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Last century, humanity dared to dream about exploring space.

We choose to go to the moon.

APPLAUSE

And over the next 50 years, we might dare to go further.

Where will we be in space in 2075?

Space can be explored and mastered.

I want to see space continue

to be the way that John F Kennedy

hoped it would be.

This new ocean will be a sea of peace.

I hope we do explore other worlds,

but I hope that's not prioritised

over conserving what's here at home already.

I hope that in 50 years from now, we have established

a permanent presence on the moon...

The Eagle has landed.

..and had the first humans landing on Mars.

I hope that international norms are established for the safe

and sustainable development of space for future generations.

We set sail on this new sea,

because there is new knowledge to be gained.

I want to see all the diversity

we have here on Earth

represented in space.

I hope that we'll have worked out a cheap way to get

to the outer solar system.

Now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond.

I hope we know if there's life somewhere in our solar system.

I hope our expansion into space will give us a new perspective on Earth.

Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man.

And what about you? Where do you hope we'll be in 2075?

Welcome. Welcome.

Welcome to The Sky At Night.

This autumn, the Royal Society,

the world's oldest scientific academy,

is publishing a new ground-breaking report

called Space: 2075.

We've been given exclusive access to find out all about it.

The report transports us into the future,

painting a mind-boggling picture of the year 2075.

Space elevators and reusable rockets taking us into orbit,

giant space-based solar panels beaming energy down to Earth,

and a permanent human presence on the lunar surface.

The development of new technology

and the growth of the commercial space sector

could make these extraordinary ideas a reality.

This rapid increase in space technologies has been compared

to the Industrial Revolution,

which changed our lives from rural farming communities

to urban mechanised ones.

That shift came with huge social and political reforms,

and we may need similar transformative changes

over the next 50 years,

as we become a more space-faring civilisation.

The Royal Society is calling upon decision-makers

to anticipate this dramatic change.

If humanity is to become interplanetary,

then we need to work together

and find out how we make it for the benefit of everyone.

Thankfully, there are already people around the world

who are working to tackle the big questions and challenges

of our future in space.

So, while I'm at he Royal Society,

Chris has headed to Cologne

to learn about a new European Space Agency project.

CHRIS: This is the European Astronaut Centre,

where astronauts from around the world

undergo extensive training

to prepare them for the trials and tribulations of space travel.

To be selected to train as an astronaut,

you have to meet a set of strict requirements

about your physical and mental health,

fitness and personality.

So how do we make space a place that's welcoming to all people

and not just a select few?

I'm meeting John McFall,

one of the newest members of ESA's astronaut reserve,

and the face of their pioneering new study, "Fly!".

He's taking me on a tour of the European Astronaut Centre's

state-of-the-art training facilities.

Well, this looks impressive.

So, Chris, yeah, this is the control room

for the Neutral Buoyancy Facility at the European Astronaut Centre,

and this is where the controller sits during the training that we do

in this awesome pool that we have.

A pool with a mock-up of... Is that the Columbus module?

It is, yeah. It's a life-size replica

of the European Space Agency's module

that's attached to the International Space Station.

We'll come back to that in a bit,

but how did you get here?

What brings you to the EAC?

Back in early 2021,

the European Space Agency put out a call

for a new class of astronauts.

But uniquely within that vacancy notice,

they were also recruiting for an astronaut

with a physical disability

to do a very bold study,

to look at would it be feasible to get an astronaut

with a physical disability to fly on a long-duration mission

to the International Space Station?

John is already a medal-winning Paralympian,

an orthopaedic surgeon,

and he can now add astronaut to that impressive list.

John McFall.

But going to space wasn't necessarily on his radar

as a young man.

I've always had a bit of an adventurous spirit,

and as a kid always wanted to join the army.

And then in 2000, I was travelling around the world

and unfortunately had a motorcycle accident

when in Thailand,

and ended up resulting in an amputation of my right leg.

And I couldn't fulfil my ambition of joining the army.

There were things about this opportunity

to do this feasibility study and potentially fly to space

that ticked a lot of the boxes that I had wanted to tick

as my 16, 17-year-old self wanting to join the army

but couldn't because of my physical disability.

The Fly! study aimed to assess the unique challenges involved

in getting John to the International Space Station -

from launch, to orbit, to landing.

Some of the exciting things that I've done have obviously...

Everybody knows about the Vomit Comet

or the parabolic flight.

