Nasa recently ordered five astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to urgently shelter in a docked spacecraft and prepare to abandon ship. The US space agency was worried about a risky plan by Russian cosmonauts to repair fine cracks in the hull of the ISS. These cracks have been causing air to leak out for years now, but the problem worsened at the start of the month.

The Russians subsequently abandoned their repairs, but the incident reveals how the space station is showing its age. The ISS was never meant to last forever. Commercial companies were due to launch their own space stations for visiting astronauts and paying passengers. But the commercial sector is not yet ready to replace the ISS. Can private companies step up before the International Space Station is decommissioned in a few years?

Back on Earth, extreme heat is causing problems across the UK. But why does the temperature feel unbearable to us Britons when other countries seem to cope with it? Humidity is part of the answer, but Britain’s housing stock and lack of experience with rising temperatures make the hot weather worse.

And a new paper confirms a theory we put forward in our podcast series on class and politics – that class voting collapsed under New Labour.