Original subtitles

I'm a doctor and I work in some pretty extreme environments.

But I also work with NASA trying to keep astronauts healthy in the most extreme

environments of all.

If we want to explore the cosmos, then we're going to have to learn how to

survive in space.

Thank you. Sorry I'm late.

I had to hitch a ride with some friends to beat the traffic.

Welcome to the 2015 Christmas Lectures. This year's theme is how to keep

astronauts like Tim Peake alive in space.

So let's start at the very beginning.

If you're going to survive being in space, you've first got to survive

to space, which means surviving something that feels a bit like...

Now that was just a balloon filled with some hydrogen and oxygen and that's just

a tiny fraction of the energy it takes to hurl people and objects into space

that's the truth of this endeavor.

It's at the limit.

of all our capability.

It takes the edge of everything we have in science, technology and engineering

to make that happen.

Now, when I was a doctor and I used to work with NASA, I thought there'd be

plenty for me to do on my own.

But, in fact, you need an army of thousands, if not tens of thousands of

to protect these crews as they go about their business.

And perhaps the most amazing thing of all is that there are people who are

prepared to ride fireballs like that.

One in particular, and his name is Tim Peake, the first British astronaut for

years. It's been a quarter of a century since our first British astronaut, Helen

Sharman, went into space.

And now we have Tim aboard the space station, and he's been super busy, but

taken the time to send us here at the Royal Institution a very special

and we'll have a look at that now.

Hi, Kevin, and hello to everybody in the audience at the Royal Institution

Christmas Lectures.

I'm Tim Peake, and by the time you see this message, I'll be 400 kilometres

above the Earth's surface on the International Space Station.

We've learnt an awful lot about human spaceflight since 1961, but we still

a huge amount yet to learn.

That's why I'm really excited and delighted that the topic of this year's

Institution Christmas Lectures is all about living and working in space.

So, I'd just better get changed, really.

something a bit more appropriate.

So, right up here, this is our mission control. We're getting live information

from the space station. You can see some very beautiful pictures there.

Who saw Tim Peake's launch?

I watched it. I try to go to a launch whenever I can.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get to Tim's launch because I was here.

preparing for these lectures.

So I had sent someone in my stead, and that was possibly the only person on the

planet who's more excited than me about launching things into space, and that is

planetary scientist Professor Monica Grady.

Hi, Kevin.

Hi, people back at the Royal Institution Lecture Theatre.

It's coming.

Here it is. You can see it. Here it is.

It's a rocket, the Soyuz rocket that Tim Peake's going to get into. We're here

in Baikonur, a really, really historic place. It's the place where Yuri Gagarin

set off from, the first man in space.

The boosters are just going past now.

We've got the bit where all the fuel tanks are and then the little pod

where the astronauts will be.

It travels a lot faster than I thought it was going to be. Sorry, I know Alex

filming me, but I'm going to take a picture as well because I want to record

this. Kevin, I'm really, really sorry you can't be here.

Honest. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to come and share this

exciting atmosphere with you because it's a historic moment. So I guess I'll

sign off and see you then. Bye.

She's very excitable, that Professor Grady, isn't she? But she's got a right

be excited. It is exciting, but it's also very, very lethal.

And to help explain why, I'm going to need at least two volunteers here.

Okay, let's go.

Up here, let's have you.

And how about you here?

Okay, come down and down here.

I'm going to turn you into rocket launchers.

And I know you don't immediately believe me, but I really am. So we're going to

stand behind our rocket, which looks specifically like a sandbag. Fred, if

stand here behind this one.

Adam, if you stand here. Okay, so first of all, prepare your rocket launcher.

Your right hand like this.

Good. Okay. Now what I want you to do when I say go is to chuck this bag as

across there as you can. Try not to hit the front row over there or the

cameraman. All right. Ready, Adam? So we're going to count you in, everyone.

Three, two, one, go.

Okay. It's a pretty heavy bag, isn't it? Okay, Fred, let's see if you can get a

bit further. Ready? You're a bit lighter, actually.

Three, two, one, go.

Very, very impressive.

Now, look, I told you I'd turn you into rocket

launchers, and you may have expected those to go into orbit. They were trying

go into orbit.

Everything you throw, it turns out, wants to go into an orbit.

It's just that the Earth gets in the way. Now, when you threw your bag, Adam,

came and it landed here.

Fred, when you threw yours a little bit harder, shallower arc, further, and

landed here, they would have gone in orbit around the center of mass of the

Earth, but the Earth just got in the way.

And this is something that someone realized a long time ago. Fred, Adam,

you so much for your help. Why don't you go back just a little bit?

So what scientists realized more than 300 years ago, and one scientist in

particular, was that if you could throw something hard enough, it would travel.

in a long enough and shallow enough arc that it would fall and never again hit

the planet, and it would fall forever around the Earth, and that's what an

is. If you take something instead of your arm, you take a cannon, as we have

this diagram here, you can imagine that might have been Adam's throw, that might

have been Fred's throw, and that is a proper rocket launcher getting you all

way around the Earth and into orbit.

And it's incredible, I think, to me, that more than three centuries ago, A

scientist could have had the kernel of thought that would get people and

into space so many, many centuries later.

