Paolo Nespoli: "Love and arguments with Oriana Fallaci, but in orbit, I brought her poems. Now I'm retiring »

Paolo Nespoli, 61, a ram born at the Mangiagalli in Milan and raised to Verano Brianza, two sisters and a younger brother of whom he was the Martian, speaks with disconcerting sincerity at a lunch in Padua without carbohydrates or alcohol; bitter coffee and natural water. He is long, friendly and never afraid to make mistakes: he is wrong, learns and starts again. He says, "The mistake is not to destroy the crew, but the others, we commit them all … During the first mission in Space, they asked me to do a complex activity with a particular costume. I did it all right, but with the wrong costume.From Houston they said: support, pause. I am referring again: I am always wrong. Stand by. They ask me to do it again for the third time. At that time, I call a colleague and tell him to stay close to me for ten minutes. I'm not wrong anymore. But it was normal. They know that your IQ on a boat is divided by three: I am a fool during the first four weeks on board, but then I become one of the few to be able to suggest to others how to do it. And I am the only one to have changed furniture after ten years ".

We talked about his mother and his power. What should they do?
"Mom had done everything to send me to work as an electrician." He did not know the positive enhancement, on which my wife is on me. It was continuous "you will not do anything good, you are lazy at school". He never told me, "You are good".

Not even when he left for space?
"To reporters who asked her if she was proud, she replied," Yes, I am happy. But he was always a villain, he combined all the colors, came home with his broken pants … "".

He has become a mature scientist.
"I quarreled with the commission director, my teachers negotiated for a 38. At that time, I was really stuck: the family made me feel chained, so did the school. I started the engineering without conviction, I had to leverage and choose the military parachuting school in Pisa.In the most repressive place of the. army, I found myself very well and had a lot of challenges. "

He went to Lebanon and met Oriana Fallaci. He helped her fulfill her dream of becoming an astronaut. What was it for her?
"A complex thing – we had a multi-faceted, multi-faceted, sentimental and chameleon relationship, sometimes it became a mother-child relationship, the other, the other way around. a friend, a friend, she was very alone.

She was not an easy woman.
"I have never proved that she was right because she was Oriana Fallaci, as did the others." But we argued, okay, "C & # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # It was intriguing, challenging, volcanic, unmanageable, sometimes I wanted to throw it out the window. "

At one point, Oriana did not want to see her anymore.
"We had a common goal: for you the book inchallahfor me, my studies in New York. When I won the ESA contest in 1991 to train astronauts in Cologne, I had to leave New York. He said: if you leave this door, I do not know you anymore. I did not think it was serious. He never wanted to hear again. "

What did you feel when he disappeared in 2006?
"When I first went on mission to the ISS, a year later, I took away two poems that I had on board: I photographed them with Earth at the same time. 39; background ".

During the second mission, in 2011, her mother was missing.
"At the last videoconference, he said," I do not know if I can wait … "When your mother dies and you're so far away and you can not do anything , resize everything … "

What do you miss most in life in the space?
"The uniqueness and beauty of the lack of gravity. We, on Earth, always have the perception of our body. In orbit, however, the body takes on an incredible lightness: you are pure consciousness, you are the soul that looks like. This gives you a feeling of fullness and power. When you return to Earth you miss him right away, you seem chained, in prison.

Did you feel closer to God?
"I have a Catholic education, I can hardly say that God does not exist, but I am an engineer, and yet I can not reconcile the dichotomy between rationality and spirituality."

Let's go back to earthly things. The first shower after the return if we take advantage?
"As soon as you come back, getting up is a problem, only then do you understand why in the apartment where the astronauts live in quarantine, there are handrails …".

He traveled both on the shuttle and on the Soyuz. What is the best?
"The shuttle is on a human scale, the Soyuz missile: the Americans had designed it for crew and cargo travel, it was the Space Ferrari, but such a complex, expensive and dangerous vehicle had to be removed. The Russians wanted to use the Soyuz to launch the atomic bombs, and then they said, why do not we throw a man too? It's too bad that Jurij Gagarin was the size of a jockey. The Americans paid the Russians. "I'm very tall, my padding exposes me to a greater risk of breaking my spine."

Where do you sleep better? On Earth or in space?
"In Space, even though I'm one of the few, because you always feel like you're falling because of the speed: the Station travels 8 km / s Most astronauts take sleeping pills for six consecutive months I'll fall asleep after ten seconds. "

During the second mission, he requested a videoconference with the Pooh.
"I wanted Lady Gaga, but she was not available … My colleague Cady Coleman, an honest flutist, brought four flutes on board, including Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, and in Italy we joined them on stage. in a concert, they played the flute, I drummed, out of time. "

He did not make the exit in space.
"I'm still pissed off as a hyena, I've experienced it as a meanness.The excuse is that it would have been too expensive: setting up the combination would have required ten hours of work and the work of the 39, astronaut is priceless, it costs $ 100,000 an hour.The other two astronauts were already gone, it was not necessary to put back their suit.Every two weeks, I spoke to the psychologist we had and j & # 39; 39, was ready to work two more hours after dinner for the duration of the mission.Nothing.He saved me Game of thrones".

Favorite science fiction movie?
"foreign and 2001: The Space Odyssey".

Let's go back to where we started. If they were proposing to leave for Mars or the Moon?
"It's like asking a kid at the beach that he wants ice cream. I choose Mars."