So we looked at this in the context of would I be able to do CPR,

or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, in an emergency in microgravity?

And so we demonstrated that that was possible on a parabolic flight.

While being flown like this? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

John and his team used a combination of centrifuges,

parabolic flights and low gravity treadmills

to recreate weightlessness

and test how John and his body responded.

And this was just one small part of an extensive study.

Hello, John. Hello.

Welcome back to Earth.

Thank you very much. Yeah, well done.

And how's it gone?

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, because it could have been that you came in

and two months in discovered that there's a vital bit of training

that 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.

But there's one part of astronaut training

that John hasn't tackled yet.

The initial Fly! feasibility study didn't consider spacewalking,

so what we call EVA, extravehicular activity.

And lots of astronauts go to the space station

and never spacewalk, right? Exactly, yeah.

That's not weird. You know, so it got to the point, well,

could we consider EVA?

And so a legacy of the study, we're hoping, could be looking

into the potential of EVA.

While spacewalks are not yet part of the Fly! study,

today, John and his team are starting to think

about the impact that training in the European Astronaut Centre's

Neutral Buoyancy Facility might have on his body.

The facility makes use of buoyancy,

essentially floating, to recreate the feeling of weightlessness

for long periods of time.

So the astronauts can practise spacewalks underwater.

So, how was that? Yeah, it was good, thanks, Chris.

Prosthesis was comfortable in the water. Wet suit fine.

Get the fins on the feet OK, so... Job done.

Let me take you this way and show you what else we have. Sure.

The European Astronaut Centre is also home to one-to-one replicas

of the modules on the International Space Station.

And today, I'm excited to get inside their replica

of ESA's Columbus laboratory.

So, where are we in the station? So, we're here.

We're right at the front of the International Space Station.

So this is Node 2.

And the space station is hurtling that way at, well, 27,500km an hour.

I like the speed limit sign.

Shall we go through? For sure, yeah.

I'm imagining I'm floating at this point. Yeah, yeah.

The Columbus module houses some of the most important experiments

for understanding how humans can live and work in space.

You know, when you look at the complexity of this space,

you can see why those questions in your study about manoeuvring

and stabilising yourself really come into play.

There's not a lot of space to play with in here.

There isn't, and there is a lot more equipment

that encroaches onto the free space.

Well, I'm pleased to have finally made it

into the European Columbus module,

so thanks for the tour. Shall we go back down to Earth?

Absolutely.

John looks right at home in the Columbus module,

and it's got me thinking about what comes next for him

and the Fly! study.

As we come towards the end of this study,

do you think one day you'll be floating around the real ISS?

I'd love to go to space,

and I do hope I get the opportunity to fly one day.

But what I've realised by doing this is that this is not about me.

This is about the future of space exploration.

Maybe we'll look back in 300 years from now

and say the first time someone tried to look at getting someone

with a physical disability to be an astronaut was here,

you know, in the 2020s.

And really, if we are going to be an interplanetary species,

we have to start somewhere.

I've got one final question, which is that I'm sure that somehow,

sometime soon, you're going to find yourself on a rocket heading to

space. Will you come and tell us about it when you've been?

Absolutely. I'd love to. Good. Then that's a deal.

Thank you very much. Pleasure.

Talking to John about his work has been truly inspirational.

Just the fact that major space agencies like ESA

are thinking about accessibility sends a powerful signal.

Maybe we really will have a future in which anyone can go to space.

Tower clear.

The prospect of getting more people to space is exciting.

There's a lot more to consider if we want to keep them there

for long periods of time.

MAGGIE: Nasa's Artemis mission is planning to build

a space station in orbit around the moon

and a permanent base on the moon's surface by around 2030.

And with the recent discoveries of caves on the moon

that could house a lunar base

and liquid water reservoirs on Mars,

humans living on other bodies in our solar system by 2075

feels like a very real possibility.

But the conditions these people will be living in

will be very different to anything we're used to here on Earth,

so keeping them healthy will not be simple.

I'm meeting doctor and space medicine expert Kevin Fong

to find out more.

Well, we're here at the Royal Society,

and they have a sort of fantastic background

in sort of medical research.

But can you tell me more about space medicine today?

We've got people on the International Space Station,

people sort of flying around in rockets.

What support do they need?

There's lots of minor things they need to deal with.

So, sickness - a lot of them feel sick.

Sleep - they have a lot of sleep medications up there.

