Space is not the lonely place science fiction depicts, says someone who should know
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.'
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The Age
2 hours ago
- The Age
Hey, Torvill and Dean, remember the time I danced with you?
Fitz: What is it? Torvill: Bolero is obviously a very special routine because it opened the door for the future, and we wouldn't still be doing what we're doing without that. Fitz: So let's go back to the romance one! The personal chemistry and physical intimacy that you two display on ice as you dance is so wonderful; it dinkum is amazing that you can do it without ever having been a couple. Was there never a time, Chris, when you said to Jayne, surely, 'Let's go and see a film Saturday night?' And she said, 'No, forget it.' Dean: No, never like that. We have spent a lot of time together, seeing movies, going for drinks, and the theatre, all of those things. And of course, we've been together on many long tours, like when we were touring Australia for the first time. We were meant to be coming for just two weeks, but ended up staying for three months doing shows, and then stayed a further nine months putting a show together. So we were in Sydney area for almost a year, and we made lots of friends. Fitz: [ Painfully persisting ] So never in that year, two young English athletes a long way from home, did you exchange smouldering looks over your Vegemite on toast ... Torvill: No, our main focus was getting the work done. You know, we had just turned professional, and for us, it was an exciting time in that we weren't competing anymore and we didn't have any rules and regulations of competition. So, in fact, you know, we were free to be more creative, which is something that we've always enjoyed. Fitz: What about blues then? There must have come a time over the last 45 years when you two were dancing, when Chris lifted you up, Jayne, so you could do a twirly gig and the booger didn't catch you properly? Surely, there must have been times where, to use the Australian expression, you came an absolute cropper, occasioning strong words? Torvill: No. Lucky for us, we never did have any major falls in competition, which is what counts. Falls in training, you accept. But we trained so hard that to be ready for anything, that we didn't really make any mistakes. So, no 'blues'. Fitz: Moving on! By some reckoning, the pop group ABBA was said to be a bigger success in Australia, even than in Sweden. There was something about ABBA that Australia, more than pretty much any other country, loved. Is it possible that the same applies to you two, that Australia loves Torvill and Dean more than even Britain loves Torvill and Dean, and that we loved you more than anywhere else on Earth. Dean: Maybe. When we first came to Australia, it was such a surprise for us to be so welcomed. The Australian promoter had pre-booked the Russian Olympic figure-skating team, thinking that they would win everything at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, and they didn't. We did. And so the promoter said, 'We've got to get those bloody Poms down here.' And so within a very short time, somebody came over to see us and gave us a contract, and we came down to Australia and we were adored. I mean, they tell the story of when the tickets first went on sale, that the line instantly formed up right round the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Fitz: Which is very odd, yes? Because in Sydney, we're surfers, netballers, cricketers, footballers, but not really, as a people, ice skaters – with only a rink or two open on a good day? Dean: Yeah, I think what happened, Channel Nine were the host broadcasters at the Olympics, and we became very popular because they gave us a lot of air time. And we became the base of promoting the Winter Olympics in Australia. And, there were also a lot of British expats who took to us, right? Fitz: Whatever else, our love affair with you has been enduring. We also have a saying that a person has had 'more comebacks than Dame Nellie Melba', lately replaced by 'more farewell tours than Johnny Farnham'. Whoever, with you two, came up with the title for your tour, Our Last Dance, has to be commended, because it captures the imagination. But seriously, seriously, when you perform your last dance in Sydney [at Qudos on Sunday afternoon], when you come off the ice, is that really going to be it for you two? Your last dance? Dean: It will certainly be our last performance skating in Australia. But then we go back to Nottingham, our hometown, and we actually do four performances there, and then on the last day, that will be our last skating performance, live skating performance, that we will do. You know, we've been skating together now for 50 years, and we think that that's a good round number to sort of call it a day from the performing side. And the body is ready to say it's time as well. Fitz: But don't you think that five years from now, one of you might say, 'I'm in your town, I'm going to put on a red wig. You put on a blonde one, and I'll see you down at the rink, and just one last time in the moonlight, let's dance?' Torvill: It's not to say that we won't ever skate on the ice together, but we won't actually be performing together. So we may be together like choreographing or teaching somebody. We'll do other things together, but just not performing. This is it. Fitz: Chris? Don't you think that you might just do it one more time in the moonlight, when you're 80, one more time to capture the magic, one more time without anybody knowing, just the two of you? Dean: [ Thoughtfully ] I'm not saying that we won't do that ... but it's not something that we would show off to anybody ... It would be personal. Fitz: Bingo! Now, without being too mealy-mouthed about it, your dancing ability on ice must be comparable, in terms of how much it's celebrated, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Did you two ever watch footage of their dancing and swoon? T & D: Yes! Dean: They were very much a part of our viewing and we took a lot from them in their style and the movement and their performance quality. Yeah, absolutely, they were our idols. Fitz: You mentioned that you two have been doing it for 50 years. That means – dot three, carry one, subtract two – you must have started in the mid-70s. How much have your physical abilities waned? Are there many things you used to be able to do, that you simply cannot do now? Torvill: There are things that have got harder as we got older, and we're no longer 25, but we still feel that we can put on a show that we're happy with. And we've put it together with some amazing [younger] skaters from around the world. So we're really excited by the show, and the show itself tells a story, our story, right from the beginning, up until now. Loading Fitz: When Mick Jagger was 23 years old, he said, 'I hope I'm not still singing Can't Get No Satisfaction when I'm 30.' Could you two have conceived that you'd still be going 50 years later? And would you have been thrilled? Torvill: No and yes. We would never have imagined it would have been possible. Back then, when skaters turned professional, they would maybe do two years, three years in a professional show, and then, you know, sort of maybe go into teaching or just retire anyway. We've just been so lucky, with the way things happened for us that we were able to create several different tours, and then go back to the Olympics in '94 because that became a possibility, and that extended our professional careers. Dean: And then, in more recent times, television people came and said, would we be interested in teaching celebrities to skate? And that's when Dancing On Ice was born. And that extended us, too.
