The World, The Universe and Us – Tuesday 7th October 2025

This talk at The Royal Society featured an Astronaut, who spoke about her experiences of going into Space, and was fascinating.

The main takeaways for me were that Space is really bad for humans! It has all kinds of negative effects on the body, such as muscle wastage, especially in the legs. The Astronaut made the point that disabled people may theoretically be better Astronauts than able-bodied people, because what if they didn’t have legs?

Also, on average, an Astronaut will gain 7cm in height whilst in Space, because the lack of gravity means the spine elongates and loses its natural curvature, which causes a lot back-pain!
She also floated the idea that there was accelerated ageing in Space.

All in all, it was a great talk, that rid me of any desire I had to go up into Space!