming years,

leaving plenty of opportunity for new blood.

And with new technologies raising hopes

of travelling further than Earth orbit,

could our rookies one day visit

a place that's been calling to us for more than half a century?

For the eyes of the world now look into space,

to the moon and to the planets beyond.

This is one of my favourite things in the exhibition,

a bit of moon rock brought back by Apollo 15.

- It's amazing to see it, isn't it? - Quite incredible.

Three billion years old, and it's come from

so many thousands of kilometres away.

But, yeah, Apollo 15, you know,

all those years ago we were on the moon, collecting rocks.

We've learned so much,

and we're still learning actually from these rocks.

That's the beauty of humans going and coming back,

because we can bring things back with us.

Do you think it will happen?

Do you think, in the near future, let's say the next 20 years,

- we might see European, British astronauts on the moon? - Ooh.

I think we'll definitely

see people on the moon. Will we see Europeans?

Yes, I think probably there will be some Europeans up there.

Britain - well, we have to invest.

What about space tourism?

That's obviously been a development since your time in space.

Tourism, like any sort of investment in a new industry,

is good to a point.

So, yes, it's great

if we can attract investment in the space programme

that will help us to develop it further, so that's all good.

It's also getting people very interested commercially,

and so that investment is not just going for tourists,

but we're thinking about investing in spacecraft and perhaps kind of -

- I'll say habitations, but let's say hotels in space. - Right, yeah.

My problem with it is all of the, you know, the sustainability angle.

We must have reusable spacecraft and reusable rockets.

It's that steel, it's the aluminium,

the production of that, which uses up so much energy from the Earth.

So, let's be careful with tourism, I think.

Whether it's for the controversial potential

of space tourism, or making space travel accessible for all scientists,

space is opening up.

The final astronaut we're meeting

is Paralympian Dr John McFall, an old friend of Sky At Night.

Very interestingly, to date,

we have found that there are no technical show stoppers

to flying someone with a physical disability like mine

to the International Space Station for a long-duration mission.

- So, this is news, right? - Yeah.

This is a big deal, cos it could have been that you came in

and later discovered there was a vital bit of training

- you couldn't do. - Exactly.

So, it's really exciting to see what happens

in the next six to 12 months and where we take it from here.

Soon after our visit,

a report was published giving John the official all-clear,

should he be assigned to a long-duration trip,

living and working aboard the ISS.

And now it's time to get into the details.

A big thing is the application of prosthetics in space.

So, you know, practically getting ourselves ready that, should I get

the opportunity to fly, from a prosthetics point of view,

- we're ready. - As a space scientist, I sort of build things

that go up into space, and they're designed for space.

So, this has been designed on Earth, it's going to be translated up there,

and I guess there's a learning curve to work out how we adapt.

There are some challenges, taking my prostheses

up into the microgravity environment,

especially one of them, which is a microprocessor knee,

so a bit of a clever, fancy knee. It's got computers in it

and it's got lots of different sensors,

and on Earth those sensors are designed

to rely on gravity as an input,

so it has a gyroscope and an accelerometer.

And so, we wanted to understand better

how those sensors would behave in the microgravity environment.

I thought that, in that microgravity environment,

it might be easier to move around,

because you're not sort of weighed down by gravity.

- You float a lot. - From a load-bearing point of view,

you don't have to worry about some of the structural integrity

of the prosthesis as much,

and maybe the demands on the skin of my stomach, for example.

But, on the flip side of that,

astronauts do tasks with their hands.

And so, to avoid floating away,

they often slide their feet under a rail or under a strap,

and then they use the movement

in their ankle to feather that and generate force

to lever them backwards and forwards.

Now, on my prosthetic side, on my amputated side,

I haven't got that ability in the ankle of my prosthesis.

And what we want to try and understand is,

can we improve the design of the foot to overcome

that loss of ankle movement that might help me stabilise,

whilst I'm living and working in microgravity,

to free up my hands to do tasks?

It's not just a technicality

of anchoring himself to complete his work.

John has been trialling how he'll keep fit in space too.

Back in May this year,

we did a parabolic flight campaign, where we put a treadmill on

the plane and basically simulated the treadmill

on the International Space Station, testing the different

biomechanical properties of my running prosthesis.

Because exercise, I know, is a vital component

of being on the International Space Station.

If you spend more than 30 days in microgravity,

you need to do exercise,

otherwise your muscles waste away, your bones lose their density,

and actually your heart gets a little bit lazy.

I think one thing I'm quite interested

in understanding more about is

what we can learn from that going forward,

if we're thinking about more opportunities

for people with disabilities to fly in the future.

For all of us that dream of leaving Earth's gravity behind,

we can always look up, and there's plenty to see.

We're deeper into the darker months now,

which is perfect for stargazing.

An October highlight is the Orionid meteor shower.

This occurs when Earth passes through

fine dust grains shed by Halley's Comet.

As these grains pass through Earth's atmosphere,

they vaporise and form meteor trails.

This is the second encounter with these fine dust grains

that Earth has throughout the year.

The first occurs in early May,

which gives rise to the Eta Aquariid meteor shower.

The zenithal hourly rate for the Orionids

is around 20 meteors per hour,

and this represents

how many meteors you'd see under perfect viewing conditions.

This year, the Orionids are pretty favourable.

The moon is absent during the Orionids' peak night

of the 21st into the 22nd of October,

leaving the sky good and dark.

The radiant - that's the small area of sky

that Orionids appear to come from -

is located near the star Betelgeuse, in the top-left corner of Orion.

The best strategy is to watch from around midnight BST

for as long as you can.

Locate as dark a place as possible, avoid looking at any bright lights,

so no phones, and give yourself at least 20 minutes in darkness

for your eyes to properly dark adapt.

Look around two thirds up the sky - a sun lounger will let you do this

in comfort - in any direction, although south is usually best.

And be patient.

We covered how to photograph a meteor shower

in our episode called Asteroid Strike,

and this is still available on iPlayer.

But if you don't want to get the camera out,

you can just as easily sit back and enjoy the show.

But, if you fancy an astrophotography challenge,

then Ceres is currently a great target.

This dwarf planet orbits the sun,

at a distance of around 260 million miles,

in the main asteroid belt,

and Ceres was at opposition on the 2nd of October,

so now is a great time to try and locate it.

During October,

it's in Cetus, the Whale, a large, sprawling constellation.

Saturn is nearby, too, and this is a good guiding light.

From Saturn,

look south-east to locate Iota Ceti

and head east from this star to locate Eta Ceti.

Ceres moves in an arc roughly between these two stars

throughout the month.

It should be visible through binoculars

and definitely through a small telescope.

Then, record the star field over several nights

and look for the moving dot.

So, here's hoping for some clear skies

and some great views.

As ever, if you do manage to get any images,

please send them in to our Flickr account.

You can find details of this at...

Here, you can find details of my full star guide,

plus some other targets to look out for as well.

In the meantime, here are some of our favourite images

you sent in last month.

As an astronomy-mad kid, I remember watching in awe,

gobsmacked, as astronauts repaired the Hubble Space Telescope.

With the technology that we've got today,

I hope that space flight can help us explore

the solar system and understand the planet on which we all live.

And as we've seen, there's some pretty

incredible people lined up to do just that.

Goodnight.