• Zachariah@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    The job offer was brutal. It required being locked up for months in a claustrophobic enclosure with no possibility of escape, with only purified urine from other people to drink and with the obligation to act as a human guinea pig in invasive experiments. The risk of death was high. One in 35 workers died beforehand in the attempt. Despite all this, almost 23,000 applicants with astonishing CVs applied, of whom only 17 passed the inflexible tests to become an astronaut for the European Space Agency (ESA) and join “the greatest adventure in humanity”: a trip to the International Space Station with a view to future manned missions to the Moon. The Spaniard Sara García, 35, is one of the chosen few. On October 28, she began her training with one basic objective: to learn how not to die.