That scientist, of course, was Sir Isaac Newton.

And we know what he thought because he wrote that stuff down in a book,

the most important, or at least one of the most important books in the history

of science.

And that book was called Principia.

Principia, with no coincidence... is the name of tim's mission this is the patch

he wears on him at all times during this mission and it's named after that very

important book and we here at the royal institution are extraordinarily lucky

because we have one of the very early editions of that book and to help me

it to you i'd like to introduce our curator charlotte

Now, Charlotte, this is... How old is this book?

1713. It comes back to 1713. And this is Principia. It's the second edition of

that textbook. So this is Newton laying down his thoughts about how people and

objects in the world behave and the laws of motion.

if you just come in here phil and take a look at this this is a page from that

book i have to wash my hands before i touch it otherwise i'll damage it may i

take it it is very beautiful we're very privileged to have it and if you can see

there it is written in a language other than english is latin as all academic

texts of the time uh were written uh and i don't speak any latin but i am

reliably informed at this page is uh the three laws of motion and if you take

your eyes down here to lex three or lex trey uh that is newton's third law of

motion and i know because you all pay attention at school that you know that

newton's third law of motion is for every action there is an equal and

reaction.

Okay.

So, I've always wanted to do that. That's possibly the only circumstance in

which it's acceptable to use fire extinguishers in that way.

Don't do that. Really don't.

So, Newton told us...

over 300 years ago that what we need to do if we want to go into space is one,

throw something really, really hard and two, throw something that way so you can

propel your vehicle and your crew in that direction.

And the question here is what is it that you throw?

And the answer is fuel out of a rocket.

And rocket fuel is extraordinarily dangerous.

But we've managed to get some. This is rocket fuel. This is real rocket fuel.

And it's pretty explosive. Have a quick smell of that.

Rocket fuel.

Rocket fuel.

Have a smell.

Okay, so very, very dangerous. Rocket fuel. So this stuff, long chains of

carbon, atoms, and hydrogen join together. And the energy between those

you let go. Oh, yeah.

Before you make it become the stuff that sends people and objects.

into space.

Rocket fuel is the sort of stuff that, you know, if you're around when it goes

wrong, you tend to not be around for much longer.

So, you alright?

Ready? Here we go.

Ooh, better stamp that one out. Okay, okay, okay, okay. We'll go again, we'll

again, we'll go again, we'll go again. Okay, okay, okay. Here we go.

Okay.

Alright, so, of course, I was happy to do that, because of course, This stuff

engineered to be safe under these circumstances. That's what you want out

your rocket fuel.

That's a very vital part of Tim's survival in space.

This is what you want rocket fuel to do. You want it to be safe on the pad under

these conditions before you light it and let it be everything it can be, before

you let it liberate all of its energy.

It is engineered very specifically to do that. What they do is they take

kerosene, they refine it very carefully, they take out some of the lighter

fractions, some of the shorter chain molecules, so it's not so volatile.

So it means that I can't get it going like that.

Now, the question is, what can I do to make that be everything it can be and

release its chemical potential?

And I am not going to try and light rocket fuel here. Don't ever do this, by

way, with any...

Any fuel that you might find around you, by the way, in the house, petrol, chip

fat, it will ruin your entire day.

We're going to do this demonstration with a fuel that's slightly more gentle,

and one that you're more familiar with, and that is the Great British Biscuit.

Now, you use this as fuel, and you use it to power yourself.

I'm going to use it to show you that if you get the right conditions, you can

get quite...

boring things to release a fair amount of energy.

Now, why couldn't I get that rocket fuel going?

Well, it's because I was probably missing the vital element of the fire

triangle. Now, you know you need some fuel. I've got some fuel.

And I did have some oxygen in the air around me, but I didn't have enough

So you need fuel, you need heat,

and you need oxygen.

And then you can get the stuff going. So, I've got my fuel, a bit of oxygen.

I've got my heat here.

We'll get these going.

Oh, I should put some goggles on, shouldn't I, really?

You never know.

Okay, here we go.

So heat, oxygen, fuel.

Very disappointing.

And you're probably sitting there thinking, well, I knew that. I knew that

biscuits weren't going to do anything exciting because biscuits aren't very

exciting.

But that's the thing.

I had fuel and I had heat.

And I had some oxygen, the 21 % oxygen in the air that we breathe, but that's

not enough oxygen.

To get this to be everything it can be, I need enough oxygen to soak these

biscuits. I need to literally soak these biscuits in oxygen, and I can only do

that if I have some liquid oxygen.

Now, here's the problem with that.

It's quite hard to make liquid oxygen. We've got a setup here that's going to

that, and Andy's going to help me with it. This is oxygen in a cylinder.

of the type that I use every day in my hospital.

It's compressed about 200 times the pressure that you have here in this room

now. And so there's a good couple of thousands litres of oxygen in that. That

oxygen is running through this tube right now as a gas.

The next thing is it runs into this copper pipe, which is very good at

conducting things.

And to get something to become a liquid when it's as a gas, you have to get it

below its boiling point.

And this is the problem. The boiling point of oxygen is minus 183 degrees

Celsius. To get it to turn into a liquid from a gas, I have to get it colder

than minus 183 degrees Celsius.

