posted 03-11-2020 08:41 PM               

The thrilling autobiography of the astronaut who inspired a generation.

"I looked down below my feet and suddenly noticed Australia flashing by. The vertigo hit me then. My gloved hands gripped the handrail as tightly as I could. I had been on my spacewalk for over an hour. I had trained for this moment for years. But nothing can prepare you for that feeling, for the full realisation that you are no longer living on Earth. Staring into the inky blackness, I felt completely isolated from everything and everyone I had ever known. And yet at the same time I could not help feeling a strange sense of belonging."

In fascinating and personal detail, and based on exclusive diaries and audio recordings from his mission, Tim Peake takes readers closer than ever before to experience what life in space is really like: the sacrifice that astronauts make in being apart from their families, the sights, the smells, the fear, the exhilaration and the deep and abiding wonder of the view from space. Limitless is a book about the power of following our — however unlikely they may seem — and of striving to reach our potential, even when we might not believe in it ourselves.

Limitless also charts Peake's surprising road to becoming an astronaut, from a shy and unassuming boy from Chichester who had a passion for flight, to a young British Army officer, Apache helicopter pilot, flight instructor and test pilot who served around the world. Peake's extensive eighteen-year career in the army included the command of a platoon of soldiers in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, deployment in Bosnia, and flying multiple high-risk sorties as a test pilot, including operations in Afghanistan. After he was selected by the European Space agency from over 8000 candidates, Peake undertook six years of training to be an astronaut, tested physically, psychologically, emotionally and intellectually — from learning Russian language in St. Petersburg to coping with the darkness and claustrophobia of living for days in caves in Sardinia and under the ocean off the United States.

• Hardcover: 336 pages
  
• Century (October 15, 2020)
  
• ISBN-10: 152912557X
  
• ISBN-13: 978-1529125573

posted 04-06-2021 11:12 AM            

It is a nice change for us Brits to be able to read of one of our own who has been in space. Only the delightful Helen Sharman had been there before and her written recollection was good as well. I am sure many of our overseas friends would enjoy this book too as it shows a slightly different way of becoming an astronaut and of the overcoming of so many obstacles, physical, mental and political, to achieve this aim.