The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 51. Tim Peake: Will humans colonise Mars?

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

What is the future of human space exploration? Will people live on Mars in our life time? Are there plans to grow human organs on the moon? British astronaut Tim Peake joins Rory and Alastair to discuss everything from his time in the army, to the geopolitics of space exploration, to the future of colonising other planets. TRIP Plus:  Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes.  Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [e-mail] Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to The Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispoletics.com. Welcome to The Restis Politics is leading with me, Alice Campbell. And me, Rory Stewart.

And joined today by our first astronaut, our first aquanaut, Mr. Tim Peek, who is one of 628 people in the history of mankind who have, quotes, been in space, and one of about a third of that who have actually walked around a bit in space. And from a quite an unusual background, I don't know if there is a sort of conventional background for what Tim in his new book calls the astronaut species, but a fairly ordinary background. Then into the army, had some very harsh things to say about Sandhurst, which we may want to discuss. And then his wife spotted an advert for an astronaut, and he applied, along with thousands of others, and somehow had the qualities and the

capacities to become an astronaut. And I think he also, somebody who was really embraced by the British people as the first British man in space. So I guess a technically difficult thing to do because there were people with dual nationalities, but he was definitely someone completely taken to the nation's heart. If Helen Sharman is listening, Tim, what would you say? What would you say? Helen Sharman was most definitely the first British astronaut.

But yeah, hello, Alistair and Roy. and good to be talking to you today. Yes, I mean, Helen flew in 1991 to the mere space station. And it was a groundbreaking moment because up until then, we just watched other nations fly to space, predominantly the United States and the Russians. And it wasn't really something we thought we could be part of. And Helen's mission, unfortunately, was a one-off as well, a commercially sponsored mission.

And it didn't lead at the time to the UK becoming involved in the human spaceflight program. So we had seen the union flag fly in space, but then it had to wait a number of years, over 20 years. In fact, before I got accepted into the core, the European Astronaut Corps. You've written several books, but the latest one, which is just called Space, the Human Story. And this is, as you probably know, a predominantly political podcast. We're not going to bury down too much on politics. But there's a lot of what I would call geopolitics in the book and in the story of space. You mentioned there, the Mears station.

And am I right from reading it that the Soviet Union was always, ahead of America in many ways, getting lots of firsts, but then when it came to the big one, which was landing a man on the moon, the Americans beat them. Absolutely. It was the classic space race of the late 50s and early 60s, where the Soviets were definitely ahead of the game initially. And Sputnik going over the continental United States with the Americans just left listening to this beeping from a satellite was a real wake-up call. And it took them several years before they actually advanced and overtook the Soviets in what they were doing. You know, Gaggar in 1961, first human in space.

And Alexei Leonov, the first person to a spacewalk, Valentina Tereshkova, 63, first female in space. Their first dog? Their first dog. The Soviets were getting all these first, first double launch. And the United States were really desperately trying to catch up. And it was as the missions became more ambitious, really, it was the goal to go to the moon. That's why the United States and President Kennedy chose that goal.

It was an opportunity to give them breathing space to have a goal that they knew would challenge the Soviets and that they knew they had a chance of beating them at it. Tell us a little bit about that. Why, if you were choosing a goal in the late 50s, early 60s, was that the one that you thought would really challenge the Soviets and the Soviets would struggle to achieve? It's really the difference in launch capability. There's one thing to get into low Earth orbit. You have to get to 17,500 miles an hour. It's quite a fast speed and that certainly takes a lot of technology. And at the time, of course, intercontinental ballistic missiles were being developed part of the nuclear space race. And so that technology was also part of their critical defense infrastructure as well. And hence it had huge spinoffs into other areas they're interested in. But getting out of Earth's gravity, getting into low Earth orbit is one thing. To get to the moon,

You have to have a huge amount of extra fuel. You have to actually have a trajectory that can escape gravity and get captured by the moon's gravity. That takes a different rocket. And the United States knew that to develop a rocket that was powerful enough, capable enough of putting humans on the surface of the moon with a lander capabilities as well,

that was going to require a whole other order of magnitude of technology. And am I right in saying, Tim, humans worked out surprisingly early, like sort of late 19th, early 20th century, roughly what it might mean to go to the moon. I remember reading sort of science fiction books and late Victorian, early Edwardian, where they already seem to have a pretty good idea of what could happen. It was just a question of making it happen. Absolutely. It is like so much of science fiction today is based on what we know actually can happen.

We just haven't got the technology quite there. I wish fusion energy was a reality today. It's always been just 20 years in the future. I genuinely think we are now, you know, less than 20 years away, in fact, of that becoming a reality, clean, limitless energy. But these things that we can see that are based on fact, we just haven't quite got the technology yet to do it. You kind of conclude that there was this incredible excitement around Man landing on the moon. And I can remember being at school that day and the whole school being gathered together and we got shown it all on a huge screen in the school hall. and it was like you felt this enormous moment of history,

but you seem to think that maybe things haven't advanced quite as far as perhaps back then people in your world thought they might. But then you conclude by saying you think that Mars is becoming kind of reachable. So do you want to talk through those two things? Yes, I mean, again, when you look at what was happening in the Apollo era, it was incredible to look back now and to see what was achieved with the technology they had. But then you look at the budget that they were. spending. The peak of the Apollo program is about 4.9% of the US GDP going into the Apollo

program. Which has twice as much as our defence budget in the UK. Entire defence budget. It's unsustainable. So it had to achieve a goal and it did achieve the goal and it was a means to an end. But at the time of course NASA hoped and thought that perhaps this level of development and innovation would continue and they had plans to develop this beyond the moon to go to Mars in the 1980s, to have an orbital space station and that didn't come to fruition because the budgets were cut. The orbital space station

would have been a space station going around Mars? Potentially, yes, to then service those Mars missions. And of course, when you scale back your operations, but you still want to have an outpost in space

for all of the scientific research that we want to do. The natural conclusion to that was to actually build a space station around Earth in Earth's orbit. And once you start plowing your funds into that,

