Outlook Mixtape: Race against the clock

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Abdul Ahad Mohmand was the first and only Afghan to have gone into space. It was 1988, in the last days of Russia's hold on Afghanistan - the country was at civil war at the time - and Abdul was given the chance to visit the Mir space station with a Russian commander. But their attempts to return to earth did not go according to plan, as he told Outlook’s Jo Fidgen in 2015. Abdul died in Stuttgart, Germany, in June 2026. Christian Clot is an explorer who travels to the world's most inhospitable places to try and survive. But in 2021, he worked with scientists on something a little different. Christian took 15 volunteers into a large cave system in south west France to see what happens to humans' perception of time in the absence of clocks and natural light. They spent 40 days inside and did not expect to react the way they did when told the experiment was over. Christian spoke to Kevin Ponniah in 2021. Susannah Cahalan was a young, ambitious journalist living in New York City when out of the blue, she started having hallucinations and seizures. She became increasingly paranoid, erratic and psychotic. Her family was terrified and doctors were baffled. Susannah was in the grips of a strange mystery illness and at risk of losing her sanity and her life. Her eventual diagnosis – a rare neurological disorder – would reveal a deep stigma around mental health. She went on to write a book about her experience called Brain on Fire. She spoke to India Rakusen in 2023. Hugo Bautista is a master clockmaker from Mexico City. Despite being offered prestigious jobs in Switzerland, he choose to ply his trade on a market in the notorious suburb of Tepito where his mother had a stall before him. Clayton Conn went to meet him there in 2017. (Photo: A transparent 60-minute cassette tape with a white label bearing the words: The Outlook Mixtape. Credit: Getty Images) Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707 Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Andrea Rangecroft