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When Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk was strapped inside a tiny Soyuz capsule on his way to the International Space Station in May 2009, his mind drifted back to a movie he saw in his youth.

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, there is a scene with a shuttle craft from Earth carrying an international crew approaching an orbiting space station. Strauss's Blue Danube waltz is playing in the background.

"Here I was doing something very similar to what I saw in that movie 20 or 30 years ago, so I felt like the world was unfolding as it should and also that I was very fortunate to be doing this," Thirsk recalled recently.

Thirsk, the first Canadian to take part in a long space mission, was looking back at his own experience in anticipation of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's launch for the ISS today.

"It's a once-in-lifetime opportunity to fly up to the station," Thirsk says. "Not very many Canadians have the chance to do that. I felt very grateful."

It is a pretty select club those who have lived aboard the 12-year-old ISS, in its orbit roughly 400 kilometres above the Earth. Hadfield, in fact, will become its first Canadian commander in March.

Thirsk remembers every moment of his "wonderful experience" with pride.

When he floated through the hatch to enter the station, other crew members were waiting, their cameras flashing.

"It felt like I was entering inside a Salvador Dali painting because the station was just so surreal compared to the spacecraft simulators that I'd trained in for the previous two and a half years."

Simulators are orderly and clean. The space station less so.

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What is it like to live on the International Space Station?

NASA is getting ready to send astronauts on yearlong missions to the International Space Station, doubling the duration of a typical orbital stay. These long-term missions will be sending spaceflyers into largely uncharted territory, and some of the biggest unknowns are how the human mind and body will react to that much time in space.

NASA has long known that weightlessness wreaks havoc on the body, with astronauts losing muscle mass and bone density, and even suffering eyesight degeneration, after spending time in space.

"While it's definitely new territory for NASA, I wouldn't expect the challenges of a yearlong mission to be substantially different from those of a six-month mission," said former space station commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, who is now president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. "A yearlong mission will be beneficial to Human Research Program scientists as they continue to expand the envelope of human spaceflight so that one day we can undertake the longer missions that we think will be necessary to voyage beyond cis-lunar space," or the region between Earth and the moon.

Another health risk associated with spaceflight is radiation: Beyond the protective confines of Earth's atmosphere, astronauts are exposed to potentially dangerous radiation from the sun, and the longer they spend in space, the more radiation they receive. [Most Extreme Human Spaceflight Records]

And the health risks are just one side of the challenge. Psychologically, the isolation and confinement of life on the space station can be tough to deal with as well.

Though exercise machines installed on the space station can mitigate the body issues, and phone calls and emails home can help the mind, both of these problems should be more severe for crews spending twice the normal mission length in orbit.

"For the crew, the biggest challenge would be psycho-social," another former space station commander, Leroy Chiao, wrote in an email. "It is difficult to be away for a long period of time. Fortunately, the ISS features excellent communication tools for crews to keep in touch with friends and loved ones."

Though some cosmonauts spent a year or longer on previous space missions to the Russian Mir station, no one has ever lived for a year at the International Space Station. The first ISS yearlong crew will be NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, who are due to launch in 2015.

Kelly, a former U.S. Navy test pilot with combat experience, said he thinks he's up to the challenge.

"We have a really good group of people here, the behavioral health and performance group, that works with us to try to mitigate the psychological impact of being away from home and isolated for a long time," Kelly told SPACE.com during an interview earlier this month. "I kind of recognize what I need in that regard and what I can do to make it better."

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Yearlong Space Missions Will Present Physical and Mental Challenges

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) A Soyuz spacecraft carrying an American, a Russian and a Canadian headed Wednesday for the International Space Station, where they will spend four months carrying out dozens of experiments.

The spacecraft launched from a Russian-leased manned-space facility in the frigid steppes of Kazakhstan at 6:12 p.m. (1212 GMT). It took off atop a towering Russian rocket and went into orbit about 15 minutes later.

American Tom Marshburn, Russian Roman Romanenko and Canadian Chris Hadfield will travel for two days in the capsule, before docking with the mammoth space station where three other people are already on board.

Russian Federal Space Agency chief Vladimir Popovkin said the liftoff took place "without a hitch."

"We have finished off this year of launches on a good and handsome note. There is now only one operation left, and that is the docking, which we are positive we successfully take place Friday," he said.

The docking's timing so close to Christmas added to the high emotional valence of spaceflight for Hadfield. "There are certain times of the year and certain times in life that are special by everybody's traditions. In my family's tradition, this is maybe the most special time of the year," he said.

