The SHEE test bed is the world’s only easily transportable analogue space habitat. A unique structure capable of supporting two people for two weeks, it can be moved by land, sea or air to environments on or off the Earth. Developed by a European consortium of industry and research institutions, it gives the international research community the ability to perform habitation simulation tests.

RSC Energia has been conducting activities in rocket-space industry since 1946 when a team of specialists developing long-range ballistic missiles was organised under the leadership of the Chief Designer S.P. Korolev, generally recognised as the founder of practical cosmonautics. The enterprise initiated all lines of activity related to national rocket and space technology. Today, RSC Energia is Russia’s leading rocket-space enterprise and the top organisation in the field of human space systems. In this special article, company President Vladimir Solntsev looks at some of the long term implications for astronautics and the need for international cooperation.

Launching nuclear explosives into space seems like a bad idea and is not something to be treated lightly but there might be times when we need to think seriously about why it might be useful to use nuclear explosives in deep space - and ponder what can be learned just by thinking about it.

Women are playing a more active role in human space exploration and in the Luna-2015 (Moon-2015) project, a nine-day isolation experiment involving only women, they participated in a simulated flight to the Moon.

Artistic research is becoming a research area in its own right, creating a loop of connectivity between artistic research, space research, applications and terrestrial implementations.