Space is not the lonely place science fiction depicts, says someone who should know

The Age

27-05-2025

Chris Hadfield was nine when Neil Armstrong took his one small step for (a) man. Watching the astronauts from his small town in southern Ontario, he decided what to do with the rest of his life. But where many starry-eyed youngsters harbour similarly grandiose ambitions, little Chris got to work.
'I started making decisions when I was nine years old to try and turn myself into an adult that could do those things. I learned to swim. I thought about what food I ate. I made sure I kept my body in shape. I joined the Air Cadets so they would teach me how to fly. I studied so I could go to university.'
There were significant obstacles along the way, not least the fact that Canada didn't have a space program. But Hadfield emphasises that he didn't hope to become an astronaut.
''I want to' or 'I dream to,' that's not nearly enough. You have to decide to. I dream of winning an Olympic gold medal, but obviously I haven't decided to because I never really worked at it. I'm not going to win an Olympic gold medal unless they give one for laziness and procrastination.'
He's speaking from his cottage on an island not 200 metres from where he made the decision that would define the course of his life. Yes, he might have spent 165 days in space and travelled all over the world in the most literal sense, but these days he has returned to the place where it all began.
Not that he doesn't travel. He's about to tour Australia with a new live show in which he recalls his adventures in space, answers audience questions and performs music live. In 2013 Hadfield became the friendly face of off-earth travel when his cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity – performed onboard the International Space Station – became a viral hit the world over.
The novelty of the music video doesn't reflect his serious accomplishments, however. He was the first Canadian commander of the ISS, and notched up a total of 14 hours and 50 minutes of extravehicular activity (that's spacewalking to us earthbound types). He retired in 2013 but has maintained an active role as a writer, speaker and adviser.
The young Hadfield decided to become a space traveller, but the 65-year-old today notes that he never made the achievement of that goal a measure of self-worth or success. 'I thought, there's a lot of forces beyond my control. Most of them. But I'm going to work really hard on the ones I can control. If I do my part right, and I get some luck, then I will have a chance of flying in space ... I got to fly in space three times. If I hadn't flown in space, I never would have thought of myself as a failure or as somehow cheated. It just helped me make all of the little decisions on a daily basis as to what to do next. '
That meant following in the footsteps of his heroes. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins were all engineers, so he earned an engineering degree. They were pilots, so he became one too, and then he climbed the ranks to fighter pilot and test pilot. 'Neil and Mike and Buzz were all test pilots. That's like a PhD in flying. I could have been a test pilot for the rest of my life.'
Hadfield speaks with the confidence and conviction you'd expect of someone who possesses the right stuff to make it to space. During his first spacewalk, a visor malfunction temporarily blinded him. Most of us would probably panic if things went wrong 400 kilometres above the Earth with just a few centimetres of plastic between you and the void. It's hard to imagine Hadfield losing his cool.
TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO CHRIS HADFIELD
Worst habit? Not knowing the difference between work and play.
Greatest fear? The untimely death of my children or grandchildren.
The line that stayed with you? When I did my third space flight, my dad said: 'Trust yourself. You've done the work. You're going to have to make decisions without being able to ask anybody else, that have life or death consequences. But you're not doing it frivolously. You've built yourself the capability and right to do those things, so trust yourself.'
Biggest regret? I don't live a life of regret. I spend life looking forwards, and I try and forgive myself and other people as often as I can.
Favourite book? Carrying the Fire, by Mike Collins. He was the guy who orbited the moon while Neil and Buzz walked on the surface.
The artwork/song you wish was yours? Almost every song I hear. Especially the simple ones, right? It's like, 'How come I didn't write that?'
If you could time travel, where would you choose to go? If I could truly time travel, I would be a frequent flyer. I don't want to just go live somewhere else. But I would love to go back to some of the great significant moments in history. Wouldn't it be great to spend a day at the Colosseum in Rome? Just put on the toga, and somehow materialise and go to an event for the day, and then come back to 2025.
'Panic is like extreme fear. There's a hyena in front of you with its jaws open? You need to get adrenaline into your veins, and you need to run faster than you've ever run in your life. I try to avoid that ever happening. In my life as a fighter pilot and test pilot there were all kinds of hyenas with their jaws open, figuratively. All kinds of dangers that reared their head instantaneously, but most of them are foreseeable. I'm going to use the quiet times to prepare myself so that I don't have to be afraid, and I sure don't want to panic.'
That mindset is something that astronauts share. 'You choose people that have quite a large skill set, but also the right mentality and the right sense of humility and purposefulness. The filter that chooses astronauts tends to spit out the same type of person, no matter what country they're from. There's a great commonality when you get together as a group of astronauts.'
It's reassuring to hear that the pettiness of politics is mostly confined to our planet. When you're travelling at 28,000km/h with people from all over the world, it brings you up to speed on what we have in common.
'You're over Ukraine, and you can look down at the worst of human behaviour, of violence and death and murder sanctioned at the national scale. But 10 minutes later, you're over farmers' fields ... You come around the world, and it puts things into perspective for you, that there are wicked things happening, but the vast majority of what's happening is just people living their lives. And they want the same things, no matter what country they're in.'
Our earthly laws don't even apply in space. The ISS follows the International Crew Code of Conduct, designed to ensure that the squabbles and resentments of nations don't make it past the airlock. 'I think there's a real beauty in that. It's not just technical exploration or scientific experiment. It's also a geopolitical experiment.'
It's an experiment that Hadfield thinks will only grow in importance as more nations launch their own space programs and private corporations do the same. 'As we start settling on the moon, whose laws will apply? Will we take the International Crew Code of Conduct and make that the law of the land? Or will we import a little China and a little America and a little India and just transplant that onto the moon?'
It's apparent that Hadfield doesn't have much time for the 'incredibly stupid stuff' that can take place on Earth. But his time among the stars also reminded him that 'we're incredibly imperfect, yet we've still carved the Venus de Milo and built Angkor Wat and we revere Uluru. We built a space station where we've been working peacefully for 25 years.'
There's an irony to the song that first brought Hadfield into many of our lives. Where Bowie lamented that 'planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do,' Hadfield says that floating in a tin-can is the antithesis of a bummer.
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'The biggest misconception is that people think it's lonely. It's often a metaphor for loneliness. If you watch movies like First Man or Ad Astra, those movies are so sad and grim, and everybody's glum. Or the series that Sean Penn was in, The First, everybody's just so unhappy,' he says.
'But it's completely the opposite. It's magnificent. You're weightless. You have a superpower. You can fly. It's the coolest. And the whole world is pouring by out your window.'