September 1st on. Julian. Astronaut to marcus gay is climbing a volcano and learns the russian and the Canary Islands. He returned from his long Space Mission just a few weeks ago the space agency sent the astronauts here for training the terrain is what is called a planetary analog very similar to the landscape on mars. Was. The french astronaut sees a mans mission as the apex of his career the 6 and a half months he spent on the International Space station i s s were a 1st step towards potentially being part of a crew lifting off of the red planet one day. Humans have to adapt to space travel with closed recycling loops total autonomy drive technologies and the use of robots and novel materials the i s s paves the way for future missions and puts a journey to mars into the realm of the imaginable. Back a. Mock up the on. Back in november 28th 16 at the baikonur spaceport temperatures have fallen to minus 28 degrees celsius. The rocket is being driven to the launch pad a pretty routine occurrence in the Space Business preparations for the 1992nd soyuz launch. But for 2 muppets scaling this mission is the 1st. Object to win a half years of intensive training he is about to take a seat in the small capsule 40 meters above the ground. These are his last moments on earth moments during which anticipation turns into intense concentration. He joins russian cosmonauts are they know that skinny and american Peggy Whitson as they set up for the International Space station i guess. He is the only newcomer on expedition 5051. 00. Maximum concentration youre taking off on a rocket it wasnt quite clear to me what that match your tethered to a Ballistic Missile in the so use your fastened down everywhere only your arms can interact with the control panel otherwise you feel really tied up in the rocket is vibrating in the smoke billowed. On november 17th at 2120 sharp the soyuz rocket lifts off the ground. The 1000 tons of fuel generating 20000000 horsepower the thrust in the 8 minutes ascent phase is enormous. Tension is high for the 1st 10 minutes after the launch this is the most dangerous time. The earth quickly begins to look like a sphere as the various stages of the launch of bring the capsule up to its orbital speed 28000 Kilometers Per Hour. Days huddled together in the so you are nightmare for anyone who is claustrophobic if youre sitting in a kind of can embark catapulted 400 kilometers into orbit around the earth. But human strength is to be able to see that is normal otherwise youd go crazy. Right. After orbiting the earth 30 times in 2 days the crew has sort of muscles but now the ion says is in sight. It takes more than 2 hours of intricate maneuvering for the capsule to dock on to the space station. Theres relief in the Mission Control center in moscow with the astronauts relatives are watching the whole operation live. The end of openness and all their peggy and tomorrow welcomed by the 3 crewmembers who arrived a month earlier. Than. The orbiting Research Facility has been continuously men since the early 2000 its where 400 kilometers above the earth they are preparing for the Interplanetary Missions of the future. The eye is this is a 900 cubic metre labyrinth with everything arranged in a manner as precise as it is complex. Its a high to liberate tree where microgravity turns every notion of up and down on its head. Newcomers have to quickly learn how to find their way around. Although you know when you suddenly start floating around in weightlessness you can feel your own disorientation your organs of balance are out of kilter everything is distorted. Your stomach feels full because everything in it is clouding. Your head hurts it feels bloated because of the High Pressure in your brain and. What. Busy these other 1st symptoms are but they disappear very quickly. At least thats how it was with me so i was very likely. Humans are not adapted to life in space our anatomy and metabolism are geared to earthly gravity. Without gravity the blood migrates from the lower to the upper part of the body creating a vascular overpressure that can damage the organs this phenomenon is still an obstacle to long term missions. In france the sea any estimation all center for space studies is looking closely at the issue. Professor philip albay and to mark his scale have to vised a new experiment for the i s s. Albay has headed and number of Research Programs at the institute of space medicine and physio. Oh maydays here volunteers spread impermeable fabric are immersed in water filled tell us this socalled dry in theirs that is currently the primary method available for studying the effects of microgravity on the human body down on. The scene really its a good way of simulating the effects of microgravity on fluid transport in the 1st 3 hours was the conditions in space that reproduced exactly. Stagnation in the blood vessels the problem with the brain the eyes and the 1st this shows the devastating symptoms that can occur when bodily fluids move upwards which is the case in space. We now know that over pressure can also cause the bessel walls to age as much in 6 months in space as in 30 years for a normal person on earth. The nasa astronaut students find that funny at all theyre not really jokesters anyway it wouldnt be you can make up for 6 months but we dont know if anything beyond that is reversible or it could be me i put it would suppose he said. During the 6 months of the i assess the crew was confronted with another essential problem of long term flights a psychological one. Letters form a cosmonaut Canady Padalka thing even in spaceflight circles but delta is considered an extraterrestrial hes a legend who has lived in space longer than anyone else so far. On the 5 Space Missions he managed a total of 879. 