• Question: How dangerous is it in space? Has anybody ever dide?

    Asked by 636nch25 to Simon, Julia, Delma, Andrew, Alex on 9 Dec 2015. This question was also asked by Evie.G :), yazzy.12, __a.i.d.e.n_.
    • Photo: Delma Childers

      Delma Childers answered on 9 Dec 2015:

      Space can be pretty dangerous. That’s why there are so many people – engineers, scientists, and support staff – who check and double-check and triple-check everything for manned missions. But sadly, some people have died in space. 🙁 Three Russian cosmonauts died in space – those three were on Soyuz 11. And several American astronauts died in the Challenger and Columbia disasters and with the Apollo 1 ground test (Challenger and Columbia were lost during launch and re-entry).

    • Photo: Andrew Winnard

      Andrew Winnard answered on 9 Dec 2015:

      Launching humans into space is a dangerous activity though and things can…and have.. gone sooo wrong that we have lost some astronauts. It is important to remember these events and learn lessons from them to make space travel safer in the future. As Gus Grissom an Apollo one astronaut said just before he was killed in space accident: If we die, we want people to accept it. We’re in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.

      To try and make things safer the astronauts spend a lot of time training, so they are ready for almost anything that can happen. Tim has spent several years training for his mission, including training for emergencies and things going wrong! You can learn more about some the space disaster we have had here:

      and you can see the kind of training Tim Peake was doing in the last few weeks here:

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