Chris Hadfield

It’s 0140 so just a quick one tonight which won’t be lucid, which no one will read and which won’t be relevant in a few hours time. However....

Today Chris Hadfield returns to Earth. He is set to land at around 3.30am in the Kazakh steppes. But his return needs to be seen in light of two things:

1. What he has done for the public appreciation of space exploration

I have wanted to be an astronaut ever since I first visited the Kennedy Space Center as a young boy. I never will be because of my asthma (and many other reasons!) but it is a dream I’ve always wanted to fulfil. Chris Hadfield has enabled me and lots of other dreamers to at least experience a part of that way of life through his social media presence, most notably through Twitter and the amazing pictures he has sent back. These have given people with big dreams and other with no previous interest in space a whole new view of this planet and even the countries, cities and neighbourhoods in which they live.

More than that, through conducting chats via webcam with school kids, Chris has helped a new generation look upwards and begin to think about the amazing Universe which they are a part of. If they even just take a casual interest in astronomy off the back of that then it is worth it. Hadfield also can now claim the first music video shot in space, which I’m sure you’ve all seen.

I’m very grateful for all of these efforts, which don’t even include the important experiments Hadfield and others have been doing on the ISS to further our understanding of space and the possibility of future manned and unmanned exploration of the heavens.

2. The tremendous undertaking of space travel

Every so often I go over the Wikipedia entries for men like Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong etc and reflect on the great things they did. However, it must not be forgotten that behind their efforts lie years of research into understanding what those men face whilst in space. That research has, of course, continued, leading to the development of structures such as Skylab, Mir and now the International Space Station. It created the Space Shuttle and the Soyuz programme and now must work towards successor models and future missions.

Ultimately, all this hard work means that Chris Hadfield and two colleagues are now in a spacecraft that will break through the atmosphere at 20,000 km/hr and slow through resistance (creating tremendous temperatures) and a couple of parachutes, before touching down. That alone is a testament to the quality of the science and development going on, and also shows the amazing endurance of the men and women who go to the ISS each year.

I am grateful for all those involved, both on Earth and in space, and I am RIDICULOUSLY jealous of all of them.

Debate warmly encouraged