00 days of weightlessness thats 2 and a half years in other words the estimated duration of the journey to mars small charges which are about 12 hours will it ever be possible for humans to live and work in outer space. Over the last 50 years countless experiments have been carried out and more experience has been gained with the trials that it was almost in use with human organism has become more resistant to the aggressive conditions in space for some of the crew members psychological compatibility is the greatest challenge or. The ideal crew or cosmonaut doesnt exist and never will were not robots. Anymore that you hope will do to us that we too will you cant just slam the door between yourself and your colleagues and what i think crew is damaged to find a common language to make compromises brings. Down is exactly the right word of this case. Over 400. 00 as to no its have now been on all. Space station since the 1st one was launched in the 1971 the personal selection criteria for long term flights have been honed. But no one knows yes what a group flying 2 months would ideally look like. While living our must see for apollo vehicle we fly to mars we must learn to survive in space for the long term its easiest if we do it close to the earth which is why the ai s. S. Is a stage on the way. Its not just a research station divorced from the mars project. A good 50 percent of what happens on the i s s is about sending people even further into space. Where you dont prove one called honest us. Even further into space today everyone thinks of months when they hear that. Some parts of the earths share features with the red planet. Decades of intensive volcanic activity on lands are right in the Canary Islands have given its a geology that is similar to that of mars. Geologist shy of one kettle is often drawn to the island as an expert on the red planet he advises nasa. Hes also an imposing figure in the Months Society and International Association of scientists engineers and astronauts and aerospace officials. All of them advocates a journey to mine. I shall ask yourself people are now going to mars reflects our profound urge to explore its in our genes let me spire good discovery of america and there are other planets. And we also want to find out about the origin of life it was a very miracle that only happened on earth with a chance if you. In a 1000000000 years or was it a process that happens naturally i know that there was liquid water on mars and it passed because weve seen the remains of lakes i recall the still dark but see i think why shouldnt why further reason there are 2 like maybe we can find the missing link between inanimate mineral matter and the 1st selves let out of the miracle of life come about. Mars may give us the answer but if it is at the top it. Is undoubtedly fascinating but can we really send people there how is that supposed to work. Throughout the morning as it is about 227000000 kilometers from the sun you whereas the earth is 150000000. Orbit the sun so the path to mars isnt a Straight Line but a curve and i can orbit. Mars is hundreds of millions of kilometers away 200 times as far as the moon these are completely different dimensions sit at. The most optimistic forecast estimates the voyage to mars and back would take about 640. 00 days 6 months with the outbound flights a month on site and 15 months time. To travel to mars we need of course a rocket conventional chemical propulsion engines are pretty advanced the fuel is burned with oxygen to give maximum thrust this will enable us to fly to mars in 6 months. What 5. To chemical Rocket Propulsion projects are currently making advances now says space launch system or enceladus. Its a deep space launch vehicle with several propulsion stages that could transport 4 people and 50 tons of payload to mars. The space x. Company with its parts even on musk is behind the 2nd project with typical optimism musk has said that 2024 will be the year to colonize ation of mars because. The company is working on a reusable launch vehicle and space ship that can transport a dozen astronauts into space at one go the way the various rocket parts can be reused or recycled is a revolutionary past as far as Propulsion Technology for conquering distant planets is concerned the real revolution is taking place elsewhere. Houston engineers from the Ad Astra Rocket Company are testing their propulsion system. The project seems like something out of science fiction. But one of its underlying technologies is already well known the plasma propulsion engine. Plasma thrusters have been around for some years now in contrast to conventional combustion engines they work by heating and i noticed gas to ultra high temperatures and then accelerating its i noticed assamese through an electroMagnetic Field. The speed at the outlet nozzle reaches 180000 Kilometers Per Hour and ensures a continuous constant thrust. This type of drive is already being used for some probes and satellites however it cant generate the power needed to propel a space ship. But this is trying. To change that as. Franklin chang diaz is a physicist and astronauts who has been involved with more Space Missions than anyone else. You flew on the u. S. Space shuttle 7 times for 40 years he has been working on the ideal propulsion systems. In 2015 months that his calculations showed it would be possible to reach mons in 39 days. That number is correct. You can do this if you have a lot of power. And thats the thing thats where the Nuclear Electric Propulsion comes into play. Sandy is calculations involved capturing a Small Nuclear reactor to a plasma engine to generate the necessary electrical power. My interest. Was stored developing a rocket which had all the nice features of the electric blast my rockets. The low power rockets but they had a lot a lot of power and sensually building the equivalent of the Diesel Engine of space something that will allow you to really move heavy massive pieces of equipment from point a to point b. Jan diaz says the reactor