They have a few bits for serious emergencies,

like fires and the emergency decompressions,

and all of that is packed into a very small space.

And then the job of people like me on the ground,

who work with the space medicine teams,

is to design that kit so that it's basically idiot-proof.

OK! So even under pressure or whatever...

Even under pressure. Yes.

And you can talk them through it on the phone

or over a video link.

And, for me, it was such a great sort of thought experiment

of how do you take everything you know about medicine,

take it apart... Yes! ..remove gravity,

and remove your access to a hospital,

and then make sure it still works in the worst situation?

So that's why I loved doing it.

Yes, yeah! Deconstructing medicine.

Astronauts are guided through medical procedures by doctors

like Kevin on the ground

and trained in how to treat their crewmates' minor medical issues.

In the worst-case scenario,

ISS astronauts can come home for medical care.

But they're only 250 miles away from us.

People living on a lunar base would be hundreds of thousands

of miles away from home.

And for Martian folk, it would be hundreds of millions.

Mars, shortest time is about six months to Mars,

can be as much as nine, and the same on the way back.

And then you're on the surface for either 30 days or a year or two.

Yes. There's no in-between, is there? So it's a peak, for the peak return.

Yeah, the buses are very infrequent. Yes!

And so then you've got a whole different set of issues,

because you're out there,

microgravity is chiselling away at your physiology,

your biology, and radiation is one of the big, big problems.

Because, as you know, we're outside the magnetosphere,

which gives us such substantial protection

from the high-energy particles.

And then goodness knows what you'd do

if something went wrong medically,

because your closest hospital might be as much as

three and a half years away. You need a lot of self-reliance.

You're restricted by weight and volume.

There's not much space for the medical kit,

so one of the sort of evolving possibilities

is that you might be able to 3D print your equipment,

which means that if you've just got a bag of some sort of substrate

and a 3D printer, and you can say you need this bit of kit. Scalpel!

SHE IMITATES PRINTER Exactly, well, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, dental drill and all the rest of it.

Protecting our bodies from the trials and tribulations

of space in the short-term is one thing,

but we're starting to think about staying in space for longer,

maybe even settling there,

and that brings whole new questions about health.

Physiology of people born in space,

what impact will that have on them?

They have done some very interesting experiments

where they've taken fish eggs up

and put them through an entire cycle of fertilisation

and then the birth of the fish,

and had the fish swim around in weightlessness, in these tanks.

And, of course, the fish don't develop with any sense of up,

down, left, right, because there is no up, down. Yes, yes.

So they kind of swim in very bizarre directions.

So if you are exposed to this space environment,

your body says, "Hey, this is what I've got.

"I don't need to do that.

"I don't need to have all this muscle.

"I don't need to have all this bone."

So people who are born in space one day will look very different

and be different physiologically.

The shape of their bodies, the way their bodies work

will be different from that which we have on Earth.

A child which grows up in space might learn to float

instead of crawl.

Their muscles would develop differently,

and an ultra-distribution of fluids in their body

would lead to a puffier face.

It's possible that they would be so adapted to space

that they could never live unaided on Earth.

Kevin, as always, it's been fantastic talking to you.

Great talking to you, as well.

Well, look forward to seeing you again soon.

See you later, Maggie. Take care. Lovely to see you. Thank you.

Human settlements in space are an incredible,

exciting goal for our future.

But we have to be able to get out of Earth's orbit first.

GEORGE: There are already millions of pieces

of space debris in orbit around our planet,

made up mostly of defunct satellites and pieces of rockets

that we've launched over the years.

As Earth's orbit gets more crowded,

the chance of a collision between two pieces

of space debris increases.

A single collision could start a chain reaction of collisions,

filling Earth's orbit with debris and making it harder and harder

to launch a rocket into space.

Thankfully, companies and space agencies around the world

are starting to come up with clever solutions for dealing

with our crowded orbit.

I'm meeting Mekhi Dhesi from Astroscale to learn more.

I know that you guys work on space junk.

Yeah. And we hear this term a lot right now. Why is it a problem?

If you measure all the pieces of debris in orbit,

there is 130 million pieces of space debris

up in orbit right now. Ooh!

And everything in low Earth orbit is travelling super, super-fast.

Yeah. It travels 20 times faster than a bullet,

so even the tiniest piece of debris can cause a serious impact,

so it's potentially harmful to astronauts up in space. Yeah.

Only last year, a Russian satellite had a break-up.

