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i got the call to become an astronaut

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one evening i had this feeling that the

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whole universe just stopped turning

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around and smiled at me

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my name is samantha christopher and i'm

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a mission specialist on the nasa spacex

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crew 4 mission to the international

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space station

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i was born in milan in italy but i grew

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up in a tiny little village in the

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northeastern alps still in italy so a

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very rural place small place

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in the mountains i grew up skiing and

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enjoying the outdoors my parents owned a

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hotel so that's what they did all their

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working life we actually lived in the

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hotel it was our home

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i started dreaming about becoming an

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astronaut pretty early on i was still in

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elementary school i think it was

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a number of impressions that made me

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dream about that the things that i was

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learning in school also books that i

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read it was an avid reader of adventure

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books the fact that i was growing up in

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a place where i had an opportunity to go

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out and play and explore with other kids

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unsupervised and get that passion for

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adventure so a number of those things

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and i guess they were enough to

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kindle that sparkle of passion for space

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exploration

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i completed my high school in italy and

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then i enrolled at the technical

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university of munich in their

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engineering degree and i chose the

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aerospace track

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and then something unexpected happened

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the opportunity opened up of actually

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joining the italian air force as a pilot

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that had not been possible for me

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straight out of high school because back

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then the italian military did not admit

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women

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the very broad educational and training

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background that i had when i became an

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astronaut really helped me a lot the

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astronaut job is really very much about

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this broad spectrum of things that you

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have to master rather than being a

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specialist that has mastered very very

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well for a long time this one thing and

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so i was very grateful in hindsight

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[Music]

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in 2014 i had the opportunity of flying

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to space for the first time and i spent

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200 days on the international space

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station

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hatch hugging our friends were waiting

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for us there getting used to that

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sensation of floating the first look out

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of the cupola that first you know full

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view of the sunrise it was almost

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overwhelming for me and you know of

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course as the time goes by you settle

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into a routine you know you're not

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overwhelmed by emotion every single day

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but it becomes more like a quiet

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affection for the place for the work for

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the people

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getting selected for crew 4 was amazing

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because it's an opportunity to go back

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to the international space station and

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experience a game that transformation

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from being an earthbound creature to

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being this

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space living creature and being part of

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that very very special life up there in

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this outpost of humanity of their in