which generate the Electrical Energy needed for the past my engine this would offer the autonomy that no chemical drive would guarantee. Chemical propulsion thrusters could still be used to launch and guide the spaceship into orbit where plasma Engine Running on Nuclear Power with then take over. This would considerably shorten the flight time. These are missions that are Game Changing that changes the chemistry of the me of the mission the changes the architecture it reduces a great deal of the issues of human survivability all the problems that we have with physiology with the conditioning of the human body all of those things. Begin to get less less difficult. Time is a crucial factor. Shaving a few months off the trip means less food would be needed as well as reducing the harmful physiological effects of long spaceflight. Puts months with the weak. Point for lower like all other things variable we want to minimize as the flight duration it has to be as short as possible so that we need as little logistics and as few supplies as possible because we have to recycle more to achieve this even more than we do at the station at the moment theres still a lot to do in terms of Waste Management will have to grow our own lettuce will have to go without a lot of things but that wont stop us from travelling to mars. Chance have been cultivated on the ice as for some years now including that the members of the expedition 5051. 00 tom are an egg and above all taking. The program has been so popular with the astronauts that the researchers did away with an agenda and left the care of the plants to their discretion. To shop to sisu simpson said on our own letters made us happy the green spot just for us its all cherished and cared for only especially backpackers. Obvious but we were all happy about it we watched ourselves grow and on friday evening we ate it it was a morsel of life that took on a very special meaning. Joy a mass that directs the face you program at now says Kennedy Space center. This is a family classical project to find out how to grow plants in space and thats ensure the astronauts food selfsufficiency at some point but joy and nasa scientist colleagues train smith have quickly realized that gardening in space has more than just nutritional advantages. Between 20152016 american scott kelly spent over a year with Russian Mission on the i as a. Transmitter that can be constantly sent to some tweets of his plan. Kill a board the International Space station. Want to go and check on my. Flowers a girl here in the. Columbus module. So scott when he took care of the flowers was very important for him to take ownership of the flowers in and i could tell he really enjoyed it because it through his twitter feed hey our plants arent looking too good would be a problem ours to my space flowers on the rebound and finally when you got the 1st bloom how does your garden grow heres my space flower he took his flower out of veggie and took it all around spacestation he took it to the coop a lot they had a centerpiece for dinner and most telling of all of to me is what i saw scott in the show but there are 300 days in space and lo and behold scotts holding his space foreign to me that tell. Everything how important it is to both be shy and scott. I think for psychological for morale relaxation and then of course food you know having knows that fresh food is going to be very important having that connection back to earth having that little piece of nature in those very. You know hostile environment where theres a lot of mad all the plastics and wires running around and theres this piece of earth that they can smell they can touch and finally eat i think it means a lot to them in when we go to mars when the earth is getting smaller and smaller and smaller its going to be even more important to have that piece of earth have that reminder of home the smell of home and then the taste of home to remind them where they come from. On board the i s s how home is omnipresent. Seen from the cooper penny remix the earth fills the skyline. Biscayne never tires of watching the fascinating spectacle. But can he also imagine a time when our planet will no longer be visible from the spaceship. For so many that his father throughout history we have never lost sight of the earth well just once for a moment when the apollo crew orbited the moon on a mars Mission Earth will be lost in the distance at some point you want even feel any progress it will be like hanging in between the stars that will be hard when humans fly to mars the great unknown will be psychological to all the elements. To man. Leaves the station for the 1st time on the 13th of january 2017 its his 1st spacewalk. This. These are the spacesuit this one is mine its in my size. A suit is like a real mini spacecraft equipped with all systems needed for autonomous survival in the boyd of space. Busy communication devices protection against the vacuum in the heat including the gold visor and the integrated computer control functions are attached to the chest know. Where the rest is in the back. Of this is very bulky and heavy but its the price you pay for a walk in space. 