Samantha Cristoforetti - Diary of an Apprentice Astronaut

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First published in Italy by La Nave di Teseo 2018
First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane 2020

Copyright Samantha Cristoforetti/ESA, 2020
Translation copyright Jill Foulston, 2020
Illustrations by Jessica Lagatta in consultation with Samantha Cristoforetti

The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted Authors royalties donated to UNICEF

Cover photograph taken by Samantha Cristoforetti ESA/NASA
Cover design by Richard Green

ISBN: 978-0-241-37139-8

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To Kelsi Amel, who came as a stargazer

Dear reader,

This is the story of a journey. It was my journey, but I do not own this story. Im entrusting it to you. Take care of it, though dont worry if it blends with your imagination, if its nourished by your feelings, if it comes out transformed. Thats how it should be.

Everything youre about to read is true, insofar as I have managed to avoid making mistakes. Im afraid there may be a few, so I apologize to you here and now. I can assure you that I relied on my memory as little as possible, and only when I felt I really could.

Everything youre about to read here actually happened but you wont find everything that happened in these pages. Out of discretion, because I only talk about the good Ive found in others, and because I dont see how my private life can be of any interest. All the same, I havent left anything out in an attempt to please you. Im not trying to entertain you or teach you anything. Im telling you this story the whole of it in the same way I would be telling it to a friend who was going with me on a long train journey. Youre free to decide what to make of it.

Ill take you along during all my preparations, in the classrooms and simulators, in the swimming pool and the centrifuge, during emergency and survival drills everywhere I go, suitcases in hand, all over the world. This is not a textbook, but well be picking up the many elements of an astronauts trade along the way, a bit like collecting pebbles casually on a walk in the woods. When we arrive at the launchpad, I promise you, well be ready to fly into space.

This is a journey well make together. You and I, apprentice astronauts.

Samantha

To know is not to pull apart nor to explain. It is to attain vision. But in order to see, we must first participate, and it is a hard apprenticeship.

Antoine de Saint-Exupry, Flight to Arras

Lightness for me is related to precision and definition, not to the hazy and haphazard. Paul Valery said, One must be light like the bird, not like the feather.

Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium

We are a ball of fire in dizzying descent towards the planet, an incandescent wound in the thin atmosphere that envelops the Earth. Were slicing through the air at stupendous speed, air that gets so hot it becomes plasma. We are a falling star: if it were night, someone, somewhere would be wishing on us.

The little window on my left begins to darken on the outside, while shades of fiery orange dance around us. Were shrouded in ionized molecules of air, and they are blocking radio communication: just before we rejoin the Earthlings, our virtual cord, which has kept us connected to Mission Control in Moscow, is severed. Its almost a new birth: in a few minutes well emerge from the plasma, the parachute will open, and well make contact with the search and rescue helicopters of the Russian military already airborne over the Kazakh steppe. If everything goes to plan, well be reborn as Earthlings.

For 200 days, weve been extraterrestrial humans, orbiting at an altitude of 400 kilometres aboard the International Space Station. Weve flown over every part of the Earth except the extreme north and south of the planet, every sea, every mountain and desert, every city and every port. Weve witnessed a perpetually renewing, silent spectacle, all of it played out for billions of years before we humans laid eyes on it. As residents and guardians of humanitys outpost in space, weve inhabited weightless bodies and held weightless objects. Weve felt the liberating and invigorating power of dreams come true, along with the responsibility of deserving, every day, a privilege reserved for few: representing humanity in space, the final frontier.

Only three hours ago we released the hooks that anchored us to the Space Station. Only half an hour ago we switched on the engine of our small spaceship, slowing its unrelenting race around the planet. Just a bit, but enough to deliver us to the embrace of the atmosphere, which is now, little by little, relieving us of our extraordinary speed. The effect of this deceleration presses us into our seats: were about to reach a first peak of 3.6 Gs, or 3.6 times our normal weight. Nothing out of the ordinary when we experienced it in the centrifuge on Earth, but fierce pressure after 200 days of absolute lightness.

My attention is split between my breathing, which is becoming increasingly difficult, and the display in front of me, which shows the parameters of our re-entry into the atmosphere. Everything is working perfectly: the on-board computer is automatically configuring a trajectory towards a location in the sky 10 kilometres over Kazakhstan, where the parachute will open. The voice of our commander comes through my earphones, calm and clear despite the pressure on his throat. He is making a report on the descent for the record: were close to the trajectory, and our deceleration has reached a second peak of 4.1 Gs and is now falling. No one can hear us right now, cocooned as we are in plasma, but already, many eyes are trained on the moment of our arrival.

The Astrey crew is coming home. We are the ones falling from the sky.

I wonder, he said, whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again.

Antoine de Saint-Exupry, The Little Prince

It was the most important phone call of my life and I missed it because I took a few extra minutes in the shower. Its already evening, and Ive lost hope of being contacted by ESA, the European Space Agency, today. But it couldnt have been anyone else: an unknown French number, no message on the answerphone. In my Spartan little room I sit down on the squeaky bed, with its blue Air Force bedspread, and I take a few deep breaths to stop the pounding of my heart, which seems about to burst from my chest. What should I do? Wait for them to call back? Call back myself? Ive waited for this call for weeks, getting more and more wound up by the day. In Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Finland, nine other young Europeans are waiting, just like me, all of them gripped by the same anxiety. We are the final ten applicants for the position of astronaut in a selection process that has lasted more than a year. We expected it to end a few months ago, after twenty-two of us attended an interview with a group of ESAs senior managers. But we had a final surprise last month. Instead of the expected yes-or-no outcome, an end to our agonizing uncertainty, there was another call from France, with an invitation to one more test: a final interview with the director general. Only ten of us were involved. Thousands of applicants have already been eliminated in previous selection phases, but a rejection at this stage would be devastating, just when the dream has taken on substance and is no longer a wisp of will and imagination.