"I always said 'I want to go to space.'"

February 21, 2015 9:45 AM

Samantha Cristoforetti is an European Space Agency astronaut, Italian Air Force pilot and engineer and polyglot, fluent in Italian, English, German, French and Russian. She is also the first Italian woman in space and cheerfully tweeting and taking photos from the International Space Station.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (13 comments total)

thanks for the flickr link! do the astronauts onboard the ISS have a 'live' internet connection now, or are these pictures downlinked in some other way and then uploaded to the various social media sites from earth?
posted by joeblough at 10:15 AM on February 21, 2015

I think they have a live link these days.

Yep: http://www.spaceanswers.com/space-exploration/how-do-astronauts-send-tweets-from-the-iss/

Also, I wish people would drop the whole "Fluent in x, x, x, x and x." Can't they just say she speaks them? This is a general complaint against fascination with polyglots and imprecise wording. I doubt Samantha scores a C2 on each of those languages (though if she did, wow!).

Again, the above is a complaint against imprecise language. Samantha, of course, is a total badass.
posted by durandal at 10:40 AM on February 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Expedition 42's official mission poster, for the curious. Samantha to the right, next to Elena Serova who is the first Russian woman to fly to the ISS.
posted by effbot at 11:18 AM on February 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

You forgot to mention that she rocks.
posted by arcticseal at 1:18 PM on February 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

She updates her Google+ feed regularly with 'logbooks'. They include many delightful stories and details about her mission and daily life up there. A real treat for those who want more than 140 characters.
posted by procrastinator at 1:33 PM on February 21, 2015 [6 favorites]

SPAAAAAAAACE
posted by clarknova at 1:35 PM on February 21, 2015

That cover photo? It's a picture of her home. Samantha wins Twitter.
posted by topynate at 1:39 PM on February 21, 2015

I've been enjoying the beautiful pics she tweets. Definitely a cool astronaut to follow. (Wait, is "cool astronaut" redundant?)
posted by NorthernLite at 1:42 PM on February 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

How do I help my daughter become an astronaut?
posted by leotrotsky at 2:11 PM on February 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is a great post, I'm loving her. The photos are amazing. This one - titled "Goodnight from space" - is just kind of hypnotic in its beauty and awesomeness. It genuinely blows me away that we're at a stage in our evolution where we can take photos in space and relay them to devices in our hands. I mean they're photos FROM SPACE!!!

one of the many reasons I couldn't be an astronaut is because I'm so easily awed by things. I'd spend the whole time like "You guys? We're in space! SPACE!!1!"
posted by billiebee at 5:48 PM on February 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Her photostream has a particularly detailed series on all the training she went through with her crewmates to be ready to do the real flight. It's kind of awe-inspiring to see everything they go through.
posted by pjern at 7:28 PM on February 21, 2015

I second the Google+ recommendation from @procrastinator
posted by xtian at 8:04 AM on February 22, 2015

Now I have to find a way to explain SPACE to my not very verbal two year old friend, so I can get her all excited about some of these pictures!
posted by emilyw at 8:56 AM on February 22, 2015 [1 favorite]