Commander Chris Hadfield on Aliens, Thinking Like an Astronaut, and Sex in Space (Maybe)
Friday, November 08, 2013
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Col. Chris Hadfield, astronaut and now author of An
Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About
Ingenuity, Determination and Being Prepared for Anything (Little, Brown and Company, 2013), talks about his experiences in space and takes listener's questions.
Lots of Things You Always Wanted to Ask an Astronaut (And Got a Chance to Ask)
- Caller, 8 years old, asks: What does it feel like when you go into space? Chris Hadfield: It's very powerful, with lots of turbulence. Then engines shut off and you instantly float. "You would really like it."
- Caller asks: What's it like when you return to earth? Chris Hadfield says space travel changes the blood flow, and it took 2 weeks after returning to not feel dizzy, and 4 months before he could run again.
- Caller aks: What's an astronaut's take on alien life? Chris Hadfield: "I don't know of any astronauts who think we're alone in the universe."
- Brian asks: How do you think like an astronaut? Chris Hadfield says it's about how you confront and control your fear.
- Caller asks: Do astronauts become more or less religious when they go to space? Chris Hatfield: "It deepens whatever belief system got you there."
- Brian asks: Is it physically possible to have sex in zero gravity? Chris Hatfield: "Of course! Why not? It could be fun. But that's personal."
Excerpt: An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
Introduction
Mission Impossible
The windows of a spaceship casually frame miracles. Every 92 minutes,
another sunrise: a layer cake that starts with orange, then a thick
wedge of blue, then the richest, darkest icing decorated with stars. The
secret patterns of our planet are revealed: mountains bump up rudely
from orderly plains, forests are green gashes edged with snow, rivers
glint in the sunlight, twisting and turning like silvery worms.
Continents splay themselves out whole, surrounded by islands sprinkled
across the sea like delicate shards of shattered eggshells.Floating in the airlock before my first spacewalk, I knew I was on the verge of even rarer beauty. To drift outside, fully immersed in the spectacle of the universe while holding onto a spaceship orbiting Earth at 17,500 miles per hour—it was a moment I’d been dreaming of and working toward most of my life. But poised on the edge of the sublime, I faced a somewhat ridiculous dilemma: How best to get out there? The hatch was small and circular, but with all my tools strapped to my chest and a huge pack of oxygen tanks and electronics strapped onto my back, I was square. Square astronaut, round hole.
The cinematic moment I’d envisioned when I first became an astronaut, the one where the soundtrack swelled while I elegantly pushed off into the jet-black ink of infinite space, would not be happening. Instead, I’d have to wiggle out awkwardly and patiently, focused less on the magical than the mundane: trying to avoid snagging my spacesuit or getting snarled in my tether and presenting myself to the universe trussed up like a roped calf.
Gingerly, I pushed myself out headfirst to see the world in a way only a few dozen humans have, wearing a sturdy jetpack with its own thrusting system and joystick so that if all else failed, I could fire my thrusters, powered by a pressurized tank of nitrogen, and steer back to safety. A pinnacle of experience, an unexpected path.
Square astronaut, round hole. It’s the story of my life, really: trying to figure out how to get where I want to go when just getting out the door seems impossible. On paper, my career trajectory looks preordained: engineer, fighter pilot, test pilot, astronaut. Typical path for someone in this line of work, straight as a ruler. But that’s not how it really was. There were hairpin curves and dead ends all the way along. I wasn’t destined to be an astronaut. I had to turn myself into one.
From the book An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination and Being Prepared for Anything. Copyright (c) 2013 by Col. Chris Hadfield. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company. All rights reserved.
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