it doesn't leave anything left over for a deep space exploration program. Hence, for so many years now, we've been going from one space station to another space station to another. And only now, as we're looking at the international space station retiring, handing it kind of over to the commercial market, that's what's freeing up the funds to now look at the Artemis program and say, once again, we've now got money to spend on going to deep space. I get the sense, both from you and from lots of the astronauts, quote, the question you get asked the most is, what's it like? What's it lowly there? So where do you stand on this sliding scale between Pete Conrad, whose answer is super, really enjoyed it, and Michael Collins, whose reaction is, if one more fat cigar smoker

blows smoke in my face and yells at me, what was it really like up there? I think I may bury my fist in his flabby gut. I've had it. with the same question over and over again. So where are you on that scale? Both brilliant responses. Pete Conrad's an absolute hero of mine. I would have loved to have met him. He sounds like just such a character. So I'm probably on the Pete Conrad side.

And I think that that was his answer to what was really, I think, lazy questioning. Because you think these people, they've come back. They've flown on a Saturn 5 rocket three days to the moon, landed on the surface, driven around in rovers for some of them, come back. and all you can say is what was it like? I mean, I always spoke to Charlie E. Duke, again, I'm a huge fan of his. And I had so many questions, but they were detailed questions. Like, how far did the regolith come up your boots?

You know, were there patches where it was deeper than others? So put some thought and effort into the questions, and these astronauts light up, and they are delighted to have a conversation, because it takes them back, and it forces them to remember details that they perhaps forgotten about or hadn't been asked about. But if you just say, what was it like? I mean, you're going to do the Pete Conrad thing and say, yeah, super, enjoy it. I mean, this podcast is called Leading. And, of course, these were leaders in that they were leaders in this space race.

But in the main quite young men, some of whom didn't seem maybe psychologically suited to the fame that was coming to them and the press interest. And there's a fascinating bit in your book, and the sort of differences between both Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but also Eurekogarin and the other guy was it tip off? Titov. Teet off. Yeah, a German Titov, yeah.

And the reasons why one got chosen over the other to be the first, which seemed to me to have nothing to do with competence but all to do with maybe some of this more modern stuff. Like Yigarine, it was his smile and Armstrong. It was this incredibly laid back approach to life. Yes, I think we would appreciate, of course, once you get down to that level of selection,

they've been through so much. These are two individuals on both sides, who could equally well do the job. And so that wasn't in question. So you had to start looking at the other factors. It wasn't about technical capability. And in the case of, you know, Titov and Gagarin, it was unfortunate, German Titov, you know,

his post-Sec World War sounded a bit like German. And Titov was a bit more of a white-collar background. And Gagarin had that sort of blue-collar background who's kind of resonated more with the Soviet population and had a winning smile. and they were the factors that, you know, they made him become the first human interface. But it's interesting how both the runners-up, as it were, ended up in the rest of their lives having perhaps greater psychological struggle. I mean, Buzzard ended up, I think, in needing psychiatric care.

And Titov talked about, kind of spent the rest of lives, why did nobody love me? It's sort of brutal. It is, it is quite brutal. Absolutely. I think you would always question that. It was a bit the same for John Glenn. He was quite convinced he was going to be picked as the first. American in space. And when Al Shepard was picked, that was clearly a huge blow and something

that he had to deal with. And you're talking about individuals here who have got egos. That's part of the reason why they had the job at the time. It was the pool, the narrow pool of fast jet test pilots that both the Soviets and the Americans decided to select from. And you can understand why, because they had already a set of capabilities that were going to be useful for flying a spacecraft doing rendezvous, docking and landing on the moon. So, you know, why open up the pool any larger than that? And presumably a tolerance of risk. Yes, tolerance of risk, you know, those kind of good communication skills.

I think an understanding of risk. I certainly, I think in order to do something like that, you've got to be comfortable with risk. I'm not sure you have to love risk, but you've got to be comfortable with it and understand the risk that you're taking. I think there's a really good idea for another book in your book, which maybe Roy and I would be better suited to writing, which is about great speeches that were never made. and great letters that were never sent because you've got this extraordinary I didn't know about this about Richard Nixon

had a speech ready to go in the event that Armstrong and Aldrin didn't come back. Yeah. And it's a beautifully written speech. It is. But it's about them being dead and the sacrifice they've made.

And then the other comparable one on the other side is the, I thought, a very moving letter that Gagarin wrote to his wife. Yeah. Telling her not to waste their time on grieving and make the children proud to be Soviet and find another man if you have to. Yeah.

No, I thought so when we think how young Garin was. I thought it was a very emotionally mature and very moving letter. And yes, understandably, you're going to prepare for those eventualities. Did you when you were? I did actually, yes. I wrote a letter to my boys, to my family, which was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to write. The last time that I ever remember crying in my life was shortly after writing the letter

and just hoping that they would never, ever have to read it. But I guess in some respects, you've got the luxury of knowing that you're putting yourself in harms, where many people don't have that luxury. But in that case, you can prepare for those eventualities. And one of the things that gives us comfort is the knowledge that we have this immense family support network that will, you know, be there to help in the event that something does go wrong. Because some have died, haven't they? Yes. I mean, clearly we've had the challenger, the Columbia disasters on the Soviet side as well. We've had a number of cosmonauts die in the unpressurized capsule that returned.

So space is difficult. We are pushing the boundaries. And I think today we get a little bit complacent when we watch rockets launching into space thinking it's easy. It's not really any easier. It's still we're always pushing the limits of technology. So, Tim, to come back to you, you were not a fast jet pilot, but you were an army officer and a helicopter pilot for nearly 20 years, right? Yes, yeah, that's right. And so tell us about that.

and maybe we'll begin with you entering the army, going to Sandhurst. What's the difference between the way the army trains officers and the way that you were trained to be an astronaut? That's an interesting question because the way the army trains, oh, it's taking very young individuals normally. I was 19. Yes, your case, you hadn't got very good A levels. You hadn't gone to university. That's right. Yeah, absolutely.