They had to warn the astronauts on the ISS to take shelter

and potentially then go to their vehicles for a safe exit

of the ISS if it had collided with it.

And this also impacts potentially future space exploration,

because if there's so much junk hurtling around,

a spacecraft carrying astronauts up through orbit

might not be able to get past safely.

So we need to find a way to tackle the space debris

that's already up there,

but we also need to future-proof satellites that are yet to launch

to ensure the sustainable use of future space

for generations to come.

In 2021, Astroscale launched their first spacecraft, ELSA-d,

a test of their new magnetic docking system.

The aim was for a dummy piece of space debris,

pre-equipped with a magnetic disc,

to be captured by the ELSA-d spacecraft.

And the proof of concept worked.

Now, what's next? What's the future of this project?

So, what's next is the commercialisation of ELSA-d,

and we call this ELSA-M,

which stands for End-of-Life Services by Astroscale-Multiple.

So this really is the commercialisation

of the ELSA-d demonstration.

So, in 2026, we'll launch our satellite ELSA-M up into orbit

and it will then remove a failed satellite

that has already been pre-equipped with a docking plate.

The aim is that ELSA-M will tow space debris out of orbit

and release it in the upper stages of Earth's atmosphere,

where the pressure and heat will cause it to disintegrate.

ELSA-M will then return to pick up another piece of debris.

Today, I'm lucky enough to be shown around my very first clean room

where the ELSA-M spacecraft is being built.

Here we go. I can't believe I've been allowed in a clean room.

So I know this is where you guys are actually building ELSA-M?

That's right, but a lot of what we have in here at the moment

is commercially sensitive, as you can imagine. Yeah.

But there is something we can talk about right here.

Yeah? One of the magnetic docking plates

that we were talking about earlier.

Yes! So it has these legs here that you can see,

and it attaches onto the side of a spacecraft. Yeah.

ELSA-M is designed for use on satellites

that have been equipped with this magnetic docking system

in advance. But we know there is so much debris already out there

with no magnets for ELSA-M to dock to,

but Astroscale hope their upcoming mission, Cosmic,

could solve this problem using similar technology to ELSA-M

but replacing the magnetic docking system with a robotic arm

that can grab on to debris.

However, both ELSA-M and Cosmic have a limitation.

So, the ELSA-M and the Cosmic missions,

they're designed for grabbing onto debris that's about the size

of a washing machine. Right.

But there are also really, really large pieces

of debris out there.

For example, sometimes upper stages of rocket bodies

are then left in orbit, and these can be about the size

and the weight of a London bus.

So there is a mission called ADRAS-J,

which stands for Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan,

launched February 2024,

and it's going to inspect

one of these really large pieces of debris,

an upper stage rocket body.

And so ADRAS-J has now reached just 50 metres separation

and is managing to produce amazingly high-resolution images.

And in the future, then, this will inform a second-stage mission

where we can then go up and also safely remove it.

That's incredible! It's like you say -

50 metres in space terms is just nothing.

They may as well just be about to kiss!

That's, like, that's so close together.

These images captured by ADRAS-J

of an old rocket part hurtling through space

are sort of enchanting.

But they're also a reminder of the impact

we've already had on space,

and how we need to change the way we treat it in the future.

Thank you so much for allowing me in my very first clean room.

Thank you so much for coming by. No worries.

See you soon, hopefully. Bye! Bye-bye!

More satellites in orbit doesn't just mean more space debris.

It also changes our night sky here on Earth.

It can be a lot of fun tracking down a satellite

or spotting the International Space Station flying overhead.

I find it truly magical seeing the ISS,

a moving star with people living on it,

but an increasing number of objects in orbit

can also be a nuisance for amateur astronomers down here on Earth.

Deep-sky imaging is currently the worst affected,

and that's because the individual exposures tend to be many seconds,

or perhaps even minutes in length.

But satellites can also affect things like meteor photography,

where the trails mimic the appearance of meteors.

If you're heading out to watch the Draconid

or Orionid meteor showers coming up in October,

you'll want to keep an eye out for satellites.

You can see in these images how similar they look,

but you can distinguish between them in several ways -

by the satellite's lack of colour

and by their straight-line appearance,

as meteor trails tend to have

a definite shape to them.

And if you're taking continuous multi-second exposures,

a meteor trail will tend to appear on one frame,

whereas a satellite trail

will tend to be visible

moving over several frames.

