In the 90s, kids across America proudly declared “astronaut” as their dream job. Space shuttle launches captivated our imagination, and bedroom ceilings glowed with stick-on stars. The glamour of space exploration filled science textbooks and Hollywood movies alike. What those starry-eyed children didn’t see was the brutal reality behind those heroic missions. While we admired their spacewalks and zero-gravity somersaults, space travelers faced challenges most of us never imagined.