And so very young, I took a gap year out after my A levels. Worked in a pub, race and money, went to Alaska on Operation Rally as it was then. And the army had said, just, you know, you're a bit too young. Go and get some experience and then come back to us and come to Santos. So you're taking young individuals and I just spent a year at Sandhurst and then I was straight out to Northern Ireland with the raw green jackets on the streets with 30 soldiers. And these were very streetwise guys. They're from London and Liverpool. That's the recruitment area.

So here's some sort of whippersnapper straight out of Sandhurstress. They were under you. Yeah. So I was their platoon commander and having to try and keep control. of them and get them to do things that they really didn't want to do. And that's where the military training helps because it's all about the leadership training. But it's very autocratic. It's very hierarchical. That rank structure helps. And there's an element of they'll do what they're told because you're wearing the rank. But that will only get you so far. You have to earn their

respect and you have to do it quickly if you want to really achieve good results. So the military training, it's a hard course. Obviously, that's what Santos is there. to do, it's there to prepare you, it's to give you the tools that you need to be able to command people. Fast forward to astronaut training, it's all about a flat sort of leadership structure. It's all about the communication skills, the soft skills that are required to work with international partners, scientists all around the world. So there's no drill sergeant shouting you to do press-ups. You can't go bowling in there shouting at people. You'll not get anything achieved at

So completely different, really, in terms of the way that you have to go about your daily business. So there's not sort of aggressive, grizzled old astronauts screaming at you and... Not at all. And why did they decide not to do that? Because presumably the calculation at Sandhurst is that they need to put you, or they would claim, they need to put you through this intense pressure and humiliations in order to develop your resilience and make you ready for it. So presumably, you could make the same argument. You're going into space.

They're going to put you through hell so that when hell happens, you're ready for it. Why do you think they made a different decision with training astronauts to training officers? I think you don't need to. You're not having to go out and command soldiers on the battlefield. What you are having to do is to be exceptionally competent at the job that you're being asked to do. And from that point of view, you're your own drill sergeant, because when you go down in the swimming pool for six hours at a time in your spacesuit and you'll do your practicing spacewalking, it is incredibly physically and mentally demanding. and you will be evaluated on your performance, but you're going to be the one who will suffer if your performance isn't up to scratch.

So you just don't need anybody else bawling at you to tell you to knuckle down and do a good job. If you don't, you're out the door. I was at Sandhurst recently, and they sort of gave me a bit of a tour and what have you. And it felt very different to the Sandhurst that you described. Is that because they were soft soaping me, do you think? Or do you think it might have changed?

No, they were completely soft soaking. Yeah. What was hilarious is on the first day of Sandus you arrive and we've all got ironing boards under our arms as we get, you know, we marched off into our barracks and for the recruits. It's straight into drill and being shouted out. But whilst that's all going on, all the parents escorted into the very nice ante room and coffee and tea is laid on with cake and biscuits. They come away saying, isn't Sandus a wonderful place and they're all so lovely? But this point, I mean, I just saw somebody. I was very briefly at Sandhurst, and I met somebody who'd been there with me just a week ago,

and his major memory of me is how bad I was at ironing my shirts. It was the ironing board situation that really, he thought I was just no good at operating the nozzle sprayer. Right. Well, I suppose I should. This won't surprise you, Roy, but I've never used an iron. I know, that's a terrible, terrible mission. You should join the army. What about the friendships on these missions?

Do you have to get on with the people that you're with? Yes, you have to be able to work with them. You don't have to be best friends with them. But you're allowed with them all the time. You are, but the space station actually, everybody works as individuals for most of the time. There are a few tasks where you might be paired up, a complicated experiment, for example, or on spacewalks, etc. But for the majority of your six months in space, you're working very hard every day as an individual, running around doing lots of maintenance and lots of experiments, communicating with the ground.

And in the evenings, you actually want to come together as a crew and have that meal and just share a bit of socialization. This is a bit of sort of fake food, tube-tubed paste. Even if it is tasteless mush. The food's got a little bit better. But yeah, you do actually enjoy that element of socialisation. What would have happened if you hadn't been selected to be an astronaut? Because your life basically was completely turned around in your late 30s and you ended up on a completely different path. and you're now a very, very famous person writing wonderful books and doing this.

What would you be doing now if you remained in the army or left the army and done something else? What's the other path? Well, I was very fortunate. I was doing a job that I absolutely loved beforehand. And it had been my first passion, and that was flying. And you were flying helicopters? I was a helicopter test pilot. And actually the reason I had gone to join Westlands Helicopters down in Yovil at the time

was because my military career had come to the point. I was a major and I was just finishing a tour as a test pilot to Boscom Down. And I'd been offered a very good squadron command. It was part of the Special Forces Squadron. And it was incredibly appealing. But for me to have gone and done that, it would have been more of a desk job. And then the next step on from that would have been staff college and promotion and very much up the career chain. And I knew that as sort of rewarding as that job would have been and the allure of doing it,

it was actually a step out of the cockpit. It was a step away from what I was loving. And so I decided to leave the army at that point and go to Westland's helicopter. Can I just sort of dick into that a bit more? Because that's something really useful when people are listening. Because generally the temptation is to take the promotion. Generally, the temptation is you would have been a colonel and who knows, you might have ended up as a general. So what is it that gives you the inner confidence to say, wait a second, I could be a colonel or general.

But the truth matter is I don't actually want to be commanding 50,000 people. What I actually want to do is continue flying my helicopters. I think for me, it's a case of always just being true to yourself and true. to what it is that you want to do. I've always been one who focused on the journey and not really worried too much about the destination. And it's great to have those long-term ambitions and those goals.

