Chris Hadfield
Chris Hadfield
Chris Austin Hadfield OC OOnt MSC CDis a retired Canadian astronaut who was the first Canadian to walk in space. An engineer and former Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot, Hadfield has flown two space shuttle missions and served as commander of the International Space Station...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionAstronaut
Date of Birth29 August 1959
CitySarnia, Canada
CountryCanada
although bad grade great happen knowledge worst
Although simulators are great for building step-by-step knowledge of a procedure, the worst thing that can happen in a sim is that you get a bad grade on your performance.
carbon deal staying uses
It's a really big deal to do a spacewalk. It's much riskier than staying indoors. It's complex. It uses up a lot of the precious resources onboard. It uses up oxygen. It uses up carbon dioxide scrubbers.
almost based generally homes moderate occupied outer people places remarkable shape source suburb towns
It was remarkable to see from space how predictable people are. Our homes and towns are almost all in places with moderate temperatures, and they generally have the same shape - a thinly occupied outer blob of suburb surrounding a densely populated core, all based around a ready source of water.
looked time
I've been so lucky to have done two spacewalks. If you looked at your wristwatch, I was outside about 15 hours, which is about 10 times around the world. And, you know, there's a whole time dilation, distortion thing.
bag good happens horrible stay throw
Think about what happens on Earth when you throw up. You throw up and you have a bag of something horrible and then you throw it away, but if I have this bag, what am I going to do with it? This bag is going to stay with me in space for months, so we want a really good barf bag.
built everybody exactly letter worked
And then when we assembled it, the mechanism, which was built in Russia, just worked exactly like everybody said, so it was letter perfect.
half nine
As an astronaut, especially during launch, half of the risk of a six-month flight is in the first nine minutes.
bite craft floor russians stop tongue weighs
The Soyuz craft weighs tons, and you're lying on the floor of it on your back. But the Russians do tell you, remember, before you land, stop talking so you don't bite your tongue off.
constantly decided good maybe
There's always constantly interesting things to do, and who knows, maybe I will be a good sculptor. I haven't decided what I am going to do next, but I am not going to quit just because I did something interesting.
came contact direct growing observed raised three wired
I've raised three kids: my wife and I have three kids. I've observed through direct contact the adults they are now is partially the product of where they came from and what we did. With them growing up, but partially how they were wired at birth.
life possible
I've put a lot of my life into making it possible to fly in space at all.
existence glance holding known left phenomenal realise
Spacewalking trumps everything. Viscerally, it is a phenomenal place to be; to be able to glance right and see the world, glance left and see the universe, and realise for a moment that you're holding on to your known existence with one hand. That's the thing.
canadian invention
So without that Canadian invention we were grounded,
bring everywhere pen sign
Now, as an astronaut, I have to bring a Sharpie with me everywhere - so I have a pen to sign autographs.