Samantha Cristoforetti is an Italian European Space Agency astronaut, Air Force pilot and engineer. She holds the record for the longest uninterrupted spaceflight of a European astronaut (199 days and 16 hours).
Cristoforetti rocks. . . being awesome is part of the job. . . She belongs to a new category of astronauts who are just as adept at posting a witty Facebook post as they are at performing a science experiment in minimal gravity * Wired * Fantastic. . . for anyone who has any interest in space exploration whatsoever -- Robin Ince Samantha Cristoforetti is remarkable. . . a brilliant book -- Jeremy Vine * BBC Radio 2 * From the mundane to the sublime in a second. . . full of illuminating observations from what Cristoforetti calls the 'cosmic perspective ' * Guardian *