2 hours before the Pressure Chamber opens tomorrow and commander shane kimbra already. Down. So that small amount of air so inquest gets tenderly dumped overboard it gets expelled out into space that at 1300 hours the hatches finally open. The 1st impression is a feeling of heat and glistening lights. To close their gold vines is to protect themselves from the suns rays. Their movements are not as certain as they were in the training pool it takes a few moments to get used to this new environment. And. Then the Mission Begins replacing the space station solar panels. The 2 have finished sooner than planned and are given further tasks by Mission Control before they want to mount a photograph parts of the space station at the window openings you can see the scars left by my crimean. To release. It will come back with. For you. In there and yes every outside mission is meticulously prepared you dont want to mess it up i kept thinking just watch what youre doing so nobody can say you screwed up things can go wrong because a maneuver like this is extremely complicated because i thought so if it fails it wont be down to me. But you also look around you have to gather some impressions and images that youll remember for your entire life when he also. Was destroyed to specific buskers it to show how i was on a platform above the space station as the i s s was 2 meters behind me my feet were fixed to the platform where you from there i saw the earth as a sphere where you would want to be on the solar array as i could see it turning in the distance it seemed to be rotating like a bowling ball in slow motion beneath me that was really great also. 6 hours of hard work nevertheless the moment to return to the station comes much too soon even though the astronauts worry about making the mistake right up to the last seconds things can happen fast pass here. My biggest worry on this assignment was losing my equipment you mustnt let go even though everything is attached with ropes and small reels youre always worried. For awhile i thought id lose the bag with all the tools for a minute or 2 my heart was in my mouth. I mean were familiar with all these disaster scenarios but of course we do everything we can to make sure they dont actually occur you dont think about it all the time either keep you from sleeping. One of many lasting memories. As with any exceptional experiences the astronaut senses are in turmoil and they have trouble fixing all of these impressions in their memory. Section. In the airlock peggy and all leg help the 2 astronauts divest their equipment to mark his scares just completed his 1st space walk. That works to. The fear of losing a tool on an outside mission is shared by all astronauts no wonder since every piece of debris every object over one centimeter in diameter can cause devastating damage to a station racing 5828000 Kilometers Per Hour. Nevertheless this danger is not the biggest concern of the scientists planning a long term mission. For the earths Magnetic Field protects us from cosmic rays from deep in space and from bombardment by the socalled solar wind streams of particles emitted by the sun. Our magnificent polar lights are formed when the energized particles collide with our atmosphere. But the protective shield of the earths moon. Field doesnt extend deep a into the social system. Of one hazard is radiation on the one hand there are solar storms protons blasted out from the sun and on the other we have cosmic rays extremely High Energy Particles such i think. Bill to say its as if you know because my crazy at you from all directions you need a lot of material to intercept and before they get the astronauts and damage their d. N. A. To match radiation is a problem but there are solutions we shouldnt overdramatize it yet a disservice joyful but not easy. As head of the Italian Space agency in rome physicist Roberto Bettis done coordinated a project to shield astronauts from cosmic rays. But the problem and the name may start off at all and thats why this problem has never been fully addressed you know this place in for the until now the Magnetic Field surrounding the earth has kept radiation at an acceptable level they lit it so yes thats nice but sadly. Its our best chance of a lot more but when we go deeper into space the radiation levels there are 3 to 4 times higher than it was so we know that this entails a measurable but still considerable risk of damage this could be a good cancers that can shorten the lives of astronauts returning to earth by 510 or 15 years be cheap at the show queen. Civil yet more powerful problem if we wanted to tackle the problem of High Energy Cosmic rays mechanically we were unfortunately need 3 to 4 metres of absorbent material such as water this is of course absolutely out of the question it would be far too heavy for use in the spaceship but is there any that thats left sort out it. This space radiation superconducting shield or s r 2 s. Project maybe halfway towards finding a workable solution to the problem. Its idea in itself a simple a force field generated around the spacecraft deflects the rate is similar to the earths magnetic shield but as simple as the idea it is putting it into practice is highly complex it requires an extremely powerful yet lightweight super conducting magnets that work efficiently at temperatures of just above absolute 0. At cern the European Organization for Nuclear Research your cheer rossi and his team may have found the ideal material magnesium dipole ride. To the set in the superconductivity is contained in these fine wires. Or in some that are more like ribbons only. This superconductivity is produced by magnesium dye bore i said and this material has the advantage of being very light museum is very lightweight its going to become superconducting at a temperature above that of liquid helium im going to feel superior. If this makes it an ideal material for magnets to protect astronauts in space on the mall in dallas boss if theres a lot of them up. Here on. The station has anti radiation armor we even have extra protection in our sleeping cabins the banks are the best protective places with extra shielding in the event of a solar storm a sudden increase in solar activity or an ion bombardment we flee into our sleeping berths. I guess as general it absolves 60 percent more radiation in a single day than a person at sea level on earth does in a here however even this amount is still considered homeless. Radiation levels may be one of the main challenges facing months missions but there are others to. Come up escape dreams a few too many. But for the engineer a monster landing is the stuff