50 Fun Facts About Chris Hadfield

In which Ontario city was Chris Hadfield born?

Sarnia was only his birthplace: he grew up on a farm in Milton, near Toronto, yet it is Sarnia's airport that now carries his name.

Which televised event at age nine made Chris Hadfield decide to become an astronaut?

The Apollo 11 Moon landing gave the nine-year-old farm boy an ambition that looked impossible: Canada had no astronaut programme and did not choose its first astronauts until 1983.

Through which organisation did Chris Hadfield earn his glider pilot's licence at 15?

The Royal Canadian Air Cadets, which he joined at 13, taught him to fly: a glider licence at 15 and powered flight at 16, years before the air force put him in a cockpit.

In which branch of engineering did Chris Hadfield take his honours degree at the Royal Military College?

Mechanical engineering: the armed forces he joined out of high school put him through military college, two years at Royal Roads and two at Kingston, before he trained as a fighter pilot.

Which fighter jet did Chris Hadfield fly on NORAD intercept missions?

The CF-18 Hornet was his aircraft with 425 Squadron in Quebec; in 1985 he flew the type's first intercept of a Soviet bomber nearing Canadian airspace.

Which Soviet bomber, code-named 'Bear', did Chris Hadfield intercept in 1985, a first for a pilot of his fighter type?

The Tupolev Tu-95 is a huge propeller-driven bomber built to reach North America; meeting such aircraft as they neared the continent was exactly the job NORAD's fighters were kept for.

Where did Chris Hadfield attend the US Air Force Test Pilot School?

Edwards AFB, California: the Canadian visitor finished as the top graduate of the US Air Force's own class of 1988, after flying 32 different aircraft there.

Where did Chris Hadfield earn his master's degree in aviation systems in 1992?

The University of Tennessee Space Institute awarded it while he was working as an exchange test pilot in Maryland; his thesis analysed how a fighter jet behaves at extreme angles of attack.

Which US service named Chris Hadfield its 1991 Test Pilot of the Year?

The US Navy honoured him for risky work at Patuxent River, deliberately pushing jets out of control to find ways of recovering them; in all he has flown more than 70 types of aircraft.

Which astronaut was chosen alongside Chris Hadfield when Canada picked four from 5,330 applicants in 1992?

Julie Payette, later Canada's Governor General, was in the same intake, with Dafydd Williams and Michael McKay; three of the four went on to fly in space.

As NASA's chief CAPCOM, Chris Hadfield did which job?

Radioed the crew: for 25 Space Shuttle flights he was the voice of Mission Control, in a job whose name, capsule communicator, survives from the days when spacecraft were called capsules.

Which space station did Chris Hadfield visit on his first flight, STS-74, in 1995?

Mir. His crew attached a Russian-built docking tunnel and delivered water and supplies; no other Canadian ever went aboard.

Which Space Shuttle carried Chris Hadfield on his first flight, STS-74, in 1995?

Atlantis carried a Russian-built docking module in its payload bay; once fitted, it formed the tunnel through which the crew crossed to the station they had come to visit.

Which milestone for his country did Chris Hadfield reach on STS-74 in 1995?

Operating the Canadarm in orbit: Canada's robotic arm had flown on Shuttles since 1981, yet no Canadian had worked it in space until he used it to lift a docking module into place.

What did Chris Hadfield help install on the International Space Station during STS-100 in 2001?

Canadarm2 is the station's own Canadian-built robotic arm, successor to the Shuttle's; on his third flight, twelve years later, he was back aboard operating the very arm he had helped to fit.

In 2010 Chris Hadfield studied rare rock formations in a Canadian lake to help future astronauts recognise what?

Signs of life on Mars: Pavilion Lake in British Columbia holds microbialites, rock structures built up by microbes, so learning how they form shows explorers what traces of life to look for.

Which actor asked Chris Hadfield on Twitter in January 2013 whether he was tweeting from space?

