His childhood, his loves, his passions. Trusts of Thomas Peske

Thomas Peske is not a star like others. He is not late yet. Our appointment was scheduled for 9:30, right on time. “Astronaut’s punctuality,” sums up his press officer (the rocket launch can’t wait, we read in the context). Nor is his arrival preceded by a ballet of individuals waving and hoping that, therefore, they will probably attend to the smallest details of his arrival. No, the French astronaut appears alone, and the first attention is drawn to his figure. He is officially 1.84m tall and weighs 78kg, but on this rainy Friday morning he looks like a colossus. His heavy blue gaze, slowly drifting from left to right, almost suggests a look of dread at the idea of ​​entering a new and potentially dangerous world: a women’s magazine.

Thomas Pesquet saw others. At the age of 45, he has already gone into space twice, first for Russia’s Soyuz program in 2016 and then for America’s SpaceX in 2021. Thus, he became the youngest Frenchman sent to the stars (38 years old on his first mission), but also the only one to take charge of a spacecraft. In total, he spent almost 400 days on the International Space Station (ISS), orbiting 400 km from Earth at a speed of 28,000 km/h and enjoying sixteen sunrises and sunsets every day at this insane speed of the sun. An extraordinary experience, which he recounts in his biography, My life without gravity (Éditions Flammarion), and which reasonably allows him to believe that by 2030 he will be part of one of the crews sent to conquer the Moon.

Now 2.5 million people follow the Norman astronaut on Instagram, he is considered a superman, he is considered a national hero. He can no longer go out without being asked for a selfie, he has to reserve tables in a restaurant out of sight… If he has pissed off more than one person by marketing his first mission a little too much (his juggling exercise with Macaroni Pierre Hermé is the most famous example), Thomas Pesquet remains the one who democratized space in France (after his senior astrophysicist Hubert Reeves) and who made children want to explore the galactic world. For him, however, the title came rather late.

The son of a school teacher and a math professor, young Ruene wanted to be a fighter pilot or a professional basketball player. His brilliant school reports led him to prepare for maths sup/maths spé and then to Supaéro, the prestigious higher institute of aeronautics and space in Toulouse, where he obtained his engineering diploma. A few years later, when he was an airline pilot with Air France, a friend told him that the European Space Agency (ESA) was about to launch its first recruitment of astronauts since 1992. In addition to essential and highly technical skills, the Agency specifies several personality traits required: “strong motivation, flexibility, natural empathy, team spirit and emotional balance.” Thomas Pesquet is 30 years old and hesitates to register, fearing that the competition will be too difficult. No. He will be among the four candidates selected from 8413 applications.

“To the true star that guided my steps»

On the day of our interview, despite his impressive CV and powerful biceps, he did his best to appear… normal. He wears jeans and black Nike Air Jordans, drinks coffee in the car, speaks in simple terms, even laughs at lame jokes. We read that he never got angry. She is no more nervous than in front of the great designer wardrobe that our stylist has carefully assembled for her for our photo shoot.

Alice Winokur, director Proxima, in the space fiction film, with Thomas Pesquet acting as advisors, it is said that it is a common trait among astronauts that “few things impress them”. Everyone has their flaws, of course. He admits to us that, for example, he was never used to the journeys in the machine, in the diving suit into the abyss, in the 120°C sun and -150°C shade, during which the astronauts’ only connection to humanity is a tether attached to their suit.

He also talks about the overwhelming feeling they all have when they first see the Earth from space, round and whole;hint effect almost systematically, the extreme fragility of our planet will suddenly dawn on astronauts. But the astronaut is not only impressed by the atmosphere. If his constants run in weightlessness, his heart also beats wildly for his wife Anna. He dedicates his book to her. “To the true star who guided my steps to infinity and beyond.”

Thomas Peske is a romantic (and a fan History of the toy , visibly). The declaration is addressed to someone he knew during his last year in Dieppe, “a short-haired brunette with big Disney princess eyes,” with whom he still seems in love. Their couple could not resist. To signal their ambitions, first, Thomas is a star astronaut at ESA, but Ann is a doctor at the UN Agrosystems. And then, at the distance characteristic of their two functions. He travels the world to improve agricultural technology. when he’s not on a mission in space, he goes from training centers to hone his skills to science courses dedicated to the next potential missions (he just swallowed three weeks of geology to learn which rocks to collect on the moon…). all interspersed with two hours of daily sports (hence the structure). Fittingly, this leaves little time for any hope of building a life together. We can no longer count the times when the media asked her why she doesn’t have children. Always a very polite response from the person concerned. “Because all responsibility for this child would fall solely on my partner.” In fact, the question tires him… Because it’s off topic, maybe?

“Is your wetsuit waterproof?»

Thomas Peske never talks about his personal life, but as if to answer the most curious fans once and for all, he carefully touches on it in his work. He writes that when he first took off from Baikonur space, a Russian enclave lost deep in Kazakhstan, he was carrying only one personal item, a sticky note on his chest: a silver star at the end of the chain, which. he would offer Anna “a star…returned from the stars” six months later.

After returning from the ISS in 2016, his partner wished he never left. Seeing him fly into the flames, after the excruciating countdown, remains a “trauma” for him. The cosmonaut writes it on the first page of his book: “At the moment of the shot, I tell myself that no matter what happens with my loved ones from now on, I will not be next to anyone… No family or personal event can. excuse me for returning before the end of these six months. He also leaves behind his beloved mother on earth, who cannot hold back her tears. For this very protective woman, who slept on the mattress in front of her two boys’ room as a child, becoming an astronaut is surely the worst choice her youngest son (Baptiste, the eldest, is a teacher – traces of his parents) could have made. “Is your wetsuit waterproof?” was the last thing he said to her nervously before he left in 2016.

Thomas Pesquet is no stranger to the latest trends, but seeing him step out of his dressing room this fall morning, everyone agrees that the extra-long white wool trench fits him like a glove. Someone might have doubted it, but he is especially calm in front of the lens, surrounded by about ten people. He is especially interested in the work of a photographer. He himself took hundreds of thousands of photographs from space, sitting in the dome, through the panoramic window of the ISS, revealing the great beauty of our planet (the curvature of the Earth in the early morning, Singapore and its night squid fishermen, the paradise islands of the Bahamas) as well as its fragility (the devastating fires of California, sandstorms in the Gobi desert, deforestation in the Amazon, etc.).

His most impressive photos are collected in the album, Earth in our hands (Ed. Flammarion), making him a privileged witness to the consequences of climate change and, moreover, a leading defender of the environment. By now, the stylist, white shirt in hand, beckons him back to the dressing room to change his shirt before the second round of photos. But Thomas Pesquet instinctively stays on set to take off his gray cashmere sweater, exposing his sporty back to his audience, who didn’t have time to glance.