As we make technological advances in space,

so amateur astrophotography has also been evolving,

providing solutions to help astrophotographers

remove satellite trails from their images.

With standard telescopes,

removing satellite trails requires you to take several different

exposures and then stack them in a way that removes

the satellite trail.

You can see an example of the process in these images

of the star cluster M53.

And now, with new smart telescope technology like this,

a user can select a target and set the telescope off.

The telescope will find the object, take all the necessary exposures,

stack the images, and automatically remove the satellite trails.

Smart telescope or not,

if you're looking for a good target this month,

there's a small partial lunar eclipse taking place

on the 18th of September,

and this is a special one

as it falls on 2024's harvest moon.

The best time to catch the eclipse

is around 03:00 to 04:15 BST,

when the moon will be moving

through the darkest part

of the Earth's shadow,

called the umbral shadow.

The darkest shading will appear

at the moon's north-east limb.

So, if you don't have a fancy smart telescope yet, don't fret.

There's still plenty to see.

I love the fact that technology is making astronomy more accessible,

but often the joy is in the searching,

looking for these objects in a sea of bright stars

and then finding them.

There's no finer feeling.

The prospect of our species reaching further

into that beautiful night sky is wondrous and inspiring.

But as we have seen tonight, not without its challenges.

Back at the Royal Society,

Maggie is meeting Professor Suzie Imber,

co-chair of the Space: 2075 report, to discuss the society's findings

on how humanity should tackle this next chapter

in space exploration.

MAGGIE: But my first question is why are you doing this report now,

and why 50 years?

Well, I think now is a really good time for this report to come out,

because we're experiencing this big acceleration in the space industry,

not just space agencies exploring space

but also a lot of commercial companies too.

That's kind of a good time for us to just pause and take stock

and think about where we'd like the future of space to be.

And, in a way, that links back to why we're doing 50 years.

It's much easier for us to look forward and try to design,

from the outset,

laws and legislation that leads us in the direction we want to go in,

rather than responding to incidents as they happen

and trying to make up laws and legislation as we go.

The space economy is expected to be worth $1.8 trillion by 2035

and space agencies like Nasa and ESA are relying more and more

on private companies for parts of their missions.

Commercialisation, especially when we talk about it in space,

it can be seen as a double-edged sword,

and I think an example would be space debris.

It seems some companies are putting a lot up there,

and some companies are trying to work out

how to get rid of space debris.

So, is there a way of doing it effectively, of doing it well?

I think space debris is a really good example, isn't it,

of thinking about commercialisation?

And, in a way, yes, there are some companies sending lots of things

into space, but that's needed for the business

that they're running and it's going to be of benefit to humanity.

And so there's a plus side there, but only if we have the regulation

in place to make sure that this is done ethically and sustainably.

It's not just satellites placed in space

that we need to carefully consider.

We also need to look at how we get people into space in a way

that is safe and beneficial to all of us.

So, I'm going to put it out there - the next 50 years,

do you think we'll have people on Mars?

Yeah, I do, actually. I do.

And I realise that people on Mars, it's always 30 years away, right?

I think 30 years ago we said... That rolling...

We said we'll have them there in 30 years and we haven't.

For good reason, I think, actually.

Before you send people anywhere,

we must understand the environment that we would be sending them into.

And so now we're finally reaching the phase, I think,

where we've sent orbiters, now we've sent landers and rovers

and really understanding the environment.

So, given how far we've come in the last 70 years,

in the next 50 years, we may well have the first boots on Mars.

I'm hoping they're mine, but we'll see!

THEY LAUGH I'd vote for you, Maggie.

So, having been one of the participators in generating

this report, what would you like people to take away from it?

I think I'd really like people to take away a sense of excitement

about what the future holds.

Because if you read the report,

there's so many amazing things

that we're talking about that 20 years ago

would have been impossible.

And many of these concepts come from science fiction.

They come from things that we will have read as young people.

And now, in the next 50 years, they're going to be a reality.

To find out more about the Royal Society's report,

you can sign up for information on their website.

You can also find great videos on other mind-bending

future space stuff on BBC Ideas.

The boundaries of humanity's ambitions in space seem to grow

wider year on year, from near the surface of our little globe

to the moon, to Mars and way beyond.

But the people we've met in today's episode

have given us a lot to think about

if we're to meet this future in a way that benefits us all.

Whatever happens between now and 2075,

you can keep up with space on The Sky At Night. Goodnight.