of nightmares this one in 3 missions that has failed so far. I think one of the biggest problems for a mars mission is the landing because of the rapid descent into the Martian Atmosphere at 5 or 6 kilometers per 2nd with a heavy load for the monitors you saw today weve dropped one ton of payload on mars but a man to be a cool way 30 times and we dont know how to do that yet. You have to multiply everything. That he childe of a small probe is 5 meters in diameter with a 30 ton or that will be 25 meters fans were not capable of launching a device with the diameter of 25 meters from the earth into space is a shield like that naturally causes drag and at twice the speed of sound and the spaceship is traveling in 2000 Kilometers Per Hour so it needs another braking device of an irish roots but in the thin atmosphere of mars parachutes cant do a lot to do celebrate 30 times you need a parachute with a diameter of 80 meters thats practically the size of a football stadium. And even with this parachute fully deployed youd still drop from the sky like a stone at 300 Kilometers Per Hour it needs retro rockets and they have to kick in within minutes if it goes. Wrong youre dead so everything has to be worked out to the last detail. Suppose a storm after the shock landing on mars is like a game of chess you know there are lots of solutions and scenarios and strategies that we can play through well see which ones i like it was. In fact. The gravity on the surface of mars is only about 38 percent of that on earth so 100. 00 kilos human being weighs only 38. 00 kilos on mars that should be enough for the muscles to work the bones to stay firm and so forth but this is basically only speculation since how an organism will actually adapt to these conditions over a long period of time has never been properly investigated on mars we have to do a lot of sport as were already doing on the i assess if people dont leave the module theyll need muscle training and gymnastics. Physical exercise is an important part of the astronauts daily routine in the i s s every Team Activity as essential as sleeping or eating. In space you just float around there are many muscles that you dont use at all we have to exercise for 2 and a half hours a day to counteract bone and muscle loss. Ready goodness exercises also help the astronauts relax they prefer to use the r. H. Strength training device specially designed for muscle training in a way to assist which has the added grace advantage of being opposite the cooper. He now takes place under the eyes of the space agencys medical teams Muscular Atrophy can be compensated for quite easily using bone density is a more serious problem. In. The long gelling of us a liver and valerie not because of study bone loss in astronauts who have competed missions. I want to share the show you mine your village were focusing on the d mineralisation of the bones during the roughly 6 month flight as we can see from these graphs the loss of bone density is approximately 7 percent. To give you a comparison the average loss of bone density in postmenopausal women is 2 percent a year. Which this quarter is good under normal conditions if you like men show hardly any loss but in these men here were looking at about a 7 percent loss in bone density of what she. Reached the party to me writing the book if these girls were not want to fly to mars theyll have to counter these bone structure changes shes meaning in him but its not. The mission on the i s s is drawing to a close and the crew is torn between melancholy and impatience to finally get home. To marcus kay takes his camera into the computer for one last time. Its a paradox out in space beyond the earths atmosphere the astronauts are mainly struck by the fragility of our mother planet. I made it up here from a distance you see the consequences of human actions with your own eyes you can see how fragile our planet is you realize its not just a theory its really like that i mean earth is basically just a big space ship with its motley crew and its limited resources we have to look after it. Coming up escape documented the earth for 196. 00 days the 1st thing that catches the eye and his face says is our planets beauty. But the frenchman has also taken a critical stance on some aspects like growing urban density. Having the chance to observe at a remove a 400 kilometers has given me as to north a sense of social responsibility. Are all the time we have the role of witnesses even photojournalists my message and im not the only one to say it is one of the earth is fragile and we must take care of. My photos make people think about that in the mission has already been a success on the bottom going to mars the great adventure of the 21st century is to save our planet that it will take some doing to get it. Doesnt use a bushel the most region is one of the earths great treasures thats why when a. New National Park in peru is now seriously threatened by human greed the damage covers a wide area and its been going on the well to bio diversity sacrificed money long time a profit and 30 minutes on d w. The world is getting more soon. Moores could just be a lot of problems. The global 3000. 00 talks would seem a british researchers who take an optimistic view. That while it is not always a good plan but its much much better than it was a hot against the world really getting better. Global 3090 minutes on w. Take it personally i already with a little bit wonderful people and stories that make the game so special. For all true fans. Because more than football online. This is the day of the news coming to you live from berlin chancellor Angela Merkel marks a historic milestone on the road to german reunification she joins hungry as the do a big deal for bun to remember the date 30 years ago when the border between hungry and austria was opened allowing thousands of east germans to make their way to the west