Space Oddity ... IIINNN SPAAAAAAAACE!

Always interesting to read another astronaut biography. Talk about your overachievers. My favorite perhaps is Story Musgrave whom I was fortunate enough to meet once. Marine, 17Khr pilot, mathematician, chemist, computer scientist, medical doctor, surgeon, etc.) Overachiever and proud of it but really an earnest, down-to-earth fellow, intensely curious about pretty much everything.

Back when I lived in Dickinson, TX, my friends and I used to go to a pub for live celtic music. The pub, The Bayview Duck, was about 10 miles from Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake. On my friend Barry’s 21st birthday, we were there hanging with the band when one of their former members came in to jam with them. He was a cool guy, very funny, and he took requests from the audience. This was a pub, mind you, so the main room was maybe the size of your average living room. He sang a birthday song for Barry and told us how he was exhausted because he had just returned from the space station!! Yep, it was Chris Hadfield.

Watching the landing live on NASA TV. They’ve completed the 5 minute deorbit burn successfully. Command module (or whatever they call it on the Soyuz) separation is coming up and smack-down (my term, as it’s probably not a splash-down) is coming up in a little over half an hour.

I’m watching too! Or listening. 14 minutes!

I’m watching/listening to the landing too.

Visual of the parachute! TD in about ten minutes.

And we’re down. That was interesting. I don’t believe I’ve ever watched a Soyuz landing before.

Interesting point - in the song he sings “Though I’ve gone one hundred thousand miles”. During the mission they travelled roughly 62 million miles.

Space continues to be big and awesome.

“…who’s shirts you wear”, not “…who shot you where”

Ignorance fought I guess.

It was my first too and I really enjoyed it. I loved their calm and peaceful smiles as they sat there recovering.

Whose

Photo op!

Heh. I generally don’t care for humble-brags, but in this case . . .

Now if only we can get a Crow T. Robot in the station.

There’s an awful lot of silliness on Tumblr, but Cmdr Hadfield’s beautiful shots of the Earth from space have been quite excellent…

That’s the smile. He said today he has to get used to gravity pulling his tongue and lips again. :slight_smile:

This begs the question (and is probably already been asked on here)…if his fellow astro/cosmonauts were present during the filming, and presuming he was actually playing that guitar break…can they hear it in zero g?

just heard on the radio that he is having some slight trouble with having gravity again.

Yes he is playing. You can hear it in zero g as long as you have air. Other videos he explains that the NASA people sent up a guitar as part of the “let’s figure out ways for them not to go crazy” plan. Music is very important to people. He explains how he had to make certain adjustments playing on the station. Like you don’t need a strap because the guitar just stays there but his left hand moves too fast and misses the frets. That particular guitar has a very small body.

I particularly liked the bit where the guitar was floating and rotating.