It may have actually made it easier to hit the high notes. So it changed the timbre of my voice, for sure. It's sort of like standing on your head forever, and no professional singer stands on their head forever before a performance, because it kind of fills up your tongue and your sinuses, and you sound a little bit congested. Singing, it's weird because your sinuses never drain without gravity. GROSS: So, is it hard to sing and play guitar in space? I just want to start with your "Major Tom" video, since that's gotten over 18 million views. In space, he served as the commander of the International Space Station.Ĭommander Hadfield, welcome to FRESH AIR. Hadfield is the author of the new book "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth." A former Royal Canadian Air Force fighter and test pilot, he's been the director of operations of NASA in Star City, Russia, and the chief of International Space Station operations in Houston. He's witnessed awe-inspiring beauty, faced life-threatening dangers and held onto a spaceship orbiting Earth at 17,500 miles an hour. Hadfield has flown three space missions, conducted two spacewalks and spent a total of six months in space. GROSS: While floating weightless in outer space at the International Space Station last spring, my guest Commander Chris Hadfield recorded his version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity." It was turned into a video that has gotten over 18 million hits on YouTube. That seems short-sighted.COMMANDER CHRIS HADFIELD: (Singing) Ground Control to Major Tom. And that can't be good for Australia to tell your young people that, 'Oh, you're interested in space travel? Then go somewhere else'. If you're a young Australian, and you're interested in exploring the rest of the universe, you have to leave. Where are the areas of expertise like Canada has pursued? Robotics, and remote sensing, and telecommunications … really benefit our country, and it's a multi-billion-dollar industry in Canada. I think Canada is maybe not a bad example of the type of space agency that Australia could form. And Australia, with the Woomera test range, with three Australians that have left this country in order to become astronauts, I think they have a long history of recognising that potential is out there.Īnd it's only slightly smaller than Canada in size and population. To deny that the rest of the universe exists, or that space isn't a viable subset of the businesses of the world, I think is a little bit self-defeating. Should Australia create its own space agency? Loading. And from that we whittled it down to two. In Canada, about 8,000 people started the process, about 3,700 completed it - had a good application. You have to have the right citizenship, of course, for any particular country's agency.Īnd hopefully you have some work experience that is indicative of your ability to succeed as an astronaut. You have to have an advanced university degree. You have to be a certain size, because you have to fit both in a space ship and a space suit, so you can't be enormously tall or short or fat or thin. Loading YouTube content What it takes to be an astronaut Loading. To me that might be the best part: that he got delight out of my particular version of the song. He had always fantasised about flying in space - Starman, and Mars, and all that other stuff, and I think for him it was just like a gift, to have that song updated with the lyrics, performed actually in space, just a couple of years before he was taken. He wrote that song at the beginning, when he was still 19 or 20, before we had even walked on the moon. I think, for him, he knew he was ill - it was getting to the end of his life. He described it as the most poignant version of the song ever done, which just floored me. David Bowie 'loved' the recording Loading. He spoke to Lateline about the late pop star's reaction to his recording, what it takes to become an astronaut, and whether Australia needs to carve its own path in the space industry. It started as a little "family project", he told Lateline - something fun to do with his son, back on Earth, while he was aboard the International Space Station.įour years later, the music video they created and released has been viewed more than 35 million times, and Hadfield, now retired, has become one of the best-loved figures in seven decades of space exploration. In 2013, while rotating around the Earth, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded a cover of David Bowie's early career hit, Space Oddity.
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