And for that, I need to use what is probably Andy's and the Royal

favourite substance ever.

liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen is at minus 196 degrees Celsius and so as the

oxygen passes through that copper tube as a gas, the liquid nitrogen draws the

energy out of the gas, it turns it into a liquid and I can collect liquid oxygen

in this test tube and that's what's happening now. Now this is a very

moment for me because I use oxygen in hospitals every day but I never really

it because it's invisible.

I've been told in textbooks that it has this beautiful blue tinge and we're

going to try and see that now and it's boiling away it's boiling away because

it's 200 degrees above its boiling point here and this is what happens if you

have some heat have some fuel and have some liquid

oxygen

And that is how you get rocket fuel to be rocket fuel. Now, that looked like it

wanted to go somewhere.

And that's a rocket full of biscuits. And I can tell you something.

Pym's rocket wasn't full of biscuits. Pym's rocket was full of RP -1 rocket

fuel, liquid oxygen, and enough power to light it.

And that's the problem.

Someone has to control that. Someone has to make sure that those substances

combine precisely at the right time and precisely the right amount.

in precisely the right way to propel you and your crew into space instead of

tearing your vehicle and your crew apart.

Now, let's go back to the hours before Tim's launch and see how Monica's

on.

Hi, Kevin. Hi, kids.

It's an hour to launch and I'm here at the viewing area about two kilometres

away from the rocket, which you can see on the horizon.

But here we're waiting.

The place is going to be crawling with engineers and technicians making those

last vital checks before they light the blue touch paper and send up this rocket

with its highly corrosive and very, very explosive fuel. And it will be a big

blast. Now, can you see?

There's a little white pointy thing on the top of the rocket. Just underneath

that is a capsule where Tim and Tim and Yori will be sitting.

So it's about an hour to go. We're nearly there.

Really exciting. I just can't wait.

So let's relive that hour before launch. Let's take ourselves to our mission

clock and let's get it going. 60 minutes before launch and everyone who has no

business being on that tower is getting out of there. The rocket is live and the

rocket is dangerous.

I want to say anyone who doesn't have any business being there, I mean anyone

who's not riding that rocket into space.

Let's go forwards now to 30 minutes before.

At 30 minutes they start to arm the launch escape rocket. You can see that

pointy thing that Monica talked about on the top. If this goes wrong, If the

rocket does explode, the only way to outrun the ensuing fireball is with

rocket. That solid rocket will light, carry the capsule up to 10 ,000 feet,

a parachute and dump them somewhere in Kazakhstan.

It doesn't matter where, anywhere away from that fireball.

We're forwards again now. We're going to 10 minutes. And at 10 minutes, they arm

the flight recorders. They record the information. If there's an accident,

may be no one around to tell them what happened. They need to find that

information. And now we're at 5 and 5 minutes.

The astronauts are closing their visors. They're shutting themselves away from

the atmosphere of this planet, preparing themselves for the place they're going

to, which will not support human life, even for a few seconds.

And now we're forward to just a minute and a half before launch.

And what is Tim thinking? Well, here's a video to tell you what he thought he

was going to feel like on that pad.

In the final seconds just before countdown, I think rather than thinking

anything, I'll actually just be experiencing it, because by that stage,

rockets are already firing, it's being held to the ground, and you're just

waiting for that liftoff, but you're experiencing sound, vibration, and

the excitement of the launch that's about to come.

So that's not false bravado from Tim. He had no...

our option but to experience this launch because it's kind of out of his hands

this thing is bigger than him it's bigger than his crew it's bigger than

rocket this is the army of tens of thousands of people who've designed

operated this rocket and it has to work to keep him safe let's go see monica we

can't hear a countdown yet i've got my phone out i'm taking a picture too

ignition

The noise is starting!

hear the thunder now yes oh right and they're the boosters coming off now you

can see the smoke in the sky from the boosters you can see the trail in the

the sawyer's rocket went straight up vertically up and then just about where

that puff of steamy smoky stuff is it it changed direction it moved off over to

the east now it just looks like an ordinary airplane trail on the sky it

just amazing and just to see it going and it's like i'm so happy it's gone off

safely it's fantastic

now

let's stop the mission clock that rocket is starting to tilt over and head east

why why is it going east well to help explain i'm going to need

volunteer. How about you? Yeah, let's have you.

Brilliant.

And what's your name?

Mia. Mia. Okay, Mia, I'm going to turn you into our launch controller at

Baikonur here. Come and stand in your station. This is our very expensive

station here.

And here at the RI, we have our own International Space Station. It took

than 15 years and $150 billion to build. If you take yourself into orbit,

cosmonauts, John.

And so, Mia, we're going to launch ourselves into that dish. Now, these

have all the energy they need to get into that space station, okay? All we've

got to do is launch, okay? Now, when I count you in, you're going to hit this

lever across that way, okay? Give it a good whack, ready?

Three, two, one, go!

Oh, dear.

Now, you didn't do anything wrong there. Your launch was perfect.

And there's nothing wrong with the rocket either.

They have enough energy to get to the space station, but only if they borrow

a little bit of extra energy from somewhere else.

