Montreal Gazette

More outer space ‘magic’

Ook out the window to see Earth ‘like a present unwrapping itself the whole time you look out’

- MARGARET MUNRO

it’s more comfy than any bed on Earth. They zip themselves into sleeping bags and anchor themselves in sleep “stations” some of which are tucked into the spaceship’s ceiling.

It’s also fun, Thirsk says, to float freely around the spaceship at night in your sleeping bag. “It was always interestin­g the next morning to see where you end up.”

Dietitians have jazzed up the menu since the early days of the space program but most meals still comes precooked in a bag or can. Hadfield says turkey, gravy and mashed potatoes are on the menu Christmas Day, along with a special dessert.

The Canadian Space Agency has shipped up a dozen foods for Hadfield to share on the mission including jerky with cranberrie­s from Saskatchew­an, Holy Crap cereal from British Columbia, and Quebec maple syrup that comes in a tube. Hadfield’s also taking along Cheerios, a personal favourite.

At dinnertime the astronauts gather around a console fitted with bungee cords and Velcro to tether things down.

Astronauts do party. Hadfield, an avid guitarist, will get the crew belting out Christmas carols. They’ll also celebrate New Years and Russian Christmas, he says, but it’s strictly alcohol-free.

Hadfield’s crew has a gruelling mission ahead. They have 130 experiment­s to run, plans for a spacewalk or two, and will use the Canadarm2 to capture a resupply capsule filled with the food, clothing, and equipment. Hadfield says there is also plenty of maintenanc­e that needs to be done on the station.

In his free time Hadfield hopes to keep touch with family, friends and fans on the ground through Facebook, Twitter, email, and video conferenci­ng.

Hadfield likens today’s space travellers to the early sailors who headed off to explore uncharted seas. They are also willing guinea pigs, testing the effects of long-duration space travel on the human body and psyche and how to prevent the “rapid aging” that would occur in space if astronauts didn’t exercise.

As the Earth rolls past 350 kilometres below the spaceship — Hadfield says it takes just 10 minutes to speed over Canada — space travellers can watch spectacula­r auroral displays on the horizon, see storms swirling across the oceans, and city lights twinkling across dark landscapes.

“It’s like a present unwrapping itself the whole time you look out the window,” Hadfield says.

Chris Hadfield says he can’t wait for the “magic” of space, but he’ll also be exploring to the darker side of that magic as he circles the planet in coming months.

He’ll have the “superpower” to fly, but his bones, muscles — even his heart — will lose strength in the weightless environmen­t. Wrinkles will vanish from his 53-year-old face — at least for the duration of the trip — but the extra space radiation in orbit might shorten his life.

The veteran astronaut from Sarnia, Ont., is set to blast off Wednesday to join the elite few to ever experience long duration space travel.

The Internatio­nal Space Station will be his home for the next five months. Hadfield will be the first Canadian to take charge as commander of the $150-billion station during the second half of his stay.

The high-flying laboratory resembles something out a science-fiction movie, with huge solar panel wings, a body of interconne­cting trusses and modules and a handy Canadian-made robotic arm.

It’s roomier than a five-bedroom house, with two bathrooms and an observatio­n deck with bay windows. But that’s where the earthly similariti­es tend to end.

Astronauts float around the station and are treated to jawdroppin­g views of the Earth 350 kilometres below, along with 16 sunrises and sunsets a day.

There is also no shower, running water or laundry so they wipe their bodies clean and wear their clothes until they’re dirty enough to throw away. Meals are pre-cooked, “thermo-stabilized” and eaten right out of the bag. And urine is recycled into drinking water.

Hadfield has already been on two short space trips, and can’t wait to return.

“To be able to go back with the great luxury of time, that’s what I really treasure,” he said in an interview from Russia, just before heading into quarantine to prepare for launch at the Baikonour Cosmodrome on the snowy plains of Kazakhstan.

Hadfield’s wife and three grown children are joining him for an early Christmas this weekend and then the countdown begins.

He and his crewmates, U.S. astronaut Thomas Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, will enter the “magic” of weightless­ness just nine minutes after launch on Wednesday. “It’s an instantane­ous change of reality, and if that’s not magic I don’t know what is,” Hadfield says.

The trio will spend two days in the Soyuz catching up with the Internatio­nal Space Station that speeds around Earth at 28,000 kilometres an hour.

They are due to sidle up beside the shiny space station Friday morning.

There will be lots of highfives and somersault­s as Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko float into the station and get a feel for their new reality.

Hadfield says you can fly from one end of the station to another and they’ll have to curb the Earthly habit of putting down pencils and tools, that will simply float away.

“If I had a dollar for every time I lost a pen or lost my eyeglasses on the station I’d be a rich man,” Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk said in an interview from Ottawa, where he is now vice-president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Thirsk says he’d usually find his glasses a couple of days later in the filter on the station’s air circulatio­n system.

Sleeping in orbit is a treat for many astronauts, who swear

 ?? MIKHAIL METZEL/ THE CANADIAN PRESS ?? Canadian Chris Hadfield, left, will command the crew, including Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, centre and U.S. astronaut Thomas Marshburn.
MIKHAIL METZEL/ THE CANADIAN PRESS Canadian Chris Hadfield, left, will command the crew, including Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, centre and U.S. astronaut Thomas Marshburn.
 ??  ?? The space station is bigger than a five-bedroom house, but quarters in the Soyuz to get there can be tight.
The space station is bigger than a five-bedroom house, but quarters in the Soyuz to get there can be tight.

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