Samantha Cristoforetti maintains the record for the longest continuous mission by a European astronaut, but you might recognize her from another historical event.
She is the first member of the crew of the International Space Station to make a TikTok video (ISS). Cristoforetti has now become a social media celebrity, with millions of views on her clips.
Italy’s 1st female astronaut is assisting TikTok in reaching the last frontier on her second space mission.
Cristoforetti first went to orbit in 2014, lasting 199 days on board the International Space Station (ISS), breaking the longest continuous project in space by a woman at the time, which was later surpassed by Peggy Whitson in 2017 and Christina Koch in 2019.
In April 2022, the European Space Agency researcher landed on Earth in front of a swelling crowd.
On TikTok, one video dedicated to Douglas Adams, author of the landmark science fiction series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, has received over 17 million views.
Cristoforetti declares in the film that she is “a hoopy frood who already remembers where her robe is” – a well-known remark among Hitchhikers fans – while showing viewers how a damp towel reacts in low gravity.
Since her first trip into space, the Italian has already been cracking these jokes. Nasa’s 42nd voyage to the International Space Station was her first trip. There are no awards for guessing the topic, but the official image she shared may impress you.
Cristoforetti is presently part of the International Space Station as part of the Minerva mission, which was termed after the Roman goddess of learning and the arts to honor “the sophisticated workmanship of the men and women from all around the planet who make manned spaceflight achievable.”
She is part of a four-person crew that launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on April 27 aboard a SpaceX Spacecraft. They are the 4th SpaceX crew to visit the International Space Station.
Her TikTok video outlining the process from takeoff to establishing in at the ISS had 1.2 million views as of this writing.
