interview chris hadfield
Astronaut Chris Hadfield chats to All About Space about what really happened on board the International Space Station and life after space
The retired astronaut talks exclusively about life after space
Your first time in space was on board the
STS-74 mission. Could you explain what it’s like being on a Space Shuttle leaving Earth?
It starts years in advance to that moment of course. I decided to be an astronaut when I was nine years old, and it was 26 years later I was on board a spaceship. So it’s a continuation of an immense amount of lifetime work, but you also recognise that today is the major event. You know you’re doing something extremely dangerous too. We know that the odds of not making it to orbit that day were about one in 38. So you’re facing up to something with tremendous risk, but you’re also immensely prepared already, because of a lifetime of work. So you’re not at all irrationally scared; you’re properly respectful, ready, competent and eager to go.
In fact, your biggest concern isn’t the worry about the spaceship – your main worry is that they’re not going to let you go. We were supposed to go 11 November 1995; it was a beautiful day in Florida, but we didn’t have an overseas abort site in Africa, Spain or France. So we had to abort on the 11th, making the 12th our second try.
You’re wearing clothing designed after the Challenger accident. These are big, heavy, protected, pressurised suits called the Launch Entry Suit, and it’s orange, so we also called it the Pumpkin Suit.
You’ve gone through all of the work, and you’ve ridden up to the vehicle and you’re lying on your back in the spaceship. A team of people have made sure you have all the right gear, and you’re strapped in with a five-point harness. You’re going through all the checks and you’re excited but focused. So it’s like the hardest test you’ve ever written, and you think you know the answers to every question.
You don’t actually let yourself count on going, as you’re still very much expecting that one of the thousands of things that will keep you from going is going to happen, and they [mission control] are going to say “not today”. But with every tick of the clock, the probability of actually going improves. So your anticipatory excitement is climbing, and you get to five minutes before – you’re in the final count – you start to let yourself go, “Wow! We’re really going to go today!”
Some 30 seconds prior to launch the vehicle takes over from the ground launch sequencer and is autonomously getting ready to launch itself into space. Then, six seconds before launch, the engines start to light, so you’re watching things like a hawk. Then at T-0 [moment of launch], the two solids light and you suddenly have an irresistible amount of force, and the vibration is huge.
It takes four people to fly a space shuttle, so the four of you on the flight deck are doing all your various tasks. The vehicle then rolls to align itself from the orientation of the launch pad to the orientation of your flight [to the destination]. So we rolled, and then I noticed about a little over a minute into the flight that my face was hurting. It was way in the periphery of my perception. Finally, when I had a free moment in my head, I wondered, “why is my face hurting?” I realised it was because I was smiling so broadly that my cheeks were cramping up!
So you’re all watching everything, and after two minutes, the solids have done their job and got you above the air and they start to tail off. The mantra that’s going through your head the entire time is, “What’s the next thing that’s going to kill me? What’s it going to look like?”
It’s not a negative thing; it’s positive because it keeps you focused. The solids explode off and it’s nice to be rid of them because they’re big, rough and primitive. So you’re up about 160,000 feet and going six-times the speed of sound and they tumble down to the ocean.
At eight minutes and 40 seconds or so after an incredibly intense ride, we can put the throttles to idle. The engines are shut off, we manually check everything and we have just stopped being a rocket ship and started to turn ourselves into a spaceship.
At the end of it, you’ve got all sorts of stuff to do, as you’ve got immediate tasks to do. However, there’s a great sense of relief because you’re there, and no one could ever take that away from you. You’ve made it, and all of the training paid off.
Would you say, because that was your first time going into space, that was the hardest, or most emotional mission for you out of all the missions you have completed?
No, neither. The complexity doesn’t decrease; your awareness of it increases. They were all equally hard. And Emotionally? No.
I think the first flight, you don’t know what to expect as much on the second or third subsequent launches, so I think you appreciate the second and third ones more. It’s like saying: do you appreciate your second visit to the Mona Lisa more than the first? You might appreciate the second one more, especially because you know what to look for. You see the nuance of it, and see the real beauty and amazing parts of it.
This is a career with thousands of applicants each year. What do you think are the fundamental characteristics needed for someone to become a successful astronaut?
Some of the simple things are an outrageously healthy body, because you have to be able to pass the hardest physical in the world to be deemed safe to send to the space station, and the second is a proven ability to learn complicated things. We tend to choose folks who have an advanced university degree, because if you have a PhD in polymer chemistry, then you’ve shown you can learn complicated things.
The third is a proven ability to make good decisions when the irreversible consequences are high. So how do you choose someone who has shown that they’re not only a healthy student, but also someone who can react appropriately and make good calls in a highly stressful, highthreat environment.
But, that just gets you down to the hundreds of applicants, and then you’re looking for life experiences. After that there are some of the subtle aptitudes, such as three dimensional visualisation and mental acuity.
