Astronauts and Cosmonauts train and study for years to work and live aboard the International Space Station. We have seen countless hours of their activities live on television and in the media. With this wealth of experience and insight behind them what do they think when they return to Earth? Without exception these space farers can not wait to get back into space.

An exploration of the tenuous envelope of gas surrounding Earth and its ways of sheltering humans from harmful radiation.

New projects are advancing slowly, moving hardware into the testing phase, new designs, new capabilities. The next 12 months will see an intense rise in flight tests, demonstration launches and high priority flights some are on time others are not. We check the flight status of some of this new hardware and these new capabilities.

For over 50 years we have bombarded Mars with our probes and landers. Spying from orbit to map the terrain, finding her strengths and weaknesses. The time nearing for the full scale invasion of the planet- when humans walk on Mars and claim it for their own.

The Amazing Cassini spacecraft and its sibling lander, Huygens, have now concluded their scientific studies, bringing back years of data to be combed through by scientists, plotting their next journey to Saturn's space. Now, Juno piercing the cloak of Jupiter and her distant relative New Horizons at the edge of the solar system.

The Soviet Era Luna 3 was the first spacecraft to utilize gravity to change course to photograph the dark side of the Moon. The NASA Mariner 10 mission used the technique to swing by Venus to target Mercury. The gravity assist or sling shot maneuver has become a standard for navigating the solar system. With our probes reaching further, faster and more accurately than ever before.