7 Questions With Record-Setting Italian Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti

Odds are you can’t account for where you were on every one of the 200 days that elapsed from November 23, 2014 to June 11, 2015. But Samantha Cristoforetti can, since she spent them all aboard the International Space Station. Cristoforetti, Italy’s first female astronaut, set what was then a record for single-mission duration by a woman in space—and that achievement was just one in a lifetime of them. A former captain in the Italian Air Force, Cristoforetti won her fighter pilot’s wings in 2006, after earning a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering. She has been awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, speaks five languages—Italian, English, German, French and Russian—and is currently studying Chinese. Sometime in the spring of 2022, she will return to space for another long-duration stay, during part of which she will serve as space station commander. She is the author of Diary of an Apprentice Astronaut, now out in paperback. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] You were selected as an astronaut in 2009, and yet when the good news came, you actually missed the call. How did that happen? It was down to just 10 of us at the end and I was incredibly tense, waiting to know. The ESA [European Space Agency] had announced that on the 25th of May there was going to be this public announcement in France of who they had selected. But we were getting to like two days before the press conference and we still haven’...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: news