Paolo Nespoli: “The dream of space preserves youth” – BBC

interview

Milan , July 30, 2015 – 12:45

     
     
 

Nespoli during the presentation of Expedition 52/53 (AsiTv)

“I feel in good shape and I am ready to go back into space.” Paolo Nespoli is beaming the idea of ​​flying beyond the atmosphere, to the International Space Station for a third time. And when you transmit foot in May 2017 he will have just turned sixty. But staying with Paolo Nespoli, talk, exchange opinions, you realize that if there is one thing that counts for him is not the time. The enthusiasm, initiative, energy, the desire to remain in place, still the same as when in 1991 he entered the European ESA dreaming of becoming an astronaut; but then it was just a specialist, a technician. He had prepared adequately becoming an aerospace engineer at New York University and a shadow will be next to the first Italian astronauts that the beginning of the nineties began to fly. Finally comes his moment in 1998 when ASI will choose finally conquering wings Space Man. From his country of birth in Milan (Verano Brianza) where he was born in 1957 (the year when it launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik) saliva now skyrocketing.

The impossible dreams and the determination

His determination to win the result dreamed accompanied him over the years: nothing distracted him from the lens. And I remember in the book he wrote on his return from his second mission on board the ISS, “From the problems seem smaller” (Knopf) where the pages flowing above all passion. Even today it is preparing for the new mission five months looks to kids: “You dream impossible things, wake up and strive to achieve them,” just as it happened to him.

He feels already up there

It’s been four years since cosmic experience and smiling speaks of it as already there:” It was a condition so special live on the space station, watching the Earth rotate under your feet, floating weightless, and fall when you are missing a bit ‘and hope to return. ”

shadow carousel

 
 

Paolo Nespoli, a life among the stars

 

The debut on social networks

In his last stay cosmic Paolo Nespoli become the first major European player of the social network space. “So I was a bit ‘hesitant but now I recognize that it is the only way to talk to young people. When the evening in my bunk reading numerous tweets came from Earth kept me company, made me feel less alone. Now I will work and I will continue the brilliant work of Luca Parmitano and Samantha Cristoforetti. “

The space tourist

Paolo Nespoli lives with his mind in the future: “In twenty years maybe I’ll space tourist,” he says. The time and age do not matter. The dream of space it seems that has kept forever young. In the end even John Glenn was able to return to orbit in 77 years; he, in comparison, is a young man can dream and other leaps in the cosmos.

July 30, 2015 (modified July 30, 2015 | 14:47)

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