William Shatner got his answer in character, 'Yes, Standard Orbit, Captain', and other Star Trek actors soon joined the conversation between Earth and the station.

What temporarily blinded Chris Hadfield during his first spacewalk?

Anti-fog solution in his visor got into his eyes and left him blind outside the station; reasoning that he could still talk, think and hold on, he vented oxygen to clear them and carried on.

Chris Hadfield's photo book 'You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes' is named for what?

One orbit of the station takes 92 minutes, so its crew see 16 sunrises a day; the book is laid out as a single lap of the planet, continent by continent.

In which Russian town was Chris Hadfield NASA's director of operations from 2001 to 2003?

Star City is home to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre; while directing NASA's crew activities there, the Russian-speaking Canadian completed cosmonaut training himself.

Which Russian spacesuit was Chris Hadfield qualified to spacewalk in?

Orlan, Russian for 'sea eagle', is the suit built for work outside; the better-known Sokol that crews wear for launch is only a rescue suit and cannot be used on a spacewalk.

At what rank did Chris Hadfield retire from the Canadian Armed Forces in 2003?

Colonel: he left the air force after 25 years but not spaceflight, staying on as a civilian astronaut for another decade and making his longest flight of all.

In 2010 Chris Hadfield led NASA's NEEMO 14 mission in a laboratory located where?

The seabed: his crew spent two weeks in an undersea laboratory off Florida, rehearsing exploration missions on the ocean floor, where divers can be weighted to mimic the gravity of other worlds.

Which spacecraft carried Chris Hadfield to the International Space Station in December 2012?

A Russian Soyuz, flight TMA-07M, launched him on 19 December: the Space Shuttles he had flown twice had been retired the year before, so it was the way crews reached the station.

In 2013 Chris Hadfield became the first Canadian in which space station job?

Commander: he took charge on 13 March 2013, which his agency counts as the first time a Canadian commanded a spaceship, and the Queen sent her personal best wishes from Earth.

Days before Chris Hadfield left the ISS in 2013, his crewmates made an unplanned spacewalk to stop a leak of what?

Ammonia coolant: Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn went outside on 11 May to replace the pump box thought to be to blame, a hastily arranged repair that Hadfield co-ordinated from inside.

In which country did Chris Hadfield land in May 2013 at the end of his five months in orbit?

Kazakhstan: he came down with two crewmates after 146 days in space, a day after releasing his farewell music video from the station.

Which David Bowie song did Chris Hadfield famously perform in a video recorded on the ISS?

Space Oddity became the first music video made in space, with the words changed so that Major Tom gets his orders to land and comes home safely; Bowie called it possibly the most poignant version ever.

Which Canadian musician, once in David Bowie's touring band, arranged the piano for Chris Hadfield's music video from orbit?

Emm Gryner recorded her piano arrangement on Earth, where a producer built the backing track around the singing and guitar that Hadfield had sent down from the station.

Why was Chris Hadfield's Bowie cover video taken offline in May 2014?

A one-year music licence expired: Bowie backed the cover but his publisher owned the song, so the video vanished until a new two-year deal restored it that November.

Which magazine examined how copyright law applied to Chris Hadfield's Bowie cover recorded in orbit?

The Economist found that the law aboard the station depends on which country's module you are floating in; Hadfield had sidestepped the tangle by spending months securing permission first.

What was the first song Chris Hadfield recorded in space, released on Christmas Eve 2012?

Jewel in the Night is his name for the Earth, 'there in my window below'; he taped it within days of arriving, and the station's fans can be heard humming behind the guitar.

Chris Hadfield wrote 'Is Somebody Singing?' with which member of Barenaked Ladies?

Ed Robertson sang his part in Toronto with his bandmates and a youth choir while Hadfield played from the station's cupola; they had begun writing it while he was still training in Russia.

What is the title of Chris Hadfield's 2015 album of songs recorded aboard the ISS?

