university to do it

at.

And then I got to the end of that degree and I thought, well, what do I want to do next? I felt I hadn't learned enough.

I wanted to that curiosity had still not been quenched.

You know, I still had questions about the way that the human body worked.

And so I then went on to do a master's in sports and exercise science.

And also it bought me a little bit of time at university because at this stage as well, I was just starting to get back into a lot of sport and specifically running as well.

Is there a preconception that most people get wrong about astronaut training, or what was your kind of insights going, it's like this, rather than how you thought

So to make sure that things go smoothly when he gets

there… We want to test the running prosthesis on a treadmill in simulated microgravity and look at lots of different parameters of the running prosthesis.

goal is going to the ISS and doing that mission sometime in the next couple of years, right?

This is the hope.

So we are looking at a flight opportunity not before 2027, so after 2027.

Yeah, and it would be for a long-duration mission to the International Space Station to live and work there and do what astronauts do on the space station.

Coming up, we hear from the British Paralympic sprinter who could become the first person with a physical disability to go into orbit.

I've always been one of those people who has taken opportunities when they've come across my path really.

I didn't set out on this journey to be an inspirator, but what this does do is it throws into the spotlight a very, uh, hopefully a very healthy debate about disability, challenging people's preconceptions of the professional roles in which we might find people with disabilities working.

So it's a really, really exciting opportunity.

He could be part of a team going to the world's first commercial space station next year, and John has been telling us why he wants space to be his next big adventure.

I've always been one of those people who has taken opportunities when they've come across my path, really.

I never set out to be a Paralympic athlete, actually, and it was after losing my leg, I, I got back into sport, and it was an, an excellent vehicle for rehabilitation for me, and it took me on an incredible journey to the Paralympic Games.

Equally, around that time when I was a teenager, I, I didn't think that I would ever be a surgeon.

He told Justin Webb more about it.

This particular agreement brings me one step closer to hopefully realizing a world's first, which is a professional astronaut in space who happens to have a physical disability living and working as a, a, as a professional astronaut.

The reality is, is we don't know what it is like for someone with a disability, I'm a, I'm a lower limb amputee, what it's gonna be like for someone with a disability like mine living and working in space.

Is missing a leg, leg gonna be a hindrance? Is having, uh, wearing a prosthesis gonna be, uh, of benefit? What happens to the physiology of someone with a limb missing in space? Because I have slightly less lower body volume to start with, i.e.

missing a leg, will there be less fluid shift up towards my trunk and my head? And we know that fluid shift in living and working in microgravity can cause problems with the eyes, so might I be less susceptible to those conditions? There is an awful lot to learn.

You are, aren't you?

Yeah.

Uh, I've met all the medical requirements to, to fly to space, and technically met the, uh, the operational requirements, and it's just a question of now realizing that opportunity, getting an opportunity to, to fly in space and demonstrate actually that it is feasible, and also learn an awful lot of when doing it.

John's been telling me why he wants space to be his next destination.

I've always been one of those people who has taken opportunities when they've come across my path, really.

I never set out to be a Paralympic athlete, actually, and it was after losing my leg, I, I got back into sport, and it was a- an excellent vehicle for rehabilitation for me, and it took me on an incredible journey to, to the Paralympic Games.

Equally around that time, when I was a teenager, I, I didn't think that I would ever be a surgeon, but when I thought about what I was gonna do after sport, medicine would be a super interesting job to do.

And so kind of the space thing was, I guess, just another one of those opportunities that happened to come my way.

Are you a little bit nervous? I mean, how do you prepare mentally for something like this? I know it's, you know, it's not happening tomorrow, it's a way off, but, um, is there anything you've learned from your other careers that you might be taking into this next venture?

Definitely what pops off the top of the list to me is excitement.

Definitely excited.