And that energy is borrowed from the rotation of the planets.

This is our lovely map of the Earth on top of this launch station.

At the poles, when the Earth is turning, the Earth isn't turning very quickly.

As you get down towards the equator, the speed of rotation is going pretty fast.

It's going about 1 ,000 miles an hour.

And if you launch towards the east, as the Earth rotates from west to east, you

can get some of that energy.

So if you launch from the pole, you can't borrow much energy because the

not spinning very much. If you're silly enough to try and launch against the

direction of rotation of the Earth, then you're going to be in even worse shape.

The best place to launch from is where this red rocket is, launching with the

rotation of the Earth towards the east.

What we were missing before was the spin of the Earth. So this time I'm going to

spin the Earth up and I'm going to help you launch it. And there's going to be

no countdown because they don't really do countdowns in Russia. Okay, ready?

Here we go.

Yeah, all right And

it's

incredible to watch that go as it launches out there towards the east

to imagine but we don't need to imagine we can ask someone who's actually done

it. It's my great pleasure to introduce

A veteran astronaut who's flown in space twice.

He's spent more than 211 days in space in total.

He's been aboard the International Space Station. He is a doctor, but he's also

a NASA astronaut. It's my great pleasure to introduce my friend and colleague,

Dr. Mike Barras.

Now hang on Kevin actually I need to fire up this eye thingy Because we've

actually just had a tweet from the space station from astronaut Tim Peake and

who wanted to wish Dr.

Fong a good luck with the Christmas lectures, and he's really excited to be

of it from space Wow, so a tweet from space That is my first ever tweet from

space station. I think Wow. Thank you, Tim

I don't know if I'm more shocked to get a tweet from Tim or to know that Aspen

ought to get onto Twitter and Facebook.

But never mind.

You've done that for real. You've launched like that. Just tell me what

like as it tips over and starts heading out east.

Well, launching on a rocket is a great experience. I hope all of you get to

experience one day. It's very possible.

The Soyuz is very different from the space shuttle. The Soyuz uses these very

well -behaved liquid boosters. And after the engine's light, you sit there, you

vibrate, you shake, you hear the roar of the engines below you. But actually,

when you lift off, it's very gentle.

And in fact, I wasn't even aware that we had lifted off until I looked at my

clock start to count up from zero.

to tell me that we have left the Earth. Is that true, that you had to watch the

mission clock to know that liftoff had happened? For those first few seconds,

that's absolutely right.

But then you start to build G -forces, because when you think about it, you

to go from zero to 17 ,500 miles an hour in about nine minutes or so. So you

have to start accelerating, and after a while, you're going at more than three

Gs, which means the forces through your chest make you weigh three times your

body weight.

And that's all the acceleration pushing through as you launch. And so you end up

weighing three times as much. That's right. And fortunately, we're strapped

our seats, so we don't have to feel that too much. But if you lift your arm, all

of a sudden it weighs three times more than you thought.

And it feels pretty weird.

But for me, it was very special because about two and a half minutes into

flight, the outer shroud over the spacecraft blows away and sunlight

into the capsule. And I couldn't lift myself, but I lifted my arm and I had a

little wrist mirror.

And we were already 100. kilometers high and i saw the clouds way below me

getting smaller so that's when you really know you've left the planet wow

sounds absolutely incredible um if it's all right we'll keep you here mike we'll

see you later but for now astronaut mike barrack

so

as we relive this mission The crew are still racing away from the Earth, and

they're leaving behind everything that they take for granted in the way of

natural life support here on this planet. And that is a perilously thin

And over here, we're going to look at a good illustration of just how thin that

layer is. Now, Alouette is an artist. Hi, Alouette, from the Royal College of

Art. Now, to give you an impression of just how thin the layer of atmosphere is

that supports all life on Earth, have a look at this.

This is a football that's 22 centimetres across.

Yeah, well, I don't know. It's a normal football size. So I think that's a

regulation size. And I asked you to paint a layer of paint on top and this

beautiful map of the world that you're finishing off here to show the

as it would be. So how thick is your paint there?

Well, probably less than a millimetre. It's very thin.

And so if the Earth were a football and if you painted it and you painted on

that atmosphere, the atmosphere in which we live, on which we depend, would

be... less than a millimeter thick.

It's not a biosphere. We think that it's a biosphere, but it is in fact a

biofilm. It's smeared across the surface of the planet the way that Alouette has

smeared this paint across the surface of this football.

That is what you depend upon, Alouette. Thank you so much. It's very beautiful.

I can't wait to see it finished. Thank you.

And when you're on your way into space, life gets hard very, very quickly. It

gets hard even before you've left that really thin layer. I know because I know

someone who's been right up to the edge of it.

I am going to introduce you to the man who has survived the lowest level of

oxygen in his bloodstream of any human being in the world. I'd like to

you to...

my good colleague and friend, Intensive Care Doctor, Everett Summertier, Dr. Dan

Martin.

Now, Dan is a doctor, but in 2007 he climbed to the summit of Everest and did

some crazy experiments.

You are dressed as you were when you did that. This is the suit I wore to the

summit of Everest in 2007, down suit to keep us warm up there on the summit.