Sydney Morning Herald
2 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Hey, Torvill and Dean, remember the time I danced with you?
Fitz: What is it? Torvill: Bolero is obviously a very special routine because it opened the door for the future, and we wouldn't still be doing what we're doing without that. Fitz: So let's go back to the romance one! The personal chemistry and physical intimacy that you two display on ice as you dance is so wonderful; it dinkum is amazing that you can do it without ever having been a couple. Was there never a time, Chris, when you said to Jayne, surely, 'Let's go and see a film Saturday night?' And she said, 'No, forget it.' Dean: No, never like that. We have spent a lot of time together, seeing movies, going for drinks, and the theatre, all of those things. And of course, we've been together on many long tours, like when we were touring Australia for the first time. We were meant to be coming for just two weeks, but ended up staying for three months doing shows, and then stayed a further nine months putting a show together. So we were in Sydney area for almost a year, and we made lots of friends. Fitz: [ Painfully persisting ] So never in that year, two young English athletes a long way from home, did you exchange smouldering looks over your Vegemite on toast ... Torvill: No, our main focus was getting the work done. You know, we had just turned professional, and for us, it was an exciting time in that we weren't competing anymore and we didn't have any rules and regulations of competition. So, in fact, you know, we were free to be more creative, which is something that we've always enjoyed. Fitz: What about blues then? There must have come a time over the last 45 years when you two were dancing, when Chris lifted you up, Jayne, so you could do a twirly gig and the booger didn't catch you properly? Surely, there must have been times where, to use the Australian expression, you came an absolute cropper, occasioning strong words? Torvill: No. Lucky for us, we never did have any major falls in competition, which is what counts. Falls in training, you accept. But we trained so hard that to be ready for anything, that we didn't really make any mistakes. So, no 'blues'. Fitz: Moving on! By some reckoning, the pop group ABBA was said to be a bigger success in Australia, even than in Sweden. There was something about ABBA that Australia, more than pretty much any other country, loved. Is it possible that the same applies to you two, that Australia loves Torvill and Dean more than even Britain loves Torvill and Dean, and that we loved you more than anywhere else on Earth. Dean: Maybe. When we first came to Australia, it was such a surprise for us to be so welcomed. The Australian promoter had pre-booked the Russian Olympic figure-skating team, thinking that they would win everything at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, and they didn't. We did. And so the promoter said, 'We've got to get those bloody Poms down here.' And so within a very short time, somebody came over to see us and gave us a contract, and we came down to Australia and we were adored. I mean, they tell the story of when the tickets first went on sale, that the line instantly formed up right round the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Fitz: Which is very odd, yes? Because in Sydney, we're surfers, netballers, cricketers, footballers, but not really, as a people, ice skaters – with only a rink or two open on a good day? Dean: Yeah, I think what happened, Channel Nine were the host broadcasters at the Olympics, and we became very popular because they gave us a lot of air time. And we became the base of promoting the Winter Olympics in Australia. And, there were also a lot of British expats who took to us, right? Fitz: Whatever else, our love affair with you has been enduring. We also have a saying that a person has had 'more comebacks than Dame Nellie Melba', lately replaced by 'more farewell tours than Johnny Farnham'. Whoever, with you two, came up with the title for your tour, Our Last Dance, has to be commended, because it captures the imagination. But seriously, seriously, when you perform your last dance in Sydney [at Qudos on Sunday afternoon], when you come off the ice, is that really going to be it for you two? Your last dance? Dean: It will certainly be our last performance skating in Australia. But then we go back to Nottingham, our hometown, and we actually do four performances there, and then on the last day, that will be our last skating performance, live skating performance, that we will do. You know, we've been skating together now for 50 years, and we think that that's a good round number to sort of call it a day from the performing side. And the body is ready to say it's time as well. Fitz: But don't you think that five years from now, one of you might say, 'I'm in your town, I'm going to put on a red wig. You put on a blonde one, and I'll see you down at the rink, and just one last time in the moonlight, let's dance?' Torvill: It's not to say that we won't ever skate on the ice together, but we won't actually be performing together. So we may be together like choreographing