And I love hearing those stories. And I'm in awe of people who set themselves and then go on and achieve them. But for me, I've always had more of a sort of two-year focus and not worried so much about the 10-year focus. And the route to becoming an astronaut is pretty, is that story literally that happened that your wife Rebecca saw an advert and said,

why don't you apply? Absolutely, yes. Yeah. And it was a real shock to myself and so many of us in the UK because this was the first time the European Space Agency had ever asked anybody in the UK to apply. Up until this point, those nations that contributed to human spaceflight would select and put forward their own astronauts, so the French, the Germans, the Italians were having their own selection process and saying to European Space Agency, here's our French astronaut, you know, go and train them and fly them. And at this point in 2008, ESA, decided to say, no, no, we're going to the European Space Agency. We will select our astronauts, and every member state is eligible to apply

whether or not they contribute into the human spaceflight program, which is just a small part of the European Space Agency or not. So it was a groundbreaking moment, and thousands of people in the UK clearly jumped at the chance along with myself. And you've got this wonderful phrase, fear of not flying, which is where you're part of the program, but you maybe don't get picked. And that presumably happens to quite a lot of people. Would you ever have been picked if the UK hadn't bunged a bit more money in?

Is it about money and politics, ultimately? Now, there's a good question. It is. Would I have ever flat? I don't know the answer to that question. But the way things work with the European Space Agency is, you know, it's on a geo-return basis. So you pay into the programmes and you get that return. And we do get a very good return.

We get about economically, it's a 10 to 1 return on every pound spent. with the European Space Agency. How does that come back? How does it come back? In terms of contracts for whatever your nation happens to be good at. So whether it's with the Germans, it might be Airbus in Bremen, building modules to the space station for the UK. It might be building the Mars rover, the Rosalind Franklin Rover.

It might be communication satellites. It might be Goon-Hilly, Clyde space. It basically looks at the space industry and where they can reward that investment and where the contracts can offer jobs and benefits to the economy. So that's how we get value. out of our money. And that's not connected with Brexit.

We're still part of all of that. We're still part of the European Space Agency. It's not an EU organisation yet. Hopefully it won't be. The EU does contribute to the European Space Agency. They're a major contributor and they run programmes like Galileo and Copernicus, which is why Galileo became a problem for the UK. So, I mean, yes, to get back to your question, a lot of it does come down to politics

and funding because part of the return of having a national. astronaut flown in space is dependent upon you paying some money into the program. So it wasn't really until we did that in 2012 that I was then considered for a mission. I look at someone like you and one of the things I'd love to know is why did you not do selection? Why didn't you want to join the SAS? Have I misunderstood something about you? Is there something about your personality type which is more suited to space than that? For me at that point in my life it's always been about flying. It really has. There was a moment I think in the United States where when I feel, when I've I take it another step backwards really. When I first started flying, I enjoyed it so much. I wanted to stay flying. And so I kind of made that decision that you were alluding to early about the career choice quite early on because I wanted to be an instructor. Part of the reason was to keep me in the cockpit, keep me flying. I wasn't going to be an adjutant or an ops officer, things that other captains were doing at the time. And because I joined when I was 20 and I did have time on my side, that was an advantage. So I was able to go away and do my instructor's course. And I built up thousands.

of hours are flying. So then, of course, that had a value to the army. And so when I then said, well, listen, I'd like to do this exchange program over the United States. Again, it was another kind of stalling block, but it kept me flying and it kept me doing interesting jobs. And that was a groundbreaking moment because the United States at the time, they just got the Apache Longbow helicopter, this fully digital helicopter with radar, incredibly advanced. And I joined their most advanced battalion. And actually, as the Brit office who joined, I was kind of given one of of the jobs that nobody else wanted to do initially as the ops officer was to make this aircraft speak to the rest of the battlefield. The battalion commander said, Tim, I'm sorry, you've got it.

So you've got one year. We've got a major exercise coming up. This Apache needs to be able to be fully digitally integrated. And I turned into a bit of a geek that year. It has to be said, I just had to get into the weeds of this aircraft, understand it implicitly. And I was working with every other unit in three corps, a US Army Corps, and I was working with the US Air Force, getting J-Stars aircraft overhead so we could digitally speak to them. And I came away from that tour thinking this has been so amazing, so exciting. I really enjoyed advancing this aircraft, making it more efficient,

making it safer and more effective, that that's what I want to do when I get back to the UK. You're obviously incredibly competent technically, and I'm the least technically competent person on the planet and will never go to space. Or iron a shirt. Or iron shirt, unless one of you who wants to teach me out, probably tip or you.

But the most useful piece of information I found in your book was that the best cure for vertigo is to wiggle your toes. So thank you for that because I get vertigo. It lifts. You know, open glass lifts. So you just wiggle your toes, do you? That goes away. Well, it works for me.

So what height do you get vertigo? I didn't know that I did get vertigo until I was kind of out on the space station. It just happened that once when it's quite funny. Your brain plays tricks on you. And Chris Cassidy, he's a NASA astronaut, an ex-US Navy seal. And he had said to me, look, on your first spacewalk, there's probably going to come a time where you'll get a bit disorientated and you might get some vertigo. So just wiggle your toes.

And it really, really works. And I was coming back from repairing one of the solar panels. And there's a shortcut that you can take back to the, the airlock and I was taking this unit about the size of a small fridge along this shortcut, which is a pole about 20 metres. So you're kind of hanging off this pole, shimmying along it. And of course, you've been surrounded by structure for so long, a couple of hours outside, doing these jobs working with tools.

And suddenly I'm hanging onto a pole halfway between two large objects. And I look down and my brain just says, well, if you're hanging onto a pole and you're 400 kilometres up, you must be about to four. and just got this wave of vertigo kind of gripped onto this pole as if my life depended upon it and then realise, come on, you know, just wiggle your toes, relax.

If you let go, you're going to be fine. You're not going to go anywhere. But it was just reminding the brain that I was in weightlessness that I wouldn't fall if I let go. Were you scared? Not really scared, but it certainly got the heart rate going a little bit.

