Alex McColgan

Cosmonauts also had to be prepared to confront

incredibly harsh environment in the event their mission might land far from recovery zones.

Wilderness survival training in Siberia was an essential part of mission training, which sounds absolutely brutal.

Even in modern times, the lengths some will go through to reach out for space can be quite perilous.

Daredevil Mike Hughes discovered it after constructing his own homemade rocket in an attempt to prove his belief that the Earth is flat.

In February 2020, his rocket tragically malfunctioned during a test flight, killing him instantly.

While no one died in the Zambia space program, its training definitely raised some eyebrows.

Nkulosso designed a series of mental and physical tests to prepare his astronauts for space travel.

One such exercise was teaching his recruits to walk on their hands, claiming that this was the only way people can walk on the moon.

It's unclear where that idea came from, since he was an educated man, and was presumably following the latest space race updates closely.

To simulate zero gravity, he'd put his recruits in an oil barrel one by one and roll them down a hill, bouncing them over rough ground to simulate turbulence.

When they hit a particularly big bump, he celebrated, claiming they'd just experienced anti-gravity conditions, an exercise which is obviously uncomfortable, potentially dangerous, and definitely not scientifically sound.

Another approach they took to weightlessness training actually involved something I mentioned earlier.

They tied two ropes into a swing and would swing on it, getting higher and higher.

At a time they least expected it, another trainee would cut the rope, so they could experience the free fall to the ground.

Not a much better approach.

And the rocket ship they were training for?

It was a 10-foot oil barrel with an air hole in it, made of space-grade aluminium and copper.

Care to know how they were initially planning to launch it?

With a catapult.