And this is your oxygen as well? Yeah, an oxygen bottle you'd put in your

backpack and oxygen mask to breathe there because the air is just so thin at

summit. And you did a crazy experiment up there. What did you do?

Well, we wanted to know how much oxygen there was in our blood when we were

close to the summit of Everest.

So we took blood samples from each other near to the summit, sent them to an

analyser and worked out just how little oxygen there was in our blood. And in

hospital we measure the amount of...

oxygen in your bloodstream to see how well you are. Now, for people in this

lecture theatre now, if we measure the pressure of oxygen in their arteries,

because that's how we measure the amount of oxygen in your arteries, what would

we find? That the average pressure of people's oxygen in people's arteries

would be about 10 to 12. Somewhere between 10 and 12.

So for normal healthy people, let's say it's 10 kilopascals of pressure.

At the point at which someone's sick enough on the ward to start calling Dan

me down from intensive care to scoot them up and stick them on a life support

machine and rescue them by giving them more oxygen and put them on a

you're up how much?

Six is where I really get worried. About six, we're super worried and you're

calling the intensive care doctor. What was the level of oxygen in your

bloodstream at the summit of Everest?

Two and a half.

And that's a crazy low.

Really low.

And it is bizarre that you're still alive, frankly.

Thank you.

It's the lowest recorded...

Oxygen level in any human being? I believe so.

We've never seen any lower.

So that record remains, I think. It's pretty uncomfortable up there and

a huge amount of time you have to spend adapting to it.

All right. Well, look, you're getting quite warm and you're down. Good for

everyone. Not good for the Royal Institution. Thank you very much, Dr.

Martin. Thank you.

That's a crazy story from Dan, and it's amazing that he's alive at all.

But to show you just how bad it is as you go out through the atmosphere, let's

go back to our mission clock.

They're moving now.

They've gone beyond the summit of the Everest at around nine kilometres.

They've got up to 18 kilometres, 18 ,000 metres, 63 ,000 feet, and that's an

important boundary. And to show you why, I'm going to need a couple of

volunteers. Let's have two volunteers. All right, I'm going to have to try and

go up here for this one.

OK.

stand up for me go on yeah why don't we have you why don't you go down there and

i'll go up here this time just down there and why don't you stand up for me

okay why don't you come down as well

okay

and what's your name toby toby and alexandra alexandra

I've got something else in mind for you. I think we're going to have to take you

away right now.

So, we'll see you later, I think. Bye -bye.

Don't worry.

It'll be all right.

Now, how are you feeling?

Good. Good. Good. You sure?

Yeah. Okay. I think you should have a seat.

Let's put this in your mouth, shall we?

Okay. So, open your mouth. Stick this under your tongue.

Keep it there. All right.

We'll come back to him later. Don't worry.

All right.

OK. So, one of the things Dan Martin told me about climbing Everest also was

it's not very pleasant, it's pretty cold, and you can't make a decent cup of

tea. You can't make a decent cup of tea on Everest because as you rise up

through the atmosphere, the boiling point of water also falls because the

pressure falls. At the summit of Everest, the pressure has fallen so much

the boiling point of water is only 72 degrees Celsius.

Now, as you keep going into the atmosphere...

That keeps happening until you reach a point of 63 ,000 feet, 18 ,000 meters,

where the astronauts are now in their mission, where you can boil water at 37

degrees Celsius.

And Toby, you all right?

And your temperature is 36 .8 degrees Celsius.

Yeah, so close enough, 37. So you can reach a point in the atmosphere where

can boil himself.

That sounds pretty unpleasant doesn't it so you're going to come and help me

now. We're not going to boil you Toby you can get to a point where your own

body temperature can boil you that's bad news now When then we won't boil you,

but we'll make a Toby model, okay, so here's my Toby model It's not a very

model. I have to say so this is my toby head all right so it looks a bit like

you uh and we'll have a we'll have a marshmallow for your head because that

simulates your soft tissues uh this balloon will be like the air in your

perhaps the air in your lungs so that's about where your lungs is okay here's

the important bit here's the free water in your body now put your finger in that

water and it's pretty cold isn't it it's about the same temperature as your body

actually it's 37 degrees okay so that would be like the spit in your mouth or

the glass of water in your stomach just after you've drunk it. There is water

elsewhere. Let's just look at this last thing. This is a red glass. It's like

the water that's in your bloodstream, okay?

And that water has got a cover on it because the blood, at least in your

arteries, has a cover on it. It has a muscular wall that protects it. It kind

acts like a pressure cooker.

And that will stop the water from boiling a bit, at least. Now, let's line

all up for our Toby body.

get this going. Now, we can't send all of this into space, but we can make it

think it's gone into space, and we do that by putting it inside this vacuum

chamber and sucking out all the air. So this is a vacuum pump, Toby, and so if

you put your hand on that switch, and I'll get everyone to give you a

and we're going to send this into space by making it, well, think it's gone into

space. Three, two, one.

Off we go. Come around here, Toby. Have a look at this. So that needle is going

up, so right now... We're about to get to the highest human habitations at 5

,000 metres.

We're at Dan Martin's altitude, 8 ,848 metres, the summit of Everest there.

a look what's happened to your head. Oh, my goodness.

