Italy's First Female Astronaut

Peninha

Peninha

Community Member
Nov 14, 2014
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Italy's first female astronaut has arrived to the space station. Samantha Cristoforetti is a name that will stay in the Italian history I think, in a time that we don't hear much about the exploration of space. Does this sort of news have much impact in Italy?
 
First of all, let me just say, I think she is so cool! I think space is so awesome, I even feel emotional when I travel by plane (although I've flown tons of time times already!), I think I'd faint from emotion if I were traveling through space!

Now back to reality :P

Yes, Italy is very proud of her :)
There are numerous articles about her accomplishment, everyone shares a lot of stuff regarding this on social media, even the news finally has something positive to show to the people!

It's a shame they don't dedicate more time on the news for this, it's history being made as we speak! So, Samantha Cristoforetti only gets her 5 minutes of fame in between "donna picchiata", "donna scomparsa" and football news.... such a shame!
 
I agree, the space is fascinating and being the first female astronaut in a country is something that got her on the map. I know, it's only 5 minutes of fame and we go back to football and politics, but that's just the way it is.
 
That's pretty cool. Maybe people don't make a bigger fuss about it because they think it's not as big news in a world where we have so many astronauts already, but I think it's especially nice that lil' girls can have women doing awesome things like being astronauts, so they can identify with them and have lofty aspirations, too!
 
I know. My brother and I used to dream we were astronauts... and we'd play for hours in our "spacecraft" which was actually just a half empty wardrobe, but it was so much fun. We didn't have someone to look up to, we were children, but I do like it that now even girls can say, "I want to be an astronaut". It would have been odd before, because it simply wasn't done. Now it's more of a reality and a child won't get laughed at for saying something like that (this happens in schools so often...).

Way to go astronauts! And good job, Samantha Cristoforetti! Can't wait to see who's next.
 
Aurelia said:
No mention about it anymore...
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Unfortunately, this is true :(
Haven't heard about her in a while either. Not even in the media.
I think one of the last mentions of how Samantha is doing in space was around Christmas time. They showed a short video of her wishing Merry Christmas to Italy's president (uhm, former president now, he resigned just recently) and then they showed the former president almost shed a tear.
That's the last I heard of her... unless someone follows her on Twitter, for instance, she's quite active over there :P Posting images and short updates from space :)
 
That's lovely. Christmas is usually the time when such messages are sent... but it's so sad there is no further mention. Guess everyone has their "fifteen minutes of fame" - if they're not sport stars, singers or actors, that is, or even politicians. The rest of the people are forgotten and only occasionally mentioned. That's how it is.

I've heard Twitter is quite popular nowadays. Is that a social network or what? I've never been at Twitter...
 
Aurelia said:
That's lovely. Christmas is usually the time when such messages are sent... but it's so sad there is no further mention. Guess everyone has their "fifteen minutes of fame" - if they're not sport stars, singers or actors, that is, or even politicians. The rest of the people are forgotten and only occasionally mentioned. That's how it is.
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To be fair, the news reports are there to deliver fresh news and even if something is history-making and groundbreaking and all, if the excitement dies down, so does the interest to feature it more in the news. Take this Charlie Hebdo thing: it was such a shock to everyone, and news kept coming in about suspects and protests and people's voices and reactions, and tons of essays were written about the events. It is a lot of novel content, and thus, the subject did not empty out too soon. However, if nobody has a reaction to news of a female astronaut, they will not make a fuss about it. If feminists groups had reacted to it and written articles; if the hometown of the astronaut had decided to commemorate it with an event or a special place in the town... then we might have had more than fifteen minutes. As it is, maybe eventually when she has time she will make some interviews or people will come up with more backstory and make an article or interview of her, probably in a moment when it would be relevant to actuality. The news and media is also a business.

Aurelia said:
I've heard Twitter is quite popular nowadays. Is that a social network or what? I've never been at Twitter...
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Aurelia, haha, you are a bit behind the times here! XD
 
Well I think thats fantastic and it is nice to know that there are many successful women out there that have achieved goals that were not possible before.
 
Joie d'Etre said:
Aurelia, haha, you are a bit behind the times here! XD
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You got me curious and I had to check it out! Although I didn't really get the point... anyway, is it something like facebook? Not that I understand the obsession with facebook either. I don't remember when I'd been to facebook last time... were it not for the news about the exams, lectures and such being posted there, I probably wouldn't even spend that much time...

P.S. to Tasha:

I also believe it's good that someone started to make things more possible for women! Now we can say, "we've been to space as well". I'd actually found that although the first woman flew into space in 1963, it hadn't been until almost twenty years later that another flew. Female astronauts went on to become commonplace in the 1980s. It's nice to see that the trend is continuing, especially so close to home.
 
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