It was a bit of an adrenaline rush. Right, Tim. Roy, let's take a break. Hi, everybody. It's Dominic Saurak here from The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have heard me on your show, The Restis Politics, when Rory was away and I was filling in and enjoying Alistair Campbell's tremendous banter. And I'm back to tell you about our new series on The Restis History, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, a period with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now we're living through a moment when oil shocks generated by war in the Middle East are rippling through the world economy, when Britain feels like,

like it's sunk in a bit of a malaise, people are arguing about Europe, the government has got a few issues with the trade unions, and we have a kind of, I suppose you'd say governing elite, a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with all of these issues, and people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels between that Britain that I'm describing, which is our Britain, and the Britain of the mid-1970s. So in this series that's coming out on The Rest is History, we're looking at these and other We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher, obviously a colossal figure in our political

life even now, whether you love her or loathe her. We'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alistaira will have strong opinions about. We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. And we'll be talking about one of the grimest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment in 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said, the time to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, for a then record bailout. Now, if that sounds good to you, how could it not sound good to you? Of course it sounds good to you.

We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode. And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is History wherever you get your podcasts. Tell us about an astronaut who you really admire going through a crisis, demonstrating courage in space. This is the most wonderful book you've written called space. But give us an example of an astronaut coping with the crisis is who you really admire. There are several examples I could give, but I'd probably come back to Neil Armstrong. And a lot of people, you know, recognize Neil Armstrong as the first human to walk on the surface of the moon. But as a test pilot, he was a phenomenal, a phenomenally skilled pilot and a very competent operator. And on his Gemini 8 mission, he had a docking

to this Egena capsule, and it was the first time they were trying to dock. And actually, that part of the mission went really smoothly. And it was textbook, and everybody was celebrating. I think this is fantastic. Then there was a loss of communication. And at that point, there was a slight rotation happening. And Neil thought, well, this is time to undock, because the Eugenia module is probably rotating us and knocking us off course.

So undocked, at which point their Gemini capsule went into an uncontrolled spin. and it hadn't been a problem with the Eugenia. It had been a problem with their own Gemini. So when you say that, what's going on when that happens? Well, one of the thrusters had, it was basically firing, had stuck on. And so it was giving a constant force, which was causing the spacecraft to have this constant rotation. And in space, that will build up incredibly rapidly because there's no, nothing to slow you down. There's no drag.

There's no friction, no air resistance. And it very rapidly got to a stage where the crew were close to, losing consciousness with the G forces and the spin. And I don't think any other astronaut at the time or maybe even since would have been able to rectify that situation. What did he do? Because he had such knowledge of the system. He was able to identify where the fault might be, disable systems, bring up an alternative system. All the G-Forces is going on, bring up his re-entry control system and use a completely different system to then have to think about what's my rotation rate, what angle am I going, so which thrusters need to fire to reduce this rate

and not make it worse? Bring the spacecraft under control. So it's almost doing maths in his head as it's spinning. Absolutely. I mean, phenomenal. A situational awareness, competence and intimate knowledge of his spacecraft to be able to do something like that without any help from ground control or anybody else. So I think that's probably one of the examples I would go back to. I was stintry. He didn't do physical exercise. I know. I mean, do you guys will have to be super fit? Well, I think that's a bit of a myth, really, because most of us are fit because it benefits you if you are.

And that's not necessarily for the job in hand. I mean, spacewalking is physically demanding. So it does help there. But it's mostly for when you come back to Earth. The fitter you are, the better you're going to be at recovering and the less painful it's going to be on your body. So most of us, you know, do do quite. a lot of physical activity and we keep ourselves fit and healthy. But actually, when the space agencies are doing that medical evaluation, they're not

testing Olympic levels of fitness or athleticism. What they're after is medical robustness, really. They're after a low-risk candidate, somebody who's unlikely to have a cardiovascular problem, unlikely to have anything go wrong with their immune system or their skeletal system. So they're whittling down the pool of individuals who are the most likely candidates to be able to go and do a successful long-duration mission to space. And back to the theme of kind of working together,

you've also worked with other countries, with astronauts from other countries, that in other parts of the kind of geo-strategic space, there's enmity. So you have to go and learn Russian to fly with Russians. Yeah. What did you learn from that experience that you think might be applied to the world

that maybe we know better of politics? Well, working with the Russians, we tend to put politics to ones, side and our Russian colleagues do too. We're there to do a job and we share a common goal. So you wouldn't talk about politics, but you? Not hugely at all. No. In fact, I was there 2014 during the Crimea crisis at the time. In the space station? No, I was over in Moscow. Sorry, in Star City. I probably spent a total of about two years in Star City training. We have to learn all about the Russian segment of the space station and I actually learned how to do a spacewalk

using the Russian equipment. And where is Star City and what does it look like? It's just... Not a lot of story, though. There's about our outside of Moscow. And it's the same location. It's a bit like the Johnson Space Center in Houston, as in it's got all of that nostalgia and history about it.

When you go to Houston, you can go into the old mission control room that was used for the Apollo landings. And the same in Star City, it's got the same centrifuge that the Soviet cosmonauts all trained in. We stay in the same accommodation blocks. Does it look very James, Bond is everyone walking around an amazing 1980s spacesuits.

No, it's quite austere. Star City is definitely of that communist era. What really stands out, which is quite amusing, is that the Americans have built a line of lovely white New England cottages. So when their NASA astronauts go over to stay there, they've got some more sort of American-style accommodating. We haven't got there yet, no. You say there's kind of no politics going on,

but the levels of trust attached to that are pretty huge. They are, yes. And I think it comes down to the fact that it's that common goal. The space program is incredibly important to the Russians. It's obviously part of their history and culture and they're very proud of what they've achieved in terms of their history of spaceflight. And the International Space Station is currently what they have as their space program. It's their beacon of technology and innovation.

So as to why we all work together is because it has an equal value to the Russians as it does to the Canadians, Japanese, Europeans and Americans. And is your Russians still good? And yet, sangelineal. Really? Such as Olchen-Plocker. Okay. Not very well. I can understand it.

