Yahoo! exclusive: Astronaut Chris Hadfield calls space ‘an amazing place to be’

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield will make his third trip into space later this month, when he and his crew depart for a five-month journey to the International Space Station.

The retired military colonel has accomplished many feats during his decades-long career as an astronaut. He was the first Canadian to operate the Canadarm in space and the first to take a spacewalk. Hadfield will become the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station during his next mission, launching on Dec. 19.

Hadfield discussed with Yahoo! Canada News the challenges of command and his experiences in space during a telephone interview from Space City, Russia. This is a condensed version of that conversation.

Yahoo! Canada News: This will be your third trip to space. It's getting old hat for you, I'm sure. What do you go through leading up to a launch like you have on Dec. 19?

Chris Hadfield: There is nothing old hat about it. I have been an astronaut for 20 years and I have been in space for 20 days. It is an extremely rare human experience and an immensely rare and personal experience. It is huge.

For this particular flight I have been training for about four years and the initial few years are all theory. We train in Japan and Germany and the Ukraine, in various places in Europe, Canada and the U.S. We train on all the systems and experiments and we start to get focused in the year prior to the flight, getting into simulators, all to give you the background, depth and specific set of skills so we can climb into the Soyuz rocket ship and fly it and dock it and operate in space for six months.

Y! Canada: Space flight must be a remarkable experience, and you have set some milestones during your career. Can you talk about your past experiences? What moments stand out to you the most?

Hadfield: My first flight was on space shuttle Atlantis and we went and built part of the Russian space station MIR. The whole thing was a highlight. It was an amazing experience. I was on the flight deck of a space shuttle. I was the first Canadian to operate the Canadarm. I used it to build this big Russian docking module.

Y! Canada: And it was your second flight that you did a spacewalk outside the station, wasn't it?

Hadfield: Yeah, I was the first Canadian to do a spacewalk. The purpose was to connect Canadarm2 onto the International Space Station. It was just brand new. We unbolted it, unfolded it and brought it to life on the first spacewalk. We went out on the second spacewalk and got it working. We spent about 15 hours outside, 10 times around the world.

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Yahoo! exclusive: Astronaut Chris Hadfield calls space ‘an amazing place to be’