or teaching somebody. We'll do other things together, but just not performing. This is it. Fitz: Chris? Don't you think that you might just do it one more time in the moonlight, when you're 80, one more time to capture the magic, one more time without anybody knowing, just the two of you? Dean: [ Thoughtfully ] I'm not saying that we won't do that ... but it's not something that we would show off to anybody ... It would be personal. Fitz: Bingo! Now, without being too mealy-mouthed about it, your dancing ability on ice must be comparable, in terms of how much it's celebrated, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Did you two ever watch footage of their dancing and swoon? T & D: Yes! Dean: They were very much a part of our viewing and we took a lot from them in their style and the movement and their performance quality. Yeah, absolutely, they were our idols. Fitz: You mentioned that you two have been doing it for 50 years. That means – dot three, carry one, subtract two – you must have started in the mid-70s. How much have your physical abilities waned? Are there many things you used to be able to do, that you simply cannot do now? Torvill: There are things that have got harder as we got older, and we're no longer 25, but we still feel that we can put on a show that we're happy with. And we've put it together with some amazing [younger] skaters from around the world. So we're really excited by the show, and the show itself tells a story, our story, right from the beginning, up until now. Loading Fitz: When Mick Jagger was 23 years old, he said, 'I hope I'm not still singing Can't Get No Satisfaction when I'm 30.' Could you two have conceived that you'd still be going 50 years later? And would you have been thrilled? Torvill: No and yes. We would never have imagined it would have been possible. Back then, when skaters turned professional, they would maybe do two years, three years in a professional show, and then, you know, sort of maybe go into teaching or just retire anyway. We've just been so lucky, with the way things happened for us that we were able to create several different tours, and then go back to the Olympics in '94 because that became a possibility, and that extended our professional careers. Dean: And then, in more recent times, television people came and said, would we be interested in teaching celebrities to skate? And that's when Dancing On Ice was born. And that extended us, too.
Sydney Morning Herald
19 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Words keep coming and they don't stop coming
Baby bump and Swiftie are in the dictionary, right? Um, not quite. Soon, but not yet. English evolves at warp speed now, boosted by social media's endless prose, seeing an archive like Collins barely finding time to add half-sibling or double-space, blastproof and compostable, only for newbies like warp speed and newbie to come knocking. Content creator is now a career, yet only recently made the database. Ditto for terabit (1000 gigabits) and dishwashing. Mid-strength and safe word, beach read and survivor guilt. The siege is relentless, as timezone (one word) and evote (no hyphen) clamour for inclusion. Hence my habit of loitering vestibules, those annexes linked to lexicons listing which words float in limbo, language midway between user-usage and publisher patronage. Some seem obvious, like old soul and outsiderism, slushie or reclick. Others like crickets (for a joke's silent response) or a dog's cone of shame are slang awaiting sanction. While another set is straight-out odd, like helixophile (a corkscrew collector) or hatfishing (wearing a hat in your Tinder pic.) Fusions reign, as usual. My fave is binfluencer, that neighbour who puts out their bins early, swaying everyone else's colour-coded array. Then there's sporror, a subgenre of horror writing centred around fungi, which feels too close to home. Meanwhile, exervious (a blend of excited and nervous) and todorrow (today-tomorrow) won't happen. Headlines can often summon new phrases, such as planet parade, Gulf of America and TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out. Sport can likewise keep the annex busy, the webpage receiving pine-time (minutes on the bench), scorpion kick, spoon bowl (battle for last place) and breadstick. Different from a bagel, where a player loses 0-6, a breadstick sees you go down 1-6. And yes, it can be used as a verb. Loading Sport and politics also mingle, notably in two more nominees. Gordie Howe, a Canadian great of ice-hockey, popularised 'Elbows out!' , shorthand for play hard. Since Trump's tariff splurge, the phrase has been a Canadian catchcry. Just as flood the zone – to overwhelm one part of the field with players – is now a civic ploy, where media are deliberately engulfed in so many new policies that none gain proper scrutiny. One Collins visitor adores Australian birds, insisting firetail and bronzewing find a nest. AlloyMiner, another contributor, digs South African words, from skabenga (hooligan) to moggy (irrational), zol (marijuana) and seshweshwe (printed cotton). The latter batch has enjoyed success too, as all four words were later enshrined in Oxford 's March intake.