But to work with them, you were speaking Russian all the time. I was, yes, yes, speaking Russian and all of our manuals and our documents in the soil. spacecraft, it's all in Russian, there's no English spoken in that spacecraft and all your communication with Moscow mission control centres in... I think your Russian's pretty good then. I think we can say your Russian's pretty good. I certainly, I had to pass my, I think it was intermediate high exam, is before you're allowed to... Which is better than your chemistry level. Exactly, yeah. And way better than my French sea at GCSE. There was one amusing moment on a, the way there went two of my Russian colleagues

were out on the spacewalk and I was the one who was having to get them back in. And the other three crew members had to shut themselves inside their Sawyer spacecraft at that time because of the way the space station worked. So I was the only person on board the ISS having to get them back in. And my Russian language was letting me down slightly. I was going to be frustrating for them, too. A little bit as they were tapping on the hatch window saying, come on to him, you've got this. There's a very strange, slightly moving scene in the Crown where the actor playing Prince Philip But it's got very excited about space, and he's invited the astronauts, including the Alumstrung, to come meet him. And he's got in its head, and he's obviously had in its head for months, that because they've been into space, they must be returning as sort of extraordinary philosophers that they're going to be the most profound, interesting people that he's ever encountered.

And so he manages to get rid of the queen, and he sits them down. And he wants to ask them these deep and meaningful metaphysical questions. And what he finds himself looking at are these very polite but quite restrained and understated U.S. test pilots who don't really have anything to say about the meaning of life. And the scene begins to disintegrating. Have you ever felt the same that there is some idea that because you've gone to space, you've suddenly become a sort of godlike figure who's seen the secrets of the universe and people get disappointed to discover that you're still you? I think there's a burden on you to try and articulate what it is, the experience that you've been. through. And that is difficult because even now, I don't think I fully processed what the spacewalk was like. And there were some moments there that were completely surreal as you're floating there in the blackness, just waiting and watching the planet go into darkness. I remember speaking to Al Warden, Apollo 15 command module pilot, and he had to do a space walk

halfway back from the moon. They were retrieving the film canisters from the lander module. And he could cover the earth with his thumb and he could cover the moon with his thumb. He was so far between both. And NASA said, you know, we've got a few problems here. You're just going to have to wait outside for a few minutes till we sort them out. And, you know, he said, actually, he's never processed that time, just floating there in space. So there is a burden and it is difficult. But also, I think comes back to Alice's point earlier about who were these people were and the psychological tests. And actually, back then, it was leaning more towards their technical than their kind of psychological profile.

To the extent that you, you know, they're not actually the ideal candidates. That profile is probably not the ideal profile for a long duration flight. All of these alpha male egos who are, you wouldn't put them together for a year on a space station. There's going to be problems. And likewise, they're not the best at being able to articulate their experiences. Well, that was the point about Buzz Aldrin was that he said he found it really difficult to explain anything to do with what he, the question. what was it like?

Yes. He found it difficult. And I get in the sense he did feel that pressure to be this godlike figure who understands the world better than those of us who, you know, had the misfortune to be stuck here. And you are transported into another realm. It is a completely different place. It's a bit like diving, you know, when you're underwater and you're aware that you're in another environment where other things live and this is an alien environment.

to you, if your equipment were to fail, you would die. And it's very unusual. And when you go into space, you've gone through that launch as well and the violence of launch. And I guess what I mean by that is you're aware of how much energy it has taken to get you into orbit, that you are in a different place, a very special place, you're outside of Earth's atmosphere. The sun is not the same. It's a bright nuclear fusion. It's the purest white you'll ever see. I mean, the resurface, of the moon must have been incredible, just reflecting all of that white with a lunar regolith with no wind, just such an alien environment that it would have been very hard for them to kind of be able to try and articulate those kind of things.

We're now in an era which is dominated by people who are obsessed with space and obsessed with science fiction. Figures like Elon Musk and not just Elon Musk, many of the great Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, many of the people creating the AI companies of the future, are people who've grown up loving space, reading science fiction, and wanting to set up colonies on Mars. So you're very much part now of these sort of new breed of people. What is it that you think it means to be someone who thinks a lot about space? And what can we learn about the Elon Musk's as well that they're thinking about space and landing on Mars? What does it tell us about their personalities, their minds?

I think space has always been somewhere where people have looked up and you go back. back through history and imagine what it was like for our ancestors just looking up at the night sky and what the stars have taught us. Some of our greatest scientific breakthroughs have just been about looking up at the night sky and realizing that the earth is not the center of the universe, actually we orbit this star and actually there's a Milky Way and there are galaxies out there and our understanding of how that then has informed science and technology on Earth. So I think what it is to be part of space, is to be part of looking out there for new discoveries, for new technologies, new innovations. The James Webb Space Telescope is already just in its infancy in terms of

its life expectancy, but it's producing amazing images and giving us such insight as to the early part of the universe. And so I think that driving factor is that it's where the cutting edge lies. And that was the appeal to me as a test pilot thinking, gosh, you know, to have the opportunity to go and work with the space industry where we're dealing with, new metals, new composites, you know, latest artificial intelligence, all of this kind of of new technology. But it's also about focusing on Earth. People think that we're just, or people like Elon Musk, et cetera, or the space agencies want to go to Mars because we've damaged Earth. Let's just go and colonize another planet, which is absolutely not the case. Nobody

I speak to in the space industry has that mentality at all. It's about doing research for the benefit of people back on Earth. I mean, I could talk for hours about what we do on the space station for that. And there's some really interesting things going on right now with pharmaceuticals, for example, developing new drugs and the potential for solar power, again, clean, limitless energy coming from space. And one of the things that Starship and that SpaceX Elon Musk's company building this huge new rocket where they just launched the second one last week, one of the things that that offers is a massive reduction of the cost of getting to space. And when you look at the space shuttle, it costs $57,000 to get a kilogram into low Earth orbit. Elon Musk today will do that

for $1,500 on a fork and heavy. When Starship works, it could be as low as $100. So the stuff that is science fiction, I guess it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, the stuff that we think is science fiction, for $100 a kilogram to space, not science fiction anymore. That's a good business model. That makes economic sense. Do you trust these people to have this access and this ability. When I kind of felt growing up and watching the American Soviet space race, I sort of felt quite comfortable in it. I, you know, I vaguely trusted them.

