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...”

“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'...”

“Space is not a good place to mix foods because as soon as you take something out of the package, it becomes a flying object.”

“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 wh...”

“While on the space station, I kept up with news a couple of ways - Mission Control sent daily summaries, and I would scan headlines on Google News when we had an Internet connection, which w...”

“I'm a mechanical engineer, and I grew up on a farm, so I like practical hardware - somebody's elegant solution that proves itself over the long term.”

“'Boldface' is a pilot term, a magic word to describe the procedures that could, in a crisis, save your life. We say that 'boldface is written in blood' because often it's created in response...”

“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 -...”

“What I like to do when I get to a new place is buy local music early on and listen to it while we're driving around. I think it helps explain and illuminate the culture of where you are if l...”

“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 di...”

“Our role is to develop techniques that allow us to provide emergency life-saving procedures to injured patients in an extreme, remote environment without the presence of a physician.”

“The best simulator for spacewalking is underwater - it allows full visuals and body movement in 3D. Virtual reality is good, too, and has some advantages, like full Station simulation, not j...”

“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 occ...”

“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.”

“I was born in Sarnia, Ontario; a small town, it's where oil was pretty much discovered in North America.”

“You can get claustrophobia and agoraphobia - a fear of wide, open spaces - simultaneously on a spacewalk.”

“For the last several years and culminating in six months in orbit next year, I've been training for my third space flight. This one is almost in a category completely different than the prev...”

“Although simulators are great for building step-by-step knowledge of a procedure, the worst thing that can happen in a sim is that you get a bad grade on your performance.”

“The Soyuz craft weighs tons, and you're lying on the floor of it on your back. But the Russians do tell you, remember, before you land, stop talking so you don't bite your tongue off.”

“I've had a chance to fly a lot of different airplanes, but it was nothing like the shuttle ride.”