Then, to a large part, is psychology: what type of person are they? Is this someone I’d want to fly in space with? Would I trust this person with my life? And would I want to be on board a spaceship for six months with them? So that’s the list of things we’re looking for.
What’s the most dangerous situation you’ve been put in as an astronaut?
Launch. Launch by far. For example, Peggy Whitson holds the all-time record for American space flight. She’s the most experienced American astronaut ever, commanded the space station twice and was NASA’s chief astronaut. But 50 per cent of all the risks she has ever faced in her life were during the eight minutes of launch.
…so that wouldn’t have been the time you went blind on your spacewalk in 2001?
No, that wasn’t risky. It was just a problem to deal with. One of thousands of problems to deal with, and some of them will kill you instantly, or kill you within a few seconds or kill you in one breath. Things where there’s just a problem to deal with are not necessarily risky; it’s just an operational consequence. I might have been struck blind permanently. In fact, some of the chemicals in the suit are toxic enough that they could permanently damage the mucous membrane, so that could have been very bad. But it wasn’t, it was something much more minor. Just because something makes you feel vulnerable and uncomfortable doesn’t mean it’s necessarily dangerous or risky.
The key moments of launch, docking and re-entry into the atmosphere are the most actionpacked and dangerous things. We definitely increase our level of danger by going outside on a spacewalk, as we have fewer layers of protection and systems around us keeping us alive if things go wrong. So you don’t go outside recreationally, because the risk is high. We go outside very deliberately, with purpose and a great amount of practise and preparation, so that something as little as both your eyes going blind is just a small thing to deal with.
What do you miss about being in space?
I’m not the type of guy who spends much time missing things. To me, ‘missing’ means you’ve stopped and looked backwards. I mean, I used to be a downhill ski racer, I used to be a fighter pilot and I used to be a test pilot. Those were all fascinating, complex, heavily engrossing, demanding and interesting things. But I don’t spend my time wishing it were the past by missing things. It allows me to be who I am today and still have the understanding and perspectives that I have, so I don’t miss it.
Is there an aspect of being in space that you enjoyed most of all?
That’s a big list, that’s like saying is there an aspect on Earth you enjoy more then others? It’s a big question.
Weightlessness is very joyful, fun, delightful, freeing and three-dimensionally magical. Having the whole world go by your window in 92 minutes is incredibly instructional, revelational and beautiful. There’s just the level of business of getting a million things done everyday, the pace of work is fascinating and fun. Doing something you’ve trained your whole life for, and doing it well, is very satisfying and fun. All those things are great, and they are a great part of the pleasure of being an astronaut.
How important do you think it is for astronauts on the International Space Station to inspire a generation?
The importance of that hasn’t changed since it began among all the original astronauts. I think there’s very much a distorted view of it, because typically the only time you can see what an astronaut is doing is when they’re doing outreach. So you tend to think that that’s the only thing they’re doing.
[Laughs] It’s kind of funny, 99 per cent of what you do is operating the spaceship, running the 200 experiments on board, fixing the things that are broken and studying and preparing for the next day. It’s a vast tranche of work, that’s what you’re doing up there. Then, once in a while, you try and squeeze in a chance to share the experience with other people and let them see it.
Also, technology has improved so drastically over the last ten years to make it easier and more effective, so it’s really improved. On my first flight I worked really hard to do everything, including sharing it, but all I had was a ham radio and a film camera. You can’t show anybody anything, and a ham radio is in no way an effective widespread communications means. So I think it’s always been important, as we’re exploring the rest of the universe. If you want to try and understand the Earth, it’s very difficult to measure anything from one small location on the planet. So it [the ISS] gives us a perspective and an insight both at a technical level as well as a personal level that is kind of new to the human experience.
So I think it’s important to share, but I also think the public perception of what an astronaut is actually doing in space is drastically distorted, because they only see the astronaut when they’re deliberately communicating with the ground.
You’re heading to the United Kingdom in February 2018. Could you tell us a bit what you’ll be doing there?
I’m speaking in four cities and very much looking forward to it. I’m speaking in Belfast, Glasgow, Southampton and Manchester.
There’s an immense inspirational side to exploration, especially at this stage in human development and space exploration. So there’s a large public interest in it – this is reflected in movies and all sorts of popular media. This is a chance to meet people, talk to them, get up and talk on stage about some of the experiences and where it’s going and what it means for us as people. Also, what it means to us individually, how can we learn some things from this crazy astronaut experience that could be useful in normal life?
I’ll be talking about that, interacting with the crowd, doing lots of Q&A and playing a little bit of music as well. I may even include some of the candidates off of the BBC series Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes? also. The only complaint I seem to get on social media is that it’s only four cities!
“There’s a great sense of relief because you’re there, and no one could ever take that away from you”