I'm not sure I vaguely trust Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to be the masters of the universe. Do you? No, I think we need guidelines in place. I don't think any company should be allowed to go unchecked. I don't think Open AI should with CHAPD. I think the challenge that we face now is that some of the technologies that we're developing are advancing at such a rate that our regulatory framework is not keeping up. And so I do applaud what they're doing. I think some of the things that these companies are doing are phenomenal and we'll have huge benefits to humanity. But they must be kept under checks and balances. In space, we're currently working on this 1967 treaty, outer space treaties. That desperately needs updating to reflect an era, where we're about to explore the surface of the moon. And it could be very contested once we find resources that need to be mined.

Talk us through that. It's not really something that we talk about in the newspapers, but you think pretty soon we're going to be exploring the surface, the moon, mining it, colonizing it within our lifetimes. Yes. Tell us a little bit about that. Tell us a little bit about the potential. Tell us about why the public should be interested in this and thinking about this

and when it might happen. So in terms of kind of the science, we're looking at setting up a laboratory, a station, effectively at the south pole of the moon. The reason that's being chosen as a location is because there's water ice there. So where you have water ice, then clearly you can get water and oxygen, hydrogen oxygen, which is rocket fuel as well. And so it can help with the life support systems and fuel for future launches. And also there are areas where it's in permanent sunshine. So you can set up solar panels and provide energy for your base. And then we're starting to look

at the kind of minerals that might be on the surface of the moon that could potentially help us in the future as Earth's resources do become more scarce and we become more reliant on precious metals and different minerals for things like our batteries for electric vehicles, for our power plants. Come back to fusion, perhaps helium-3 if fusion energy becomes a viable source. And so these kind of things are potentially going to be hugely important to us. And then there's the element of exploration as well, as using the moon as a potential base, a stepping stone on to Mars. And why is getting to Mars even more exciting than?

getting to the moon, apart from the fact we haven't been there. That's further. Again, I think it's part of that exploration footprint. I don't think at the moment there's an argument for going to Mars in terms of resources that could help us on Earth. But in terms of science and exploration, in terms of potentially finding out if life ever existed on another planet, being able to do geological surveys and learning more about our own planet, Mars and Earth, about 3 billion years ago were very, very similar planets in terms of

the amount of liquid water forming oceans and in terms of their atmospheric composition, and Earth's gone in one direction and Mars has gone in a completely different direction. That could be a wake-up call to us here. It could give us an indication of how planets lose their atmosphere, how planets lose their oceans, and what we might need to do back here on Earth to stop that from happening to us. I think I'm right, you were quoting Roy's friend, the King, telling you guys that, well, we've made a big enough mess of this planet.

You've gone and saw the next one. And there's another quote on to throw out you, which I thought was really interesting. Ed Mitchell, who was Apollo 14. He spoke of how the sight of the whole earth gave him an instant global consciousness, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, he said, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, look at that, you son of a bitch.

Did you have that feeling? I think everybody comes back from space changed in some way. You'd be a very strange individual not to have your perspective change. And yes, you kind of get this impression of Earth as a different place, that global consciousness. But it's not just seeing it. It's seeing it against the backdrop, the vast black backdrop of space. You're like, that's it. Space is a big old scary place out there.

It's not the nice blue sky that we look up at if the sun is shining. It's the blackest black you'll ever see. And Earth looks incredibly small, remote and fragile against that vast black backdrop. And so that's why I come back to the point that people, I know, my colleagues, astronauts and scientists I work with, don't look at just going to Mars because we think that's another viable planet. It's not. Earth is it. It's beautiful. It's home.

And I think what we realize when you look down at Earth from space is you get that ownership of the entire planet. You don't think about your loyalties to your own country or your own continent or anything like that. You become an earthling. You become very proud of planet Earth as somewhere that you want to kind of look after. I feel that I can't not follow up on this amazing things you're saying about colonising the moon and mining on the moon. And Mars. Obviously with Antarctica, we brought together this extraordinary international agreement, basically not to mine Antarctica and kind of leave it alone. and I was at the South Pole

and was very struck by how remarkable that kind of law was and the way in which that was brought together. Give us a sense about how you might think about the politics and the ownership and what happens. And the other thing I didn't quite get you is, how quickly could this happen? It is what you're saying that now that Musk can pop stuff up more cheaply, it suddenly becomes much more feasible because the cost is a 50th of what it was.

Well, it's not. It's not. It's not. So in terms of what we're initially looking to do, these are science-based missions that we're currently looking at. But what we're trying to do is get the framework, the regulatory framework, ahead of the point at which the conversation about mining the moon might become a reality. That's not something that's being looked at right now,

but we need to get the regulatory framework in place so that it doesn't become something that's contested at the point that it might happen at 20, 30 years in the future. And that's why moving beyond the United Nations, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, The United States have set up the Artemis Accords. And the Artemis Accords has, I think, got about 22 signatories to it, including the United Kingdom. And this is the US interpretation, if you like, of the 67 Treaty, taking it into a framework that could be used to explore the moon and could be used to explore Mars. So responsibly, sustainably.

And what's the longest period anyone's spent on the moon to date? The Apollo 15, 16, 17 missions were a matter of days on the moon. So we haven't spent months on the moon yet. So this would be thinking about what it would mean to spend months or years on the moon? Yes, yeah, absolutely. Setting up a sort of permanent base on the moon. And you think there's something happening, 10 years, 20 years? What sort of timeline we're looking?

