NASA

NASA

NASA

NASA

NASA

NASA

NASA

NASA

NASA

NASA

NASA

nasa

Relatively speaking, it is not so hard to become an astronaut in the United States. During the last dozen years, NASA has selected a total of three classes, and conferred the coveted status of astronaut-candidate on 28 Americans. Meanwhile, since the turn of this century, the European Space Agency has chosen just a single class of astronauts—six men and women announced in 2009.

One of them was a Frenchman, Thomas Pesquet, from the small, coastal town of Dieppe in Normandy. And now, seven years later, he's on the cusp of flying into space. On Thursday at 3:20pm ET, he, along with NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and Oleg Novitskiy of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station for a six-month stay. The rookie will be among veterans, including Whitson, who will become the first woman to command the station twice.

To say Pesquet, 38, overcame long odds to reach the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, would put it lightly. The European Space Agency consists of 22 member states, with a combined population greater than the United States. So at most France, with a population of 66 million people, was going to get a single slot in 2009. And more than likely there wouldn't be another opportunity for Pesquet to apply while he was still young enough to be a credible candidate.

"Here in the United States you can get another chance," Pesquet told Ars in an interview earlier this year. "Some people apply five times before they get in. You cannot do that in Europe. You have one chance. Either you’re picked the first time, or 15 years later when there’s a second time, you’re too old. You don’t want to put too much pressure on yourself at the beginning of the selection, because if you look at the whole thing then chances are you’re going to freak out."

But Pesquet, the son of two teachers, did not freak out. As a child, the space shuttle had inspired him to become an aerospace engineer. In his free time he took up skydiving and later become a pilot for Air France. He found himself at the "right place, and the right time" during the application process.

"I realize that I ticked, if not all of the boxes, then most of the boxes," he said. "So I gave it a shot. You can imagine the day the selection comes out, the stakes are really, really high. Even now it’s a little bit scary at times. I think, isn’t there someone better than me? They should have someone better than me." On Thursday he gets to show the world why there wasn't.

Listing image by NASA