Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti's intimate account of her first
journey to the International Space Station, to which she returns in
2022, as commander of Expedition 68a--only the fourth woman to command
the ISS, praised by Scott Kelly for its "incredible detail and great
writing."
Two hundred days orbiting Earth on the International Space Station. Five
years working and training with the aerospace community across the
world. A lifetime of choices leading to the stars. These are the
components of Samantha Cristoforetti's dream, a dream she invites us to
share in this intimate account of an astronaut's journey to space. She
views the triumphs and disappointments of that journey with a poet's eye
and a philosopher's mind--and an engineer's gift for detail that brings
each experience into sharp focus.
With Cristoforetti as our guide, we're called to become "apprentice
astronauts" and experience the world anew through the visor of a space
suit's helmet. Bonding with crew members to tackle challenges as a team,
lifting off from the launchpad in a roar of engines, discovering the
strange wonders of weightlessness, seeing Earth with a fresh perspective
after a bittersweet return to solid ground . . . all these moments and
more reveal what it really takes to escape our planet's gravity in
pursuit of a goal.
