The International Space Station has the goal of developing and testing technologies for space exploration that are capable of keeping a crew alive on long-term missions in lunar and Martian orbits. To do this, preliminary work is being done on the Gateway platform: a space station beyond Earth's orbit.

3D printing is going to be a huge factor in conducting the safe exploration of the Moon and Mars. Experiments carried out on the "nearby" Moon will be crucial for later trips to Mars, a much more complicated, long-term enterprise.

Some simple experiments with various materials help us understand what goes into planning the construction of a spacecraft. And then we wonder how we would go about making a planet inhabitable to humans.

The Columbus laboratory is the first permanent European research facility in space. There, astronauts carry out experiments and applications in space science, Earth observation and technology. Columbus offers European scientists full access to a weightless environment that cannot possibly be duplicated on Earth.

What is light? We use it every day, but where does it actually come from? The host suggests doing a little experiment. See if you can follow the instructions in Italian and try it yourself.

Luisella Giulicchi, manager of the European Space Agency ESA, answers questions about light, infrared rays, and lightyears.

Luisella Giulicchi, the system manager for the ESA Copernicus Sentinel six mission, explains what an exoplanet is. Two young researchers do a simple experiment to show us how infrared rays work.

One way to tell if there might be life on another planet is through light. Special telescopes, by way of prisms, analyze and break down the light from distant galaxies into parts. Luca Parmitano, an astronaut of the European Space Agency, speaks to us from the Columbus International Space Station.

To reach outer space, the force of gravity has to be overcome, and that requires a certain "escape" velocity. That's where launchers come in.

Observing what happens when the air comes out of a balloon will help us understand how the launcher of a spacecraft works. An electrical propulsion engineer from ESA explains about different kinds of propulsion used in space exploration.