“As a child I dreamed of Star Trek's Enterprise and the Space Shuttle”, as an adult she became the record-breaking astronaut, the woman who with her 199 days in space conquered the European record for permanence.
Intervened at theevent "Traveling among the stars: from the Moon to Mars", organized in Rome by Sioi (Italian Society for International Organization), in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency (Asi) and with the European Space Agency (ESA), Samantha Cristoforetti she managed to attract the attention of an audience that for more than an hour listened to her in fascinated silence as she recounted her experience on the International Space Station with ease and sympathy. Moments that for an Air Force captain, astronaut of the Italian Space Agency as well as first Italian woman in the crews of theEuropean Space Agency they perhaps represent normality, but which everyone else present in the room followed with amazed interest.
Seated next to her, the president of Sioi, Franco Frattini, who in the course of his introductory speech underlined how space is "one of the few themes that unites global players, a sector of peace in which tensions between countries ease", and the president of the Italian Space Agency, Roberto Battiston who, however, put the dots on the I: “Mars remains a goal in 20/30 years; the destinations for human exploration are endless, but not with current technologies”. The road is therefore still long and also passes through precise programs and above all huge investments. Going to Mars, Battiston explained, costs "ten, even twenty times more than the ISS, we are talking about a trillion dollars of investments that politics should put on the plate".
Cristoforetti, how do you become an astronaut?
“There isn't a single path, the biographies of the singles are very different. My story began as a child, when I dreamed of spaceships, I fantasized about Star Trek's Enterprise and the Space Shuttle. As I grew older I developed an interest in science and technology. I studied aerospace engineering at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. Then by chance, in the fourth year of engineering, the law on female voluntary military service came along. After completing my studies, I was admitted to the Pozzuoli Air Force Academy where I started all over again and was trained as a military pilot.
In 2009 I was selected in a class of new European astronauts. In the end, after a tough selection, there were only six of us left, including my colleague Luca Parmitano. We have traveled the world in international space stations: USA, Russia, Europe, Japan, Canada. In the end we all managed to fly. After six years of training it was my turn too”.
She was the first Italian woman to fly into space. How did the launch go?
“In 2014 I was part of Expedition 42 Futura. The launch took place on November 23 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan. We always launch from there, even if Moscow is trying to complete a new cosmodrome on Russian territory. TO aboard the Soyuz vehicle we reached the International Space Station (ISS). It was all very fast, we arrive in orbit in less than nine minutes, traveling at 28 km per hour, 7 km per second. Speed is critical to staying in orbit around the earth. We arrived in 4 orbits, ie in about six hours. It must be emphasized that the ISS is located 400 km from the earth, relatively very close”.
How is life “up there”?
“The ISS is a luxury campsite the size of a football field. There were six of us, three already on board and three arriving with the Suyuz. We live well, but there is no washing machine so we have to use our clothes and throw them away after a while. We sleep in a bunk the size of a phone booth where we also keep our personal belongings. You get by a bit but you manage to have a comfortable corner. We play a lot of sport, we train every day with weights, running, cycling. Training is not only important for muscles but also for bone mass and above all it allows us to return from the space station in good physical condition.
We consume bagged food, sometimes dehydrated. Dehydrated vegetables are terrible, but there is rarely fresh food and when there is it must be consumed quickly because we have no refrigerators. Then of course most of the time is spent on work. We work in pressurized modules, many of which are built here in Italy. The Columbus laboratory module, for example, was built in Turin. We carry out scientific research and experiments.”
What kind?
“On human physiology, biological analysis, 3D object printing in weightlessness. I stress that the absence of weight is not the absence of gravity as many think, the latter at 400 km from the earth is still very strong, approximately 90% of what is on the earth's surface. But there are no effects of it, so if I step on the scale the resulting weight is zero, because at that moment I, the scale, the space station and everything else are in a state of free fall around the earth.
Weightlessness highlights a whole series of phenomena both in biological systems and in physical systems which do not manifest themselves on earth or which are masked by the effect of gravity. So let's do some research on that."
What are your upcoming projects, will you go back to space?
"Professor Battiston (president of the Italian Space Agency, ed.) promised to send me back into orbit soon to make me do the spacewalk, the great regret of my mission is not having had the opportunity to do it, even if on board I had a very big responsibility”.
If you had to choose, would you rather go to the Moon or Mars?
“I would also go to both the Moon and Mars tomorrow, but we have to be realistic, they are still distant goals. There is a lot to work on and, above all, very large investments are needed. It will still be years and years before we can see a man on the moon again or we can get to Mars. But in the near future, intermediate successes will also be achieved which will give us great satisfaction and for which we must be very happy. A first target could be the deep space gateway, a base in orbit around the Moon as a starting point for missions on the lunar surface".
Why did your name end up on the list of possible candidates for the Democratic Party in the next elections?
(Aghast look) “How? But who said that? I know absolutely nothing about this candidacy."