And your lungs. They're getting bigger.

And now we're up into well above where a plane would be.

That was your lungs. That's very bad. Look at your head. It's swelling.

There's vapour forming in the pockets inside your head and some air expanding

there. Your head really doesn't look very good at the moment, does it?

Now, that process I told you about is about to happen to that water. Just

very carefully.

The pressure's dropping.

A few bubbles. Here it goes, here it goes.

That is water boiling as you go off into space.

You look really unwell in there. Shall we save you? Shall we turn off that

Okay, off we go.

I think we should try and put some pressure back into this system. Poor

All right.

You almost looked better before, didn't you?

Oh, dear.

Okay, so hopefully I can get some of you out.

There's not much left, I'm afraid.

This is what happens if you go into space.

Now, you saw that boiling, didn't you? Like as if it was in a kettle. Can you

put your finger in that?

It's still cold. So that's because boiling is not about temperature. It's a

process. It's molecules of a liquid leaving and going into the gas.

That's what was happening there, but not because it was hot, because it was such

a low pressure around it. Toby, thank you so much. Don't ever, ever, ever go

into space without a space suit. That's the best health advice I can give you.

All right, off you go. Thank you.

Now, that was ugly, wasn't it? So, this, of course, is a spacesuit. It's a

beautiful piece of engineering.

This spacesuit was designed for astronaut Helen Sharman when she went on

Juno mission 25 years ago.

And I could tell you about it, but I rather think the best person to tell you

about Helen Sharman's spacesuit is Dr.

Helen Sharman, our first British astronaut, Dr. Sharman.

It's such a great honour to meet you.

This is a very precious item. It's usually stored behind glass at the

Space Centre in Leicester.

It hasn't been into space, has it?

No, this is a replica. The real space suit that I actually wore in space is in

the Science Museum in London. But this is very similar. It's identical as far

I can see. Down to the mirror on the left -hand side. We're not allowed to

it. We're not allowed to touch it.

A real live astronaut. So you have found a slightly less precious space suit.

So we can talk about this now.

Tell me about this suit. So tell me, Helen, about this suit. So this is what

can really touch, can't we? So, yeah, very similar. So this would have been, I

assume, made for somebody to do their training in.

It feels quite warm, doesn't it? Yeah, you're getting quite warm in there. So

normally you would wear your suit, and if you're actually sitting inside your

spacecraft... Or indeed, if you're walking to the spacecraft, because it

very hot, because how can you lose any heat inside the spacesuit?

There's a little bit that you might be able to lose heat from your face, so it

gets hot. So you've got a great big pipe here, and this plugs into a ventilator

unit, and the air from the spacecraft, or from the air, pulls through the

spacesuit, and there are pipes running all the way through it, right down to

your feet.

They come up to your, just underneath your face here, and they run right down

into your gloves, and that tends to keep you cooler inside.

So I really pity you just now, because you're actually getting really very hot

inside, aren't you?

So, Alexandra, how does it feel being in there?

Very heavy. Very heavy. And, Helen, what is this thing here?

So this is a pressure regulator valve. So if you need to inflate the suit while

you're in space, let's say that, unfortunately, the air has leaked out of

spacecraft.

You close your helmet.

The oxygen supply comes in through this smaller pipe here on the left.

And this keeps the spacesuit inflated. And this pressure valve here regulates

the pressure inside.

Now, what you really want is for the suit to be inflated at a pressure of

0 .4 of an atmosphere.

Oxygen is in here, not air. So 0 .4 of an atmosphere, but it's full of oxygen

fine. But it inflates the spacesuit. So although it's strong on the outside, it

becomes really stiff.

Really stiff, so it's hard to move. Now, that's fine if you're just sitting in

your seat like this. But if you do need to get out and do some maneuvers, it's

so difficult to move, you can't. And you would use up so much energy. So what

you can do is you can use this valve here to decrease the pressure. You look

the manometer on your wrist here, and then that will show that you've

the pressure from 0 .4 of an atmosphere to 0 .26 of an atmosphere.

Very, very low pressure. So the suit deflates a little bit. Still got a bit

oxygen in it, so it's enough to breathe. It supports life. But that pressure's

low. So low that you'd get the bends if you stayed in that for very long. So you

can do that for about a quarter of an hour while you do whatever it is you

to do. And then you sit back down in your seat, increase the pressure again.

You can do that repeatedly, but you can't keep it at 0 .26 an atmosphere for

very long. That weighs 10 kilograms on Earth, although, of course, it weighs

nothing if you're orbiting the Earth. This is your mini spacecraft, really,

isn't it? So it's like having a spacecraft inside a spacecraft.

So it really has to support your life for as long as you need to get back to

Earth. So it looks like, Alexandra, you're not really enjoying being inside

space suit. So I think I'm going to send you away to get into something a bit

more comfortable. This is the last layer of defence astronauts have against the

hostility of the environment around them. But for now, Alexandra, I think...

is a bit smelly, that suit.

Is that how it came?

Yeah, all right, your suit doesn't smell like that, I hope, Helen. Well, I don't

know, I haven't been that close.

All right, Alexandra, thank you so much. And Helen, thank you.

