Twenty years ago, this Canadian man with a goatee gracefully completed the first Canadian astronaut’s walk in space and has since become an idol of this country.
Source: Wikipedia
For this little boy who grew up on a corn farm in Ontario, this has always been his grand childhood dream.
In 1969, when American astronaut Armstrong made a big step in the history of human landing on the moon with his own small step, 10-year-old Hadfield saw his destiny among the vast stars in the sky, just like a million Canadian children who wanted to be astronauts.
Source: theglobeandmail
But at that time, there was no astronaut program in Canada, and Hadfield never gave up. He taught himself mechanical principles and practiced with his family tractors and classic cars. After signing up for the air force, he became a fighter pilot and could fly more than 70 kinds of planes. He believes that he can be the hero if he is ready.
In 1992, Canada finally launched an astronaut program. Hadfield stood out from 5330 applicants and became one of the four new astronauts in Canada. For this moment, in the past ten years, Hadfield has spent thousands of hours learning how to breathe, balance and operate in a spacesuit.
In November 1995, Hadfield became the first Canadian to enter the Russian Mir space station and the first Canadian to operate the Canadarm remote control manipulator.
Source: lfpress
Source: theglobeandmail
In April 2001, Hadfield became the first Canadian to leave the spacecraft and walk freely in space. He walked for 14 hours and 50 minutes and circled the whole earth 10 times.
Source: lfpress
In December 2012, Hadfield completed one of the most challenging tasks in his life: he lived on the International Space Station for five months with two other astronauts.
It was in these five months that Hadfield began his "popular plan".
He first became a celebrity on social media.
After registering a Twitter account, Hadfield attracted a large number of space enthusiasts by sharing his wonderful photos of the universe and his life on the space station, and soon gained 1 million attention.
He also interacted with the actors of Star Trek, and William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk, asked curiously, "Did you tweet from space?"
Source: Canadian Space Agency
Then, Hadfield answered any questions about space raised by netizens by posting on reddit, a well-known social networking site, and immediately made the post one of the hottest posts in the history of the website.
Hadfield’s plan is not limited to this.
With the help of his son Evan, who is proficient in the Internet, Hadfield performed and produced a music video on the space station, singing David Bowie’s song "Space Oddity".
This video was uploaded to YouTube and received more than 7 million views in just a few days. It even caught the attention of the original singer Bowie, who commented that "this is probably the most sad version of this song ever."
During his five months in the International Space Station, Hadfield played several concerts with his guitar, recorded more than 140 educational videos, took 45,000 photos, and hosted several press conferences and school exchange activities, so that Forbes magazine described Hadfield as "perhaps the most proficient astronaut who left the earth".
Hadfield also sorted out the songs recorded in the space station and released the album "Space Sessions: Songs From a Tin Can".
Source: space
So, when people called Hadfield again, he became rock star astronaut Chris Hadfield.
In June 2013, after serving the country for 35 years, 53-year-old Hadfield officially retired from the Canadian Space Agency. On July 1, Canada’s National Day, he also gave a performance of playing and singing on Capitol Hill in Ottawa.
Source: space
After retirement, Hadfield has not faded out of people’s sight. His son Evan continues to help him manage social media and share all aspects of astronaut life on the Internet, from professional knowledge to trivial matters.
Tell everyone about your comic book with a dog (Source: YouTube)
In October 2013, hadfield was interviewed by McLean and appeared on the cover of the magazine. His style copied the famous image of David Bowie on the cover of the album Aladdin Sane.
Source: maclean
Subsequently, Hadfield began to serve as the BBC reality show "Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes? The host witnessed 12 contestants competing on the same stage for future astronaut candidates. Hadfield also hosts a series of programs about space exploration on the video platform MasterClass.
Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes? (Source: BBC)
Hadfield doesn’t even let bees go. While collecting insect specimens at the Royal Museum in Regina, Saskatchewan, he came across a unique-looking female bee. Appraised by the curator of the museum, this is a new bee species. Then Hadfield wrote a paper and named the bee after himself.
Bees named after Hadfield (Source: globalnews)
In addition to bees, there are also the city airport, two public schools, municipal parks and streets in Sagna, Ontario, and an asteroid named after Hadfield in the world.
Now Hadfield often gives lectures all over the world, and has published books on autobiography and astronaut life. This year, Hadfield has entered the novel world again, and his first thriller, The Murder of Apollo, will be published in October.
Chris Hadfield’s current identity should be: former Canadian astronaut and musician, writer, host, speaker, science educator … He is definitely an out-and-out celebrity and definitely has a cool life.