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Chris Hadfield
Dec. 7th, 2014 10:01 pmToday, for Judith's birthday treat, we went to see Canadian astronaut and former commander of the ISS, Chris Hadfield, talk.
She was utterly enthralled, but Andreas was overwhelmed by the crowds so neither Colin nor I saw the whole thing. She recommends that if you get the chance to hear him talk, you do, because he was very interesting.
There were slides and an interview and questions from the floor, and then singing.
He talked about how he became an astronaut (he decided at 9 when he saw men walk on the moon for the first time and worked hard on being the sort of person who makes a good astronaut - he says the things that make a good astronaut are having studied something intricate, to prove you can learn complicated things, being able to make difficult decisions (he suggested that test pilots, doctors and people in charge of financial decisions are good choices), being physically fit and being a well rounded person with interests other than space (he suggests playing guitar, for obvious reasons)). He talked about his missions, and key moments from the ISS (like the time he went blind while on a space walk and it turned out to be the demister in the helmet - so now they use Johnsons for the no tears formula instead of the stingy soap).
The pictures were gorgeous, and some of them really clear as well. The London one I saw at the observatory in Greenwich, where they pointed out where they were, it's really obvious! And I hadn't realised quite how far up the aurora go, he was talking about walking into the aurora australis!
The talk was really interesting too, and he was very lighthearted and humurous, with a dry wit even when talking about serious matters. Like, he was saying that the first few orbits of the earth you're looking for familiar physical landmarks. There's Hudson Bay, there's Perth, there's the Golden Gate bridge, there's Paris. But after that, you start looking and realising the unity of human civilisation and thinking in terms of unity rather than 'us and them'.
Judith's favourite bit was when he was talking about his first view of earth from space and how stunningly beautiful it is, which seems a fairly standard thing to say for those that have been in space; Colin's big boss finds every opportunity to turn the conversation that way, in my experience :)
She was utterly enthralled, but Andreas was overwhelmed by the crowds so neither Colin nor I saw the whole thing. She recommends that if you get the chance to hear him talk, you do, because he was very interesting.
There were slides and an interview and questions from the floor, and then singing.
He talked about how he became an astronaut (he decided at 9 when he saw men walk on the moon for the first time and worked hard on being the sort of person who makes a good astronaut - he says the things that make a good astronaut are having studied something intricate, to prove you can learn complicated things, being able to make difficult decisions (he suggested that test pilots, doctors and people in charge of financial decisions are good choices), being physically fit and being a well rounded person with interests other than space (he suggests playing guitar, for obvious reasons)). He talked about his missions, and key moments from the ISS (like the time he went blind while on a space walk and it turned out to be the demister in the helmet - so now they use Johnsons for the no tears formula instead of the stingy soap).
The pictures were gorgeous, and some of them really clear as well. The London one I saw at the observatory in Greenwich, where they pointed out where they were, it's really obvious! And I hadn't realised quite how far up the aurora go, he was talking about walking into the aurora australis!
The talk was really interesting too, and he was very lighthearted and humurous, with a dry wit even when talking about serious matters. Like, he was saying that the first few orbits of the earth you're looking for familiar physical landmarks. There's Hudson Bay, there's Perth, there's the Golden Gate bridge, there's Paris. But after that, you start looking and realising the unity of human civilisation and thinking in terms of unity rather than 'us and them'.
Judith's favourite bit was when he was talking about his first view of earth from space and how stunningly beautiful it is, which seems a fairly standard thing to say for those that have been in space; Colin's big boss finds every opportunity to turn the conversation that way, in my experience :)
