Commander Chris Hadfield
Desert Island Discs: Archive 2011-2015
In this episode, astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield discusses his extraordinary journey from a childhood inspired by Apollo 11 to commanding the
Key takeaways
- Chris Hadfield served as the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station.
- He describes the sensation of a spacewalk as being physically immersed in the universe's textures and blackness.
Main topics
- Space exploration and ISS life
- Test piloting and aviation danger
Notable quotes
To be juxtaposed in between the colors and unending textures and depth of the world itself, and then the blackness of space... you're just amazed to be.
Conclusion
The episode offers an inspiring look at how curiosity and discipline c
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast. For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio 4. Speaker 2 (0:33) My castaway this week is the astronaut, Commander Chris Hadfield. He is an elite test pilot and accomplished aeronautical engineer and one of very few people to have ever completed a spacewalk. But... Regardless of his impressive string of top flight achievements, the simple truth is you might know him best as the singing spaceman. More of that later. His story is the stuff of which movies are made. As a boy, he watched in wonder as Apollo 11 landed on the moon. And at the moment human history was made, little Chris resolved that one day he too would boldly go into space. At basic jet training in the delightfully named Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, he graduated top, but it was still a 12-year-long professional job. journey before he'd finally achieve his boyhood ambition. He would go on to be the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station and his achievements were recognised by having an airport, two schools and an asteroid named after him. He says, to drift outside fully immersed in the spectacle of the universe whilst holding onto a spaceship orbiting Earth at 17,500 miles an hour was a moment I'd been dreaming of and working hard towards. most of my life. And so, welcome, Chris Hadfield. You know what it's like. Can you try to explain to us what it's like then to be in that situation, to be immersed in the spectacle of the universe? Speaker 1 (1:55) It's magnificent being inside the spaceship and looking out and wander through the windows. But to go outside on a spacewalk, it's actually physically, with just your two gloved hands, pull yourself out of the ship and out into the universe. And to now be able to look under your feet and have the universe go endlessly in all directions around you is a brand new perspective. And it's a wondrous one. Speaker 2 (2:23) The many years that we're all aware that it takes to get a man or woman into that situation, does all of the intense training, the knowledge, the science melt away at that point? Speaker 1 (2:32) Sure. Everything that got you there just sort of washes away. And it stops thought. To be juxtaposed in between the colors and unending textures and depth of the world itself, and then the blackness of space, and to be between the two of them, in the two of them, and as a separate human entity. Yeah, you don't think about how you got there. You're just amazed to be. Speaker 2 (3:00) You spent Christmas 2012, I think, aboard the International Space Station. I did. And people around the world will be listening to this as they are celebrating Christmas. What sort of Christmas did you have there? Speaker 1 (3:12) We have a guitar up on the space station, and there were several musicians on board. So we played Russian Christmas songs and Canadian Christmas songs and American Christmas songs. We had stockings that we hung with care. We had Christmas hats. We had a small Christmas tree. We hung it inverted from the ceiling just because we could. And we had gifts. We even had a Christmas dinner together. Speaker 2 (3:34) Yeah, that was, of course, my next question. And being British, I was thinking about the chaos of Christmas gravy. I mean, what did you have for Christmas Speaker 1 (3:39) dinner? Well, unfortunately, everything is prepackaged and they're all in individual green packets. And the trouble with being weightless is you don't have plates at all because plates don't make any sense without gravity. So you open your packet of potatoes and you eat all of your mashed potatoes. And then you open your packet of turkey and you eat all of your turkey. But it made for a wonderful Christmas, and especially singing some carols afterwards. Speaker 2 (4:06) Is there lots of music when you're up there? Are you listening to music a lot? Speaker 1 (4:09) Well, most of what you do on a ship nobody sees, which is running all the experiments on board. And a lot of them you're tied in with scientists and researchers on the ground. So it's very technical, and it's more like a big laboratory. So the music is normally private. Or when we're having a get-together, either we would play music. There's a pretty good music library up there. or someone would take the guitar and just play a song or two. Speaker 2 (4:32) So, Chris, tell me about your first choice this morning, then. What are we going to hear? Speaker 1 (4:35) Just prior to my second space flight, after we had put on our spacesuits and we were about to walk out to the space shuttle Endeavour to leave Earth, Yuri Lanchikov, who was one of the cosmonauts that was on our crew, there's a guitar in quarantine that always stays there that all the cosmonauts and astronauts have signed. And while he was fully suited, he grabbed that guitar and played a little Russian song. And he passed the guitar to me because he and I had played music for years together. And the song that I chose to play was one about exploration and how you're there for good reasons, but you're also looking forward to the day that you return. And the song that best expressed that to me is by a great Canadian songwriter and folk singer named Stan Rogers called Take It From Day to Day. Well, it's Speaker 3 (5:22) not the hours of watch on watch, and it's not the work that I mind so much, or the long cold miles from my lover's touch, though for sure she's far away. No stranger I to the touch of steel, or the honest fear any man can feel. But I long for dust under my heels and a pocket full of pay. So I'll take it from day to day. Speaker 3 (5:55) That was Stan Speaker 2 (5:56) Rogers in Take It From Day to Day, and you said that as you played before you blasted off on a mission. Is it hard to play a guitar in a space suit? Speaker 1 (6:02) It is. It's cumbersome. It's not good for the guitar either. All the little metal bits leave gouges in your guitar, so I wouldn't recommend it on stage, no. You Speaker 2 (6:10) are a highly accomplished professional, but I think it would be fair to say that you came to global recognition when the version that you did in space of David Bowie's Space Oddity... went viral. Millions of people saw that online. And as a result, you became this sort of space superstar. And you also entered into these Q &As from space. Why is it important for you to popularize Speaker 1 (6:32) space in that way? I think I feel it as a responsibility. I count myself so enormously lucky to have been one of the few people to leave Earth so far. And I run into people all the time, everywhere, every day, who... would love to have had a chance just to glimpse the stuff that I've had a chance to see. And they tell me about it all the time. How could you not want to share that brand new, extremely hard-earned perception and understanding of the world? Speaker 2 (7:02) Will you share with us some of the pre-flight rituals in the last couple of hours before you prepare to take off? What must you do and what must you do personally? Speaker 1 (7:12) Some of them are less desirable than others. You, of course, you don't want to bring anything unhealthy up to the spaceship. So just prior to putting on your spacesuit on my third flight in Russia, they rub your entire body down with rubbing alcohol, which in Russia in the winter is not that pleasant an experience, especially someone you hardly know. And you have to give yourself two enemas before you go, which doesn't seem like... the glorious send-off you'd been picturing since childhood of what the flight was going to be like. And the very first person to leave Earth, Yuri Gagarin, got on the bus, drove out, and realized partway out that no one had reminded him he should go to the bathroom before he launches. So he had the bus stop as soon as they got to a fairly private place on the way out to the rocket.