Space Sessions: Songs From a Tin Can began as vocals and guitar he taped in orbit; a producer was then brought in to finish the songs back on Earth.

Which family member managed Chris Hadfield's social media during his ISS mission?

His son Evan ran the accounts from Germany, unpaid, for up to 16 hours a day; his father's Twitter following grew from about 20,000 at launch to more than a million.

Which Canadian banknote, which shows an astronaut and a robotic arm, did Chris Hadfield unveil from orbit in 2013?

The $5 bill celebrates Canada's part in space exploration, so the Bank of Canada had it revealed in orbit: Hadfield produced one aboard the station and showed it off to the cameras below.

What was the title of Chris Hadfield's bestselling 2013 memoir?

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth argues that astronauts are made, not born: 'I wasn't destined to be an astronaut,' he writes. 'I had to turn myself into one.'

Chris Hadfield's 2021 debut novel was a Cold War thriller called what?

The Apollo Murders sends a fictional Apollo 18 on a secret military mission in 1973; in reality the programme ended with Apollo 17, and he wove in real Soviet spacecraft that failed that year.

Which university did Chris Hadfield join as a professor for a three-year term from 2014?

The University of Waterloo was a return: he had done postgraduate research there in 1982, and he came back to teach in its aviation programme.

Which BBC show did Chris Hadfield host in 2017, judging would-be space travellers?

Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes? put twelve applicants through real selection tests such as hypoxia and the centrifuge; the winner earned his recommendation for future space agency applications.

Which spaceflight company added Chris Hadfield to its Space Advisory Board in 2021?

Virgin Galactic set up the board, with Hadfield and former NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus on it, to advise its senior managers as it worked toward opening spaceflight to the public.

Which NHL team did Chris Hadfield cheer for from orbit in 2013, holding up its logo aboard the space station?

The Toronto Maple Leafs: when the NHL lockout ended he tweeted a photo of himself with their logo in orbit, and a year later he sang 'O Canada' before a Leafs game against Montreal.

What kind of object is 14143 Hadfield, named in Chris Hadfield's honour?

An asteroid: 14143 Hadfield circles the Sun in the main belt, was spotted from Kitt Peak in 1998, and carries a naming citation that honours his two Space Shuttle flights.

What type of creature, described as a new species in 2020, was named Andrena hadfieldi after Chris Hadfield?

A bee: a Saskatchewan museum scientist noticed the odd specimen while cataloguing a collection, looked again and named the new species for the astronaut.

Chris Hadfield sang and played guitar in which rock band made up entirely of astronauts?

Max Q is named after the moment of greatest aerodynamic pressure on a rocket as it climbs; two Space Shuttle astronauts started the Houston band in 1987.

King Charles III received Chris Hadfield at Buckingham Palace in 2023 to discuss which subject?

Sustainability in space was the subject: Hadfield said he had been asked to advise and assist, and tweeted afterwards that it was a privilege to do so, 'and make the King laugh'.

Chris Hadfield's 2016 children's picture book was titled what?

The Darkest Dark is drawn from his own childhood: a small boy called Chris loves rockets and planets but is afraid of the dark, the very thing an astronaut has to work in.

Retiring in 2013, Chris Hadfield kept which promise to his wife?

Move home: he had lived in the United States for decades, and said he was making good on a promise made nearly 30 years earlier that the family would eventually return to Canada.

What did Chris Hadfield wring out in a 2013 video to show how water behaves in orbit?

A washcloth: high-school students in Nova Scotia designed the experiment, and instead of flying off, most of the water clung to the cloth as a sheath and crept onto his hands like a gel.

Before which tournament did coach John Herdman bring in Chris Hadfield to address Canada's national team?

The World Cup in Qatar was the Canadian men's first in 36 years; Hadfield spoke to the players before their opening match against Belgium, then sang the anthem at the stadium beside the coach.