If you have read Scott Kelly's "Endurance", prior to this "Limitless", then I bet you would be left to compare which one fared better in terms of achievement and narration around an astronaut's life. Scott overcame several hurdles including his own health and spent more than a year in space, while Tim mentions more of hard work and luck.
Tim definitely went through his challenges, had his doubts, and fought for what he wanted. The repeating narration of several sorties and the description of those places and flights simply might look like you are reading a diary of flight personnel. The book made me go slow on reading these and at one stage I stopped reading completely because it appeared more of military or army missions than any challenge related to space or science. He mentions a lot of traveling, going on endless courses, and playing many pranks, which usually would not evince interest in readers of science. It appeared like an account of a military man showing his durability with missions and moving effortlessly towards every objective put forth by the army of his superiors. His experience with Parachutes on ice, (one at 125 mph and about 14000 ft) and jumping along with synchronized maneuvers is a bit thrilling and his description of small sorties, particularly with Apache helicopters, take up enough space. Something to learn was the smell of the helicopters, which were always metallic, and the dead man's curve - a graph specific to each type of helicopter.
That the military has the balance of seriousness literal life and death but also allows one to have a good group to back you up and reckon life with. However, it is noteworthy that he spent 18 years in the military, constantly thriving and looking for opportunities to push himself before it occurred to him that he could apply for astronaut training.
After 'fast reading' a few chapters, I found some interest in the last section of his book. The selection from among over two thousand applicants for the post of five astronauts and subsequent interviews at various geographical locations were the only challenges for him. Because ESA has its offices all over Europe, every other round was in some different location. Being an English, he writes, there was no big ordeal in attending those interviews. But he does describe the efforts he had to put in more so because at some point the UK was not interested in sending its citizen to space. At this point of time, he had to take up canvassing for space travel with various government and political officials and organisations. He had a tough time convincing these officials as to why space travel and research were important. Finally, after months of hard toiling, the participation of the UK in the ESA's mission was confirmed.
He spent five years in training, learning how to cope with G-force and zero-gravity living; the rudiments of the spacewalk; and how to live in isolation with his future crewmates, including the American Tim Kopra and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko - with whom his mission was planned. This followed several tests related to his body (health) and the interesting one, that frustrated him, was clipping the ear to get a blood sample for lactic acid analysis. Passing by, he writes about Scott Kelly and the NEMO missions too. He mentions a sharp analytical mind along with a well-known sense of humor as a key factor for his selection.
At some point, he mentions that he would have been there with Sarah Brightman which made him feel dejected because it was thought that her name might fetch some funds for the project - with a reference to a space tourist as he mentions Anousheh Ansari. The ESA mission he flew was named after Newton's seminal work 'Principia'.
When you were being taught how to do a section attack you were deliberately overloaded with information so that something would be bound to go wrong. That sums up his endeavor with the selection and meeting the mission.
Finally, the ordeals with the Russian rituals do come up in his writing where he mentions the compulsory possession of coins pressed by trains during the journey from the base camp to the launch pad. And the pissing over the left rear-tyre of the transport vehicle which brought 'good luck' to Yuri Gagarin just makes you wonder how much superstition still is a challenge with the scientists. His launch account is interesting and as soon as he reached space he praises the experience of life and narrates the ordeal he went through after tweeting about a wrong call he made to his sister from there.
Very enthusiastically he talks about the spacesuits and the space-walks, one of which was abandoned as a huge water bubble lurked suddenly in the helmet of another astronaut who was with him. He describes the Soyuz landing as somebody hitting you with the baseball bat after you are tied to a metal chair. There were ups and downs on his return. He got vertigo in the shower after return (something to do with the water rushing past his ears) and readjusted to the constant wearying pull of the Earth.
During his stay, he writes, a staggering 33 million people were engaged with this mission and about 2 million children took up projects. That is a huge data! This is probably the first book that crossed the Pandemic of 2020 while writing. He mentions this dark onset very casually.
A quote from his book: Be ready for life never to be same again - Frank De Winne
