0k. he's one of only 628 humans to have left our planet. and in his latest book, he's written the story of some of the other 627. all of them are special, a rare breed. and i met tim at imperial college london's data observatory to talk about a few that mean something extra special to him. yes, so this is bruce mccandless. 1984, out of the space shuttle challenger. and it's an iconic photograph. it's the first untethered spacewalk. we do lots of spacewalks today. they're never without risk, but they have become more commonplace. but we're always tethered to something in case we fall off. but to go outside on a spacewalk with no tethers whatsoever, just floating away from the shuttle, is incredible. why did he do it? well, he's been working on this manned manoeuvring unit, as it was called, which was a developmental piece of equipment, looking at how you could manoeuvre

around out in space. you know, we actually need a small version of this, which is our last—ditch attempt, if you like, of how to get back to the space station. so, in order to test it, hejust went, take the tethers off... yeah. ..put my money where my mouth is. absolutely. and go for it. for the upcoming artemis missions, nasa has pledged to put the first woman and the first person of colour onto the moon. most astronauts so far have been men, although there was at least one early attempt to address that imbalance. valentina tereshkova, this is 1963, the first woman in space, and this is fairly early on in the space programme. i mean, �*61 was when yuri gagarin went as the first human. so, only two years later, we've got the first woman in space. but actually, having kind of broken the mould and got a woman into space very soon in the programme, the soviets then didn't fly another woman for 20 years — svetlana savitskaya.

right now, we are... we're about a1% of the global astronaut corps are women astronauts, so we're getting there. but it's taken an awful long time. it's taken far longer than it should have done. why do you think that is? ijust think it's attitudes have taken a long time to change. i think when you had that early selection process, both by nasa and the soviets, it was fast—jet test pilots, which instantly said, well, let's go for military, because that's an easier, smaller pool to pick from. that meant male because there were no female test pilots on either side. and now we come right up to date. yes. this is my good friend, vic glover. vic is the pilot for artemis ii. this is the return to the moon. now, not landing on the surface, artemis ii is going to be a bit like apollo 8. it's going to go into lunar orbit. do you think it's slightly frustrating to be the crew that goes round but doesn't go down? i'm sure there'll be an element of that, but any mission is a good mission and there's certainly going to be... it's a very challenging mission.

it's notjust a case of going to the moon and going around it, but we're testing out a brand—new spacecraft, the orion spacecraft, on top of sls, and a brand—new orbit as well. because when we landed on the moon before, they were all kind of in that equatorial region, which is the easiest region to get to when you launch from the cape or around the equator of earth. but we want to launch and land at the south pole of the moon. if there's one place in the solar system that tim would choose to visit, it would be here — the red planet. although the astronauts that end up on mars might need to be made of even sturdier stuff. and when we think about living on mars, i think what's fascinating is pick any one of those stars out there, well, that could actually be earth from mars. that's what earth will look like. so, that level of isolation as well... that's going to take a certain type of person, isn't it? it is. i know you've written about the fact that even in the iss, you knew that if you needed to get out, there was a lifeboat essentially right there,

the soyuz capsule, and the earth was big in your window. yeah. but here, you're... there's no getting away from trouble. yeah. and the earth is as you say, just a point of light. it's eight months away, so you have to be self—sufficient. you're operating as an autonomous crew, so that is going to be difficult to get used to. should it be robots that are exploring space rather than humans? i think robots have their place, absolutely. they help to de—risk human missions that come along, and in some cases, they can be cheaper and more efficient in terms of cost and time. but ultimately, what a human could do on the surface of mars in one day would take our best rovers right now three orfour years to achieve. space is opening up for more people, but astronauts will still need to be made of the right stuff. and later in the programme, tim's going to see if i've got what it takes. meanwhile, paul carter's been to germany to find out how to make the space race cheaper and more

achievable for all of us. paul: what does it feel like making something that's going into space? it's like a boy's dream, right? here at exploration company, we're building a capsule to go to space and return safely back to earth. so, at the moment, space is felt as for the lucky few. we want to develop technologies so that other people can get closer to space, so we're looking already with the capsule that we're currently launching to launch a payload that has been built by students to give them a feeling of what it means to go to space, to develop something for space, so to bring it closer to the people. they've called it nyx, after the greek goddess of the night. it's currently in development with the mission into earth's orbit planned for 202a. hey. wow, this is where the magic happens. exactly. welcome to our facilities. and this must be nyx? but should i say... this is a model, right?

exactly. this is a 1:4 scale model of our capsule. so, 124. so, it's actually quite big then. yeah, exactly. so, this is about 1m and will be km for the full capsule. this type of craft is important for space travel as it allows for goods, cargo and experiments to be transported into space and potentially, in the future, provide human flight from europe. it kind of looks quite cute. is that intentional? the shape... cute was not one of the design parameters, but it is lucky that they came out. so, we're looking here at a typical apollo shape, which gives a balance between the thermal loads on the vehicle during re—entry and the stability that we're going to see while re—entering the atmosphere. and presumably, re—entry is one of the most difficult things that you have to deal with? yeah, re—entry is definitely one of the tough parts because we're going ultra—fast, 7km per second, and we have to bring that down to 5m per second in a phase of ten minutes. the atmosphere, at this point, we need to break and that's going to heat up a lot of the capsule, so we need to thermally protect the capsule to survive it and to not burn up.