So that's incredible. So we're seeing our spacesuit and the crew are still on

mission. They're still racing away from the Earth. They're still in the

atmosphere. They're traveling at many times the speed of sound.

And the atmosphere is still thick enough to press on that vehicle to cause all

sorts of shearing forces trying to rip the vehicle apart.

And now there is so much energy around that threat comes from some unexpected

sources. It's not just heat. It's not just light. It's vibration and it's...

Now, you don't think of those things as being destructive forces, but they are.

And to show you, I need a volunteer, preferably someone who's really, really

good at singing.

That sorts people out.

Are you really good at singing?

Okay, well, let's have a go at you. Come on, let's have you go. Brilliant,

fantastic.

Brilliant, okay, come.

Down here. What's your name? Aoife.

Aoife. Aoife. We are going to try and use your voice to break this glass here.

All right. So over here, we have a microphone.

Okay. And to help you with that note, we've got the same notes playing in

earphones.

So that should be about the right note so that that note corresponds...

with the natural frequency of this glass.

So it goes into resonance. So you want to get the molecules of the glass

vibrating like the sound energy in the voice of Aoife here to show you just

how destructive sound can be. Aoife, this is really hard to do.

I'll tell you now, I had a go, but I'm a rubbish singer, so I'm expecting

greatness from you. Okay, so ready, steady, go.

Oh, close. Good try.

Good try.

Who's that?

There is someone who can do this. And that is the amazing Lucy Haken, who is

producer, who tells me she can, which is why we're here. So, ladies and

gentlemen, Lucy Haken.

I would protect your ears here, not because Lucy's terrible at singing, but

because it's just very, very loud. Okay, let's have a go.

Aoife, she broke the glass, but you're the much better singer. Thank you so

much. Right

now,

they're still moving on with their mission. They're getting up to the point

where booster step is about to occur.

At 1 minute 58 seconds, the booster separates.

And they still have to pull off one more trick to get into space and to explain

what trick that is.

I'm going to need one volunteer.

All right, let's go up here this time. How about you? Right at the back there.

Yeah, yeah, let's bring you down.

And I need one more volunteer.

Someone who's traveled at 25 times the speed of sound.

Which probably means you, Mike, doesn't it? All right, Mike Barrett.

Now, what's your name?

John. John.

Mike, I'm going to turn you into rocket engines here. This is our rocket. These

bags are your propellant, and you know, because Isaac Newton told us.

that if you throw your propellant out the back, your rocket will go in that

direction. Now, if you get as far as this line, you have got to the space

station, okay?

That's what we've got to do by throwing those bags out that way, okay?

So, I'm going to load you on board now, and Mike, if you would board at the

bottom there, so you're the top of the rocket, and Mike's at the bottom.

All right.

And try not to break the astronaut as you throw them, okay?

Because that's super embarrassing when we return him for NASA.

All right? You got my back, John. Everyone, three.

Two, one, go.

Oh, so close.

What a disaster.

You didn't get to the space station. You're floating in space.

Okay.

So let's try that again, but let's try that the way that Tim's rocket and the

Soyuz dealt with it. This time, we're going to do the staging.

So Mike is going to be the first stage, and you're going to be the second stage,

okay? So when I say three, two, one, first stage, Mike's going to chuck all

fuel out. When I say second stage go, you chuck your fuel out, okay? But that

won't be until you've separated from his stage, all right?

You're going to get rid of the dead weight that is astronaut Mike Barrett

he's got rid of his fuel. Okay, you got that? So three, two, one.

First stage.

And let's separate.

Go, second stage.

High five.

Congratulations. You made it to work.

And that's how you get yourself into space. You get rid of that stage. Once

got rid of its fuel, you get rid of the lower stage, even if Mike's aboard it.

Well done.

Thanks.

And now, over to Tim.

I'm really looking forward to experiencing these stage separations.

high G to low G, you get kind of a tumbling sensation.

And also when the fairing is jettisoned, once you've left most of Earth's

atmosphere, that's when you first get to see the sun, or if it's at night, then

you get to see planet Earth.

And so you've both been there. How does that feel, that moment when you're

getting out there into space?

The actual moment that Mike explained about when you suddenly go from about 3G

to 0G.

I was, it was a delightful feeling because the spaces is so hot but for the

first time the ventilation can actually go behind your back because you're

floating sort of between the sleeves and your straps so the ventilation can go

and dry some of the sweat off and then when you unstrap and you just float out,

isn't that a wonderful free feeling?

Liberating, absolutely.

And it's not just that freedom of floating and of course it never stops.

It just keeps on going, and you forget what it's like. Right now, I can

feel the seat beneath me. I'm sure if you actually think about it, you can

actually feel the floor beneath your feet. You forget what it's like to stand

or sit down.

And best memory for you of that, Mike?

Well, fortunately, the Soyuz is very small, so you don't float very far.

But the first place you float to is to the window. And I think looking out the

window to the Earth was absolutely my best memory. But also, just to know that

you've made it through Athens and you're in orbit is just a great feeling

because everything went right.

Fantastic. Well, stay here, guys.

We're not finished yet, but at least we are in orbit.

But they're just not quite in the right orbit yet.