We're looking at the timeline at the moment for Artemis 3, which is the return to the surface of the moon, which NASA currently have 2025 in the calendar. I don't think it will be. It's going to probably be slipping by one, maybe two years. But certainly by the end of this decade, we will see humans once again on the surface of the moon. And then we'll be building a gateway, which is a small orbiting station around the moon, which will help to service those lunar missions. So I think by 2035, we will have a permanent structure on the surface of the moon at the South Pole. And I think soon after that we'll start to see astronauts spending maybe one month, two months at that research station in addition to being in lunar orbit. Well, listen, Tim, it's been great to talk to you.

I guess my last question, if I may, is just you do seem sort of remarkably calm and level-headed. Are there moments when you just sort of look up and think, can't quite believe I did that? And how hard is it sort of reintegrating into normal human life when you come back? I didn't really find it difficult reintegrating as a family man. And the morning after I returned to Earth, my two boys were jumping on the bed, waking me up with a cup of tea in the newspaper. And then it was kind of straight back into family life. And I think that really helped.

It helps keep you grounded and helps it keep you motivated and gives you a different focus. And so having spent a long time away from my family in the training and the years before spaceflight, that was something that I wanted to do was to refocus on. on spending more time with the family. And so there are definitely moments where I do kind of pause and look up, I think on a daily basis. I probably think about my time in space at some point, yes. But it's something that actually gives me strength

and it gives me motivation often to be able to deal with different problems I have back down here on Earth. I kind of sometimes think, well, come on Tim, if you can do a spacewalk, you've got this. My final question, relating back to your book, you have become an extraordinary sort of historian and chronicler of space and you've sort of chosen it

almost in a way that you might have chosen to write about the army or your regiment and its history and its heroes. You've chosen space. Tell us why in the end this has become the thing which has defined you and led you to write these extraordinary books

and become a sort of walking encyclopedia and it's extraordinary. You can recite all the names these German astronauts and these different missions, these different moments. What is it that's given you such a passion for the sort of history

and the heroes of space? For me, it was really looking at what we're doing right now and some of my friends and my colleagues right now who are looking to fly on Artemis 2 which could be as soon as a year away to go back to the moon that's going to be a bit like a Apollo 8. You're not going to be able to go

with them. I wish I could. And why can't you? Three NASA astronauts and then Jeremy Hansen who's a Canadian space agency all four of them I know very well. So no, the UK could definitely have an astronaut on an Artemis mission in the future but not on

this first Artemis 2 mission. And it could be you. too old. I'm not too old. We're still flying until about 63. I think the cutoff is for the European Space Agency. So I've got a few years left of me. So I think by... Sadly, I'm just beyond three years late. No mind. But by speaking to my friends and by knowing what they're doing and the training they're doing and this return to the moon, I kind of thought it was the right time to reflect on how have we got here and the journey. And why has it taken so long? Why is it that it's been over 50 years? Why do so many people not believe that we even went there in the first place.

So it's been over 50 years. Been over 50 years. I mean, 72 was Jean Cernan when he last left the surface of the moon, the last man on the moon. And that's when you were born. Yeah, I was eight months old. So I have no recollections of anybody walking on the surface. So in your entire lifetime, nobody's walked on surfacing. Yeah.

And that is absolutely astonishing, isn't it? Yes. I think that was the inspiration for the book, as to write it not as a chronological sort of history looking into the technical sides. it was very much a human story of the people, the people who do this and why they do this and what we've done and how we've got there and where we're about to go back again. Well, look, finally, finally, if I can just lower the tone.

There's one other, just looking through my notes, having read your book, what on earth is going on that you haven't, in preparation to fly, you have an enema followed by a full breakfast? I don't get that one at all. Well, the full breakfast, gives you the calories that you're going to need for the next, you know, day or two.

And it's the enema's going to give you that, that pause that you need for the next day or two before you actually need to use the facilities. I mean, if things go well, we've got a six-hour journey to the space station. So that's not too much of a problem. But if things don't go well, we could be in that spacecraft for two and a half days before we get to the space station. I see. There is a small port-a-loo in your soy spacecraft, but, you know, you don't want to be using it unless you have to. Well, listen, I've sadly enjoyed reading the book.

It's been great to talk to you. Thanks for coming in. Thank you very, very much. What do you think of that? Fascinating. Do you think it would suit you? Space. To me as well, I'd find it very, very hard to be in a confined space for a long time.

And I'd be scared. Yeah. You're also actually too big. I am. I can't even, because when you look at the pictures of him, square george, smart, military. But he's quite small. Yeah, yeah.

And Yuri Gagaram is only five for five. Yeah. I learned a lot in his book. He's clearly got a very, very analytical mind. And he speaks in perfect sentences. One of the lovely things. So he's very open about it. He got a CD and E in his A levels, which is not great, and didn't go to university, went straight into the army.

And is obviously a real inspiration. He is super smart, hyper-articulate, confident with science, confident with history, confident with engineering. and therefore an inspiration to any of us who are not doing very well on our exams when we're 18. How did you do? I did very well in my exams. Which is why you sort of, sorry, I walked right into that, didn't I? So did I as it happens, but you probably did better.

But no, I think, and the point you made at the end about him becoming a sort of space historian, he's a great ambassador for space. It's about the humanity of the whole thing. He doesn't want space to be overtaken by robots. He wants people to be in charge of it. I mean, he's a great modern British hero, isn't he? because he's not got a massive sort of ego. He's not like sort of show off ralph male.

He's got a wonderful kind of gentle sense of humor, wonderful modesty. And I hope they pick him. I mean, he obviously is desperate to go back. Oh, yeah. I mean, that was basically a job advert, wasn't? You know, we'll have to send that to all the NASA people and the ESA people. Maybe the Russians were taking back, but Vladimir would be less to it.

That's right. He's going to have to do a bit better than Sitchas Uchin Plohcha. Yeah, yeah, I thought he needs to go back to, of course. doesn't they? Yeah. But could you read a space manual in Russian? I don't think you could. I don't do but Russian. Yeah, but could you read a space manual? I can read space manual in English. No, exactly. So, do you good. See you soon. See you soon.