and how do you do that? so, this is the bottom of the capsule. you see the spherical heat shield and you would have the cone at the bottom, so, actually, we're upside down. just to be clear, this is an actual part of the craft that's going to space. exactly. this is real space hardware, going to space end of next year. that's amazing. i won't touch it because i'm sure it's very expensive, but that is phenomenal. but protecting this multimillion dollar component is something much more down to earth. so, here you see it, we have a cork—like material that we're going to bond on the spacecraft. so, we're going to do that next week, which will protect the vehicle from these extreme heats. as the capsule re—enters through the atmosphere, the cork slowly burns down while releasing a gas, which creates another layer of protection from the heat. you say cork, and this is just, you know, similar to what you would have when you imagine cork like in a wine bottle, for example.

it's a similar kind of material. it's similar, right. a cork in the wine bottle is really, really raw cork. we take that and then we mix it with a resin, we let it cure, and then we have a base style which we shape into the shape you see here, so that it fits on the heat shield. what kind of temperatures will this be able to withstand? so, this will get up to temperatures of 2,000 degrees celsius. so, that's one you don't want to touch! no, absolutely not. who'd have thought? a humble cork tree getting us into space. well, getting us back from space. getting us back, exactly. from those first apollo space missions, technologies were invented which are now part of everyday life, from the foam sole in trainers to solar panels, and even cordless drills. so while this and many other private space projects may have aspirations that are out of this world, the hope is that even before they crack space, there may be benefits down here too. earlier on, i caught up with spaceman tim peake to talk about what it takes to become an astronaut. and now we've asked him to see

if i'm made of the right stuff. tim peake is an astronaut. i am not. this is a completely scientific astronaut test... it's not! ..that will totally decide whether i qualify to be an astronaut. it won't. so this is this is a memory test like you would have taken when you were in training. yeah. during the selection process, we need to assess your working memory. one of those tests is to listen to some numbers and then repeat those numbers in reverse order. in reverse order? in reverse order, yes, yeah. 0k. ready to start? well... yeah. can i close my eyes? you can close your eyes. you do what you want. so let's start with... 0981. 1890. excellent. great. so we're going to add a few digits here. so, 98705. 50789. well done. fantastic. why do they want you to recite numbers in reverse order? i have no idea, it's a skill set we never had to use.

brilliant. ok, so now we're going to go back to the easy ones... right. ..but you're going to do this whilst you're patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. like this? that's it, yeah, yeah. that's it. pat your head. rub your stomach. 981543. he mouths 345189. fantastic. aaah! blast me into space! congratulations. well done. 0k. i tell you, it's always brilliant talking to tim, because like a lot of astronauts, he just turns out to be a fantastic ambassadorfor space. that's it for the short cut of click week, though. this is future astronaut kelly reporting for duty. i will see you at space camp.

hello there. friday was a cold start for all of us across the country, but it was certainly a day of contrasts. fog lingered in some places, and that had quite an impact on the temperature, particularly in north—east scotland, with temperatures barely climbing above freezing by the middle part of the afternoon. it was a different story further south. some beautiful autumn sunshine to look out for, and we had over seven hours of sunshine in parts of kent. but the weather story is set to change once again as we head into the weekend, with this deep area of low pressure bringing some wet and windy weather with it. the isobars squeezing together, a blanket of clouds and rain pushing its way steadily east. so a spell of wet weather particularly across south—east england during the morning, slowly easing away to sunny spells and scattered showers into the afternoon. so certainly an improving picture across much of england and wales by saturday afternoon. mild with it 14—15 degrees. a few scattered showers into northern england, more

widespread through northern ireland and to scotland, accompanied by blustery winds, gales on exposed coasts here. but the temperatures certainly on the up in comparison to friday. double figures, we're looking at 9—12 degrees generally for scotland. now, as we move out of saturday into sunday, or area of low pressure slowly drifts his way steadily eastward, so that means plenty of showers spiralling around that low and still strong winds. perhaps stronger winds down to the south. again a relatively mild start, 7—10 degrees, a blustery start in the morning. and that'll drive in plenty of showers from the west, so not everywhere will see those showers, but they are going to be fairly widespread. perhaps drier interludes for scotland and maybe central and southern england as we go through the afternoon. temperatures likely to peak once again between 9—14 degrees. now, through sunday evening into the early hours of monday, we mightjust have to keep a close eye on this little front here. we could see a spell of very wet and windy weather across south—west england for a time. once that clears the way, however, high pressure is going to build across central and southern england as we move further ahead into the week. so if you're after something a little drier, a little quieter, we will get that

across england and wales. so if you're after something a little drier, a little quieter, we will get that across england and wales. still the risk of some wet and windy weather at times further north and west. take care.

live from washington, this is bbc news. israel is allowing limited fuel into gaza as the un warns the humanitarian situation is overwhelming.

a bbc investigation shows the lengths men in ukraine are going to in order to avoid being drafted. and argentina prepares to vote in a new president. we'll look at the key issues. hello, i'm caitriona perry. limited aid and fuel may soon start trickling into gaza. the us state department says isarel has agreed to let in 140 thousand litres of fuel every two days. it follows warnings from the un that gazans face the possibility of starvation linked to the fuel shortage. the us has called for more regular fuel deliveries. aid groups say no aid trucks have reached gaza in the past three days. now, the israeli military says it will allow more humanitarian aid with "no limitation" on the number of trucks. the lack of fuel has also affected communications.

telecomms firms say phone and internet services