The ISS is up above them, circling the Earth, 250 miles above the surface of

Earth, travelling at 17 ,500 miles an hour, and Sawyer still has to climb to

there. And the question is, how are they going to do that? And that's much

trickier than you think.

And to show you that, I'm going to need the help of a volunteer.

OK, so let's have you come down.

Now, what's your day? Korshik.

Korshik, okay.

So this is our orbital rendezvous demonstrator, all right?

And here's how it works. You pull that trigger, and these cars are going

Now, one's going faster around the Earth than the other one.

Your speed and where you are in your orbit are inseparable.

So when you're close to the Earth, you're going around the Earth faster.

When you're high in an orbit, like the ISS is, you're going slower.

So if we let this string out here...

You can go higher, but you're traveling slower again. So let's see if you can

get yourself to dock with the ISS.

All right? So if you turn it to the right, it goes out. Turn it to the left,

goes down. All right? It's my favorite Christmas toy, that one. All right, so

pull the trigger and have a go. Now, this is what it's like. This is why

mechanics are so difficult, because your speed is not independent of your

position. If you're higher in orbit...

You're close to the space station, but you're traveling more slowly. So you

to time your run. If you want to catch up with it now, you have to drop down to

a lower orbit.

That's good.

And you're going to catch up. And now you're going to have to time your run so

that you get close to the ISS. Now let's try and get up close, because

truthfully, oh, here we go.

I've never seen anyone do that for the first time.

Are you an astronaut, by any chance?

Well, that was very impressive, Corshid. Thank you so much. Take care.

Maneuver yourself around in space with that sort of reaction, and that's where

we've got to in Tim's mission. We'll go forwards now to 6 hours and 30 minutes

after Tim...

has launched and he's now approaching space station we're going to see some

of that as they approach up here on the screen and they're pulling close and

that is tim's vehicle approaching and of course there are two people in our

audience who know exactly what that feels like i'm going to ask you to

back astronauts helen shaman and mike barrett thank you

So this is six hours, 30 minutes.

They're approaching the space station. Do you guys remember this from your

mission? I remember, and you can't forget it, can you? Because it's

nobody celebrates, nobody in Star City celebrates the launch. You celebrate the

docking, because that's when you know that you're there safely.

And we were actually 200 kilometers away when we knew that we weren't going to

make it automatically, and we took over manual. But you had a different

experience. So we were about a little more than 100 meters out, and then we

a failure of one of the sensors on the engine.

And the guidance computer didn't like it, so it said switch over to manual and

fly that in.

And Tim's docking actually turned out to be much, much more nervy than anyone

thought it was going to be. What happened there, Mike?

So it was a very similar failure. In fact, the same one that we had, but it

inside of 20 meters.

So they were actually very close. And whenever you have two spacecraft very

close together, you want to be sure that they're extremely tightly controlled.

Well, the computer didn't like what it saw, and so it told the spacecraft to

back up, and it did very quickly. In fact, if any of you watch it on TV,

see it beat a very hasty retreat out to a little bit more than 100 meters.

And that's as close as two vehicles have ever got in that procedure. I think

that's about as close as we've come before we had a fail to dock.

Now, to be sure, we trained to do this, and Yuri Malenchikov, the commander, was

absolutely trained to do these manual dockings. And the computers switched

to manual mode and allowed Yuri to fly it, which he did beautifully.

So let's go forward one more time now.

Eight hours, 55 minutes after Tim has left the Earth.

They've docked to the space station, done their final checks, and it's time

open the hatch now.

Now, both of you know what that feels like, don't you? Let's see what Tim

thought he was going to feel like.

Once we docked to the International Space Station, we've still got about two

hours of leak checks to do to make sure everything is safe for us to open the

hatch between the Soyuz spacecraft and the space station.

What would be great is the fact that I'll be meeting Scott and Misha on

who are already eight months into their year -long stay. I said goodbye to them

in Star City, and it'll be great to see them again.

So incredible.

You've both been through that.

Scott Kelly up there, he's a buddy of yours. He's a good friend of mine. We

together, actually. And you've been through that. What's it like getting

the space station, Mike?

Well, the space station is huge. And when you compare that to the very small,

the tiny confines of the Soyuz, it's a big, dramatic change. All of a sudden,

you're in a massive station the size of a 747, if any of you have been on that.

And so all of a sudden, you have a lot of room to maneuver. And after two days

in the Soyuz, it was kind of nice to have the room. Well, it's fantastic to

everyone aboard the space station. Mike Barra, Helen Sharman, thank you so much

for joining us tonight. It's fantastic to see you.

And we have one final message from Tim.

That's all for now.

looking forward to talking to you again at the next christmas lectures fingers

crossed good luck

and

that brings us to the end of the first of our lectures the crew have survived

launch they've survived orbital rendezvous they've survived the docking

they're safely aboard the space station and next time we'll be finding out as

Tim begins his six -month expedition aboard the International Space Station.

just how to survive in space, but how to live and work there. And what you do if

something goes really, really wrong.

And also, even more exciting, is we'll be having the first recorded message

Tim, from the ISS. But for now, I am Dr Kevin Fong, and this has been How to

Survive in Space.

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