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
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.
half nine
As an astronaut, especially during launch, half of the risk of a six-month flight is in the first nine minutes.
ability ended proven providing raw record sort track worked
That's how we ended up providing those things, not by some sort of graciousness, but because of our raw ability and proven track record and they worked perfectly.
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.
shuttle space station stay time
When I did my spacewalks, it was during space station construction. So the shuttle was docked to the fledgling ISS at the time. So we would always stay tethered.
across banging fly hear heat pieces ride russian shield slowly sparks
In the Soyuz, the little Russian capsule, you can actually hear the banging of the big shield, the big heat shield on the bottom, as it slowly erodes away from the heat and pieces of it fly off like sparks across your window, and it's an interesting thing to ride through, you know.
airplane flying good learned pulling quickly time woke
I once made myself black out by pulling G too quickly while flying an F-18. Being unconscious in a single-seat airplane is not good. Fortunately, I woke up in time. I learned how to better plug-in my anti-G suit.
boy excited news nine time year
In the late '60s, I was seven, eight, nine years old, and what was going on in the news at that time that really excited a seven, eight, nine year old boy was the Space Race.
pilots next astronaut
"What's the next thing that's going to kill me?" is a mantra for pilots and astronauts.