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Forty years ago the Apollo-Soyuz mission, with its symbolic handshake between American and Russian astronauts, became one of the most significant political events of its time – heralding the beginning of international co-operation in the human exploration of space. If we want humans to properly explore the cosmos then we have to learn how stay alive in space.

Dr Kevin Fong has been delivering the 2015 London Royal Institution’s Christmas lectures on how to survive in space, and for the Â鶹ԼÅÄ World Service he begins a two part investigation into the extraordinary ways that science, engineering and medicine come together to get that fragile human life safely into space. He explores what we need to do to prepare for much longer duration space flights that probe deeper into our solar system and perhaps even beyond.

Kevin begins by taking us on a journey from planet Earth to escape earth’s gravity into Low Earth Orbit and to the International Space Station, which many see as a training ground for human survival in the harsh vacuum of space. Kevin hears from astronauts, aerospace engineers on how the International Space Station is helping to stretch the limits of our understanding of human physiology and survival in a way that no experiment back on Earth could.

(Photo: An astronaut in space. Credit: Nasa)