Suppose you set yourself a goal of becoming an astronaut someday…what kind of things would you need to prepare for?

Whatever your answers are before you read this book, I can guarantee that Samantha Cristoforetti will have some surprises in store for you. This is her full account of the training process according to the curriculum made by the European Space Agency, from getting the congratulatory email telling her she had been selected, right through to returning from the International Space Station as a ‘flown’ astronaut. It’s more than 350 pages in the telling which gives you some idea of the complexities involved, and that’s for those who are already outstanding mechanical engineers, pilots and medical professionals.

One thing I really like doing is learning from people such as Cristoforetti, to try and extract some kind of intelligence from them and apply it to my own life. I think there’s a lot to learn from how astronauts approach problem solving generally, and especially how they approach goal setting.

So what does her journey look like, and what can we learn from it?

She travels all over the world through her training. Italy, U.S, Russia, UK etc. She visits many countries and has to learn everything from how to spacewalk through how to repair the toilet system on the space station.

One of the most challenging parts of the course for her was the infamous ‘Neutral Buoyancy Lab’, which is basically a huge swimming pool with a full size replica of the ISS submerged into it. This is the only way that weightlessness can be recreated for training purposes. During the time the astronauts are submerged, they must learn how to complete complicated mechanical repairs with the actual tools they will use. You learn that every single potential situation has been thought through, planned for, simulated, and practiced repeatedly until it is ‘drilled’ into candidates.

One thing I found really interesting was some of the stories Samantha has from the ISS itself. She shared her time up there with another astronaut who has been in the news a lot recently, a chap called Butch Wilmore, one of the astronauts ‘stuck in space’. This diary is not an account of that as it is focused on events nearly ten years ago, but it is cool to read about just how experienced Butch is described even back then. Just imagine how much more of an effective astronaut he is now, as well as his colleague Sunita Williams.

Samantha’s frustrations will echo with anybody who has a high expectation of themselves and a lot of drive to succeed – struggling to accept anything less than perfect, struggling to learn new complicated tasks quickly enough, and struggling with ‘imposter syndrome’. This is particularly the case on the ISS when she describes how difficult it was to get used to weightlessness, and the appropriate amount of force to use when trying to ‘float’ through the air. Looks easy on YouTube but apparently it’s not.

Although we don’t learn what she might have done had that initial email been a rejection, I think it’s a safe bet that a take-home point is to embrace complexity and just try figure it out. That the idea of giving something a go is way better than not trying at all, and that being OK with failure, as long as you reflect, trial and adapt, is a game-changer for personal development. I think we talk a lot about that in the West, but when someone actually goes and fails something, there’s a tendency for those nice remarks to be forgotten about and for blame to be quickly channeled at someone. Fear of failure bubbles under the surface of this book, and I can’t even begin to imagine the stress of needing to perform at an outstanding level constantly in the face of other aspirants who are also selected for their intellectual and physical prowess and problem solving abilities. That’s a lot to live up to!

She describes the medical tests in detail (the toughest medical screening process in the world), the need to practice Russian and preferably a bunch of other languages too, as well as just how difficult the glove-fitting problem was for her. Again, it’s hard to imagine, but the clothing that astronauts wear on their spacewalks are apparently not as comfy and dextrous as you think.

She does not give a bullet point list of life lessons; not her style. But she does include a lot of reflective comments and quotes which are inspiring. It’s also funny to read about her many mistakes and imagine the chaos caused (losing control of bits of her breakfast as they float away, and her repeatedly escaping spoon which is regularly handed back, almost ceremoniously, by the same Russian cosmonaut each time as it floats away in the same direction…

Lastly, very unexpectedly, there is a strong Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy theme in this book too. Turns out Cristoforetti is a big fan, and their ISS mission number was? Yep, you guessed it – 42. It was all meant to be.

Up next: Long Way Round, by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. An epic motorcycle ride around the world. What could go wrong?

Until then…