Chris Hadfield, the commander of the International Space Station (and, if you didn’t know, a Canadian), is going home in a Soyuz spacecraft in two days.
Since December 21 of last year, Hadfield has entertained all of us with his fantastic pictures of Earth (posted on his Twitter account), his repartée. And now he tops it all: he’s recorded a lovely music video as a farewell. It’s based on David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and has some backing from Ground Control.
From ars technica:
Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield would be notable solely for his work on the International Space Station. But… he may have the greatest YouTube account on Earth (and beyond) despite uploading only 17 videos. He’s demonstrated how to open a soda on the ocean floor, explained the process ofusing the toilet in space, and modeled interstellar wristwear among other videos.
. . . Hadfield thanked a number of collaborators including video editor Andrew Tidby, music producer Joe Corcoran, musician Emm Gryner, Evan Hadfield and all of the Canadian Space Agency. Fans of Hadfield’s YouTube page will note this isn’t his first musical foray, just likely the most popular. Previously, Hadfield paid tribute to Sally Ride with “Ride On” and he recorded an original called “Jewel in the Night” from the ISS.
There’s one cool Canadian. Thanks for the awe and the LOLz, Commander Hadfield!
Makes me proud to be a Canadian geek. (Minor correction – it’s Chris, not Mark.)
Fixed, thanks!
“Mark Hadfield, the commander of the International Space Station (and, if you didn’t know, a Canadian)”
And yet if anyone had written:
“”Mark Hadfield, the commander of the International Space Station (and, if you didn’t know, an American)”
would have been regarded (by some) to be Anti-American.
I never tweet and I never use the word ‘cool’, but if he is the guy who had that back-and-forth with William Shatner, that was the coolest piece of irony the twittersphere ever produced. Welcome home, Commander Hadfield.
He was indeed, he tweeted with Wil Wheaton as well.
Hadfield really took the reins of social media, and displayed a lot of charm and wit.
Actually, he recorded a song with Ed Robertson (of Barenaked Ladies) last Monday as well. It gets airplay on CBC radio…
This song was sung on May 6 by innumerable schoolkids all across Canada, including mine: http://www.musicmonday.ca/
I’m generally unwilling to use a phrase such as “Won at life”, for fear of dilluting the weight that such a phrase should carry. It cannot be conveyed by a mere position, even one as grand as PotUS or something similar.
I’m a very comfortable saying that this man has Won at Life, however.
To look out your window and personally see the Earth from the outside, to float weightlessly in orbit of the tiny rock you call home, to have the perspective such that “I’m from Earth” has any meaning…
I can’t think of much better than that.
Extraordinary man.
A great Canadian!
That is cool — authentically cool. On a scale of one to Miles Davis, he’s a solid eight, which is a stone cold Canadian best.
Well done Commander. Wonder if the new ISS crew will be tweeting, hope so.
Reblogged this on Marc's WordPress Blog.
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What a cool video! I loved the floating guitar (a reference to so many pop videos, but they were all CGI, this one’s real). And the best demonstration of weightlessness I’ve seen, specially near the end when he floated to the end of the corridor collecting his guitar on the way, then just bounced up through the ‘roof’. Amazing. Wonder if Bowie’s seen it, I think he’d be delighted.
We are everywhere 😉
(Canadian visiting New Zealand)
Field Commander Hadfield, he was our most important guy.
Tweeting in the line of duty,
parachuting soda into sub-galactic cocktail parties,
urging Joe Corcoran to abandon fields and castles.
Leave it all and like a man,
come back to nothing special,
such as waiting rooms and ticket lines,
silver bullet suicides,
and parabolic ocean tides,
and nine-g roller-coaster rides
and other forms of boredom advertised as poetry.
I know you need your sleep now,
I know your life’s been hard.
But many men are floating,
where you promised to stand guard.
[h/t Leonard “Field Commander” Cohen,
the coolest Canadian bar none,
on a scale from -32 (Stephen Harper)
to +32 (Glenn Gould)]
Mr Cohen is definitely the coolest.
Last Years Man
The rain falls down on last year’s man,
that’s a Jew’s harp on the table,
that’s a crayon in his hand.
And the corners of the blueprint are ruined since they rolled
far past the stems of thumbtacks
that still throw shadows on the wood.
And the skylight is like skin for a drum I’ll never mend
and all the rain falls down amen
on the works of last year’s man.
Then there’s the other cool canadian jewish icon – William Shatner
I think he let himself down with his version of ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’. He redeemed himself with this magnificenr version of ‘commom people’ (along with Ben Folds/Joe Jackson). http://tinyurl.com/b74qfo8
Almost 0 °K cool.
So cool that even Liz said “well done!”
What strikes me most about the photograph in the post is the white shirt visible under the collar of the suit. Somehow, in my mind, it completely humanizes him, as though I can see that there’s actually a normal man in there underneath all the fancy equipment.