Almost everything worthwhile carries with it some sort of risk, whether it’s starting a new business, whether it’s leaving home, whether it’s getting married, or whether it’s flying in space. – Chris Hadfield
When I did my spacewalks, it was during space station construction. So the shuttle was docked to the fledgling ISS at the time. So we would always stay tethered. – Chris Hadfield
In the Soyuz, the little Russian capsule, you can actually hear the banging of the big shield, the big heat shield on the bottom, as it slowly erodes away from the heat and pieces of it fly off like sparks across your window, and it’s an interesting thing to ride through, you know. – Chris Hadfield
When you look out the window of a spaceship, you see entire countries, vast swaths of continents. One turn of the head covers what once took thousands of years to traverse at ground level. – Chris Hadfield
It is spectacular. From about five minutes in, when we knew for sure that we were going to have the weather to go, the smile on my face just got bigger and bigger, and I was just beaming through the whole launch. I mean, it is just an amazing ride. – Chris Hadfield
Russians aren’t perfect. Their politics are messed up, and they keep going through self-defeating economic cycles. But I have a lot of respect for Russia, and a lot of love for Russians. – Chris Hadfield
The communities and countries best at using energy to optimize a microclimate for human life are also the ones whose people have the longest average lifespans. Canada, Sweden, and Iceland – places with inhospitable winter weather – are frontrunners in sustaining human health and life. – Chris Hadfield
The world, when you look at it, it just can’t be random. I mean, it’s so different than the vast emptiness that is everything else, and even all the other planets we’ve seen, at least in our solar system, none of them even remotely resemble the precious life-giving nature of our own planet. – Chris Hadfield
There’s always constantly interesting things to do, and who knows, maybe I will be a good sculptor. I haven’t decided what I am going to do next, but I am not going to quit just because I did something interesting. – Chris Hadfield
I’ve had a chance to fly a lot of different airplanes, but it was nothing like the shuttle ride. – Chris Hadfield
We have never lost a crew member on the space station, but of course, the Columbia accident. I was – I’d already been an astronaut for a decade when the crew of Columbia was killed. And I went through test pilot school. Rick Husband and I were out at Edwards at test pilot school together. He was the commander of Columbia. – Chris Hadfield
The International Space Station is a phenomenal laboratory, an unparalleled test bed for new invention and discovery. Yet I often thought, while silently gazing out the window at Earth, that the actual legacy of humanity’s attempts to step into space will be a better understanding of our current planet and how to take care of it. – Chris Hadfield
I’ve had a chance to see something that is way outside everybody else’s frame of reference and gives a perspective that is very different from everyone else’s. – Chris Hadfield
I don’t want to be treated like I came from another planet or something or was somehow born with some weird birthright or super power. I don’t view myself that way. I am a normal guy, picking up the crap from the dog and scraping the BBQ and having a beer and fixing the shed out back. – Chris Hadfield
It’s a really big deal to do a spacewalk. It’s much riskier than staying indoors. It’s complex. It uses up a lot of the precious resources onboard. It uses up oxygen. It uses up carbon dioxide scrubbers. – Chris Hadfield
For whatever reason, I decided: ‘I’m 18, I’m a man, I’m going to grow a moustache’ – and it was pathetic for years – it was awful. – Chris Hadfield
And now for Return to Flight, I’m chief of robotics working in the astronaut office in Houston, as a Canadian. – Chris Hadfield
To be one of the world’s top space robotic arm operators is a necessary skill for an astronaut, but it doesn’t have much carry-over. – Chris Hadfield
I’m really looking forward to it, if you can imagine floating weightless, watching the world pour by through the big bay window of the space station playing a guitar; just a tremendous place to think about where we are in history. – Chris Hadfield
You should have a fear of some things. That doesn’t mean it incapacitates you from your ability to figure out a way to deal with it. – Chris Hadfield
It was remarkable to see from space how predictable people are. Our homes and towns are almost all in places with moderate temperatures, and they generally have the same shape – a thinly occupied outer blob of suburb surrounding a densely populated core, all based around a ready source of water. – Chris Hadfield
When we first get to space, we feel sick. Your body is really confused. You’re dizzy. Your lunch is floating around in your belly because you’re floating. What you see doesn’t match what you feel, and you want to throw up. – Chris Hadfield
I was born in Sarnia, Ontario; a small town, it’s where oil was pretty much discovered in North America. – Chris Hadfield
Just taking risks for risk’s sake, that doesn’t do it for me. I’m willing to take risks that I think are worth it, and I’ve worked so hard to make sure that I survive. – Chris Hadfield
A lot of people live in fear because they haven’t figured out how you’re going to react when faced with a certain set of circumstances. I’ve come to terms with this by looking deeply into whatever makes me fearful – what are the key elements that get the hairs up on the back of my neck – and then figuring out what I can do about it. – Chris Hadfield
And then finally, I’m the commander, so I am fundamentally responsible for the lives of the other people on board and the health and longevity of the space station. I need to bring six people back happy, healthy and feeling like they’ve had the best six months of their life. – Chris Hadfield
If you don’t like airline food, you’ll probably have the same impression of space station food. I would not fly to space for the food. – Chris Hadfield
Spacewalking trumps everything. Viscerally, it is a phenomenal place to be; to be able to glance right and see the world, glance left and see the universe, and realise for a moment that you’re holding on to your known existence with one hand. That’s the thing. – Chris Hadfield
The beauty of the space station, and of human spaceflight, is that it is now at a level of maturity where you can invite people on-board, which is what I worked so hard to do on social media and all the videos I made. – Chris Hadfield