The clear azure skies afforded a vivid view of the rocket as it took off, left a deep plume of white smoke and finally vanished into the distance as a vivid orange dot.

Among those watching was Hadfield's daughter, Kristian. "I'm feeling so happy. I mean, my dad just went to space. It's amazing. I'm feeling amazing," she said.

The International Space Station is the biggest orbiting outpost ever built and can sometimes be seen from the Earth with the naked eye. It consists of more than a dozen modules built by the U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan and the European Space Agency.

Marshburn, Romanenko and Hadfield will spend four months aboard the space station to conduct some 50 scientific experiments including a test for a system aimed at predicting natural calamities.

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Rocket with 3 onboard heads for space station

An American astronaut, a Russian cosmonaut, and the man who will become Canada's first space station commander are readying to launch to orbit Wednesday (Dec. 19).

NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield are due to blast off aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome Wednesday at7:12 a.m. EST (6:12 p.m. Baikonur time, or 1212 GMT).

The three spaceflyers will join the three men already on the space station to round out the Expedition 34 crew. Marshburn, Romanenko and Hadfield are due to spend about five months in space, and Hadfield will take over control of the station in March 2013 when the Expedition 35 mission begins.

Hadfield has been active on Twitter leading up to his flight, sharing memories from his previous two visits to space and thoughts on what's in store for him and his crewmates.

"To deal with pre-flight jitters I focus on what matters, right now, & 1 min from now," he wrote today (Dec. 18) in response to a follower's question. "The entire event is too big & overwhelming."

Marshburn, Romanenko and Hadfield will join current space station commander Kevin Ford of NASA, and Expedition 34 flight engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin, both cosmonauts. After the launch, it will take two days for the Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft to catch up with the space station in orbit. Docking is expected on Friday (Dec. 21) at 9:12 a.m. EST (1412 GMT).

Marshburn, who worked as a NASA flight surgeon before joining the astronaut corps in 2004, has one previous space shuttle flight in 2009 under his belt. Romanenko will also be making his second trip to space following a six-month stay on the space station in 2009.

All three men have been training for this mission for years. "It's a two-and-a-half-year flow, so you have more time to get into depth in every subject," Marshburn said of his space station training, contrasting it to the shorter training regimen for space shuttle flights. [Video: Marshburn Talks to SPACE.com]

"We have to be plumbers, electricians, construction engineers, or workers, on the space station, but at the same time running a laboratory, being scientists, being the best laboratory assistants we can be," Marshburn told SPACE.com. "It's all in a bundle; it's very exciting, it's a lot of fun."

The spaceflyers will be arriving at the station just in time to celebrate an orbital Christmas.

Continue reading here:
Three New Crewmembers to Launch to Space Station Wednesday

This story was updated on Dec. 19 at 7:20 a.m. EST.

An American astronaut, a Russian cosmonaut, and the man who will become Canada's first space station commander lifted off today (Dec. 19) toward the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield launched aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome at7:12 a.m. EST (6:12 p.m. Baikonur time, or 1212 GMT).

"Everything is nominal onboard; we're feeling well," Romanenko, commanding the Soyuz, said through a translator just after launch. "We are feeling great."

The three spaceflyers will join the three men already on the space station to round out the Expedition 34 crew. Marshburn, Romanenko and Hadfield are due to spend about five months in space, and Hadfield will take over control of the station in March 2013 when the Expedition 35 mission begins.

Hadfield has been active on Twitter leading up to his flight, sharing memories from his previous two visits to space and thoughts on what's in store for him and his crewmates.

"To deal with pre-flight jitters I focus on what matters, right now, & 1 min from now," he wrote Dec. 18 in response to a follower's question. "The entire event is too big & overwhelming."

Marshburn, Romanenko and Hadfield will join current space station commander Kevin Ford of NASA, and Expedition 34 flight engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin, both cosmonauts. From now, it will take two days for the Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft to catch up with the space station in orbit. Docking is expected on Friday (Dec. 21) at 9:12 a.m. EST (1412 GMT).

Marshburn, who worked as a NASA flight surgeon before joining the astronaut corps in 2004, has one previous space shuttle flight in 2009 under his belt. Romanenko is also making his second trip to space following a six-month stay on the space station in 2009.

All three men have been training for this mission for years. "It's a two-and-a-half-year flow, so you have more time to get into depth in every subject," Marshburn said of his space station training, contrasting it to the shorter training regimen for space shuttle flights. [Video: Marshburn Talks to SPACE.com]

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American, Canadian, and Russian Spaceflyers Launch to Space Station