Commander Chris Hadfield

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield. He is an elite test pilot and accomplished aeronautical engineer, and one of very few people to have ever completed a space walk.

Presenter0:46

Regardless of his impressive string of top flight achievements, the simple truth is you might know him best as the singing spaceman. More of that later. His story is the stuff of which movies are made. As a boy, he watched in wonder as Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and at the moment human history was made, little Chris resolved that one day he too would boldly go into space. At basic jet training in the delightfully named Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, he graduated top, but it was still a twelve-year-long professional journey before he'd finally achieve his boyhood ambition.

Presenter1:19

He would go on to be the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station, and his achievements were recognized by having an airport, two schools, and an asteroid named after him. He says to drift outside fully immersed in the spectacle of the universe whilst holding on to a spaceship orbiting Earth at seventeen and a half thousand miles an hour

Presenter1:40

was a moment I'd been dreaming of and working hard towards most of my life. And so Welcome, Chris Hatfield. You know what it's like. Can you try to explain to us what it's like then to be in that situation, to be immersed in the spectacle of the universe?

Commander Chris Hadfield1:55

It's magnificent being inside the spaceship and looking out and wonder through the windows. But to go outside on a spacewalk, to actually physically, with just your two gloved hands, pull yourself out of the ship and out into the universe. And to now be able to look under your feet and have the universe go endlessly in all directions around you is a.

Commander Chris Hadfield2:19

is a brand new perspective, and it's a wondrous one.

Presenter2:23

The many years that we're all aware that it takes to to get a man or woman into that situation, does all of the intense training, the knowledge, the science melt away at that point?

Commander Chris Hadfield2:32

Sure, everything that got you there just sort of washes away and it stops thought. I w to be juxtaposed in between the the the colors and and uh unending textures and and depth of the world itself and then the blackness of space and to be between the two of them, in the two of them and as a separate human entity, yeah, you you don't think about how you got there, you're just amazed to be.

Presenter3:01

Um, you spent Christmas twenty twelve, I think, aboard the International Space Station, and people people around the world will be listening to this as they are celebrating uh Christmas. What sort of Christmas did you have there?

Commander Chris Hadfield3:04

No matter what.

Commander Chris Hadfield3:12

Uh we have a guitar up on the space station and there were several musicians on board. So we we played Russian Christmas songs and Canadian Christmas songs and American Christmas songs. Uh we had stockings that we hung with care. We had Christmas hats. We had a small Christmas tree. We hung it inverted from the ceiling just because we could. And we had gifts. We even had a Christmas dinner together.

Presenter3:33

Yeah, that was, of course, my next question. And being British, I was thinking about the chaos of Christmas gravy. I mean, what?

Commander Chris Hadfield3:39

What?

Presenter3:39

What did you have for Christmas?

Commander Chris Hadfield3:39

Christmas dinner. Well, unfortunately everything is is prepackaged and they're all in individual uh green packets. And and the trouble with being weightless is you you don't have plates at all,'cause plates don't make any sense without gravity. So you you open your packet of potatoes and you eat all of your mashed potatoes. And then you open your packet of turkey and you eat all of your turkey. But it made for a wonderful Christmas and especially singing some carols afterwards.

Speaker 13:56

Of your marriage.

Presenter3:57

Mashed potato.

Presenter4:06

Is there lots of music when you're up there? Are you listening to music a lot?

Commander Chris Hadfield4:10

Well, uh most of what you do on a ship nobody sees, which is running all the experiments on board. And a lot of them you're tied in with scientists and researchers on the ground. So it's very technical and and it's more like a big laboratory. So the music is normally private. Or when we're having a get-together either we would play music, there's a pretty good music library up there, or someone would take the guitar and just play a song or two.

Speaker 14:18

Yeah, it's

Presenter4:32

So Chris, tell me about your first choice this morning, then. What are we going to hear?

Commander Chris Hadfield4:36

Just prior to my second space flight, after we had put on our space suits and we were about to walk out to the Space Shuttle Endeavour to leave Earth, Yuri Lonchikov, who was one of the cosmonauts that was on our crew, there's a guitar in quarantine that always stays there until all the cosmonauts and astronauts have signed. And while he was fully suited, he grabbed that guitar and played a little Russian song. And he passed the guitar to me because he and I had played music for years together. And the song that I chose to play was one about exploration and how you're there for good reasons, but you're also looking forward to the day that you return. And the song that best expressed that to me is by a great Canadian songwriter and folk singer named Stan Rogers called Take It From Day to Day. Well, it's not the.

Speaker 45:22

The hours of watch on watch, And it's not the work that I mind so much, Or the long cold miles from my lover's touch, Though for sure she's far away. No stranger I to the touch of steel, Or the honest fear any man can feel, But I long for dust under my heels, And a pocket full of pain, So I'll take it from day to day. The pack ice round us cracks and grossly.

Presenter5:55

That was Stan Rogers and Take It from Day to Day and you said that as you played before you blasted off on a mission. Is it hard to play guitar in a space suit?

Commander Chris Hadfield6:03

It is. It's cumbersome. It's not good for the guitar either. All the little metal bits leave gouges in your guitar, so I wouldn't recommend it on stage. No.

Presenter6:10

You are a highly accomplished professional, but I think it would be fair to say that you came to global recognition when the version that you did in space of David Bowie's Space Oddity went viral. Millions of people saw that online, and as a result, you became this sort of space superstar. And you also entered into these Q ⁇ As from space. Why is it important for you to popularize space in that way?

Commander Chris Hadfield6:34

Uh

Presenter6:34

Yep.

Commander Chris Hadfield6:35

I think I feel it as a responsibility. Uh I count myself so enormously lucky to have been one of the few people to leave Earth so far. And I run into people all the time, everywhere, every day.

Commander Chris Hadfield6:47

Who would love to have had a chance just to glimpse the stuff that I've had a chance to see, and they tell me about it all the time.

Commander Chris Hadfield6:55

How could you not want to share that brand new, extremely hard-earned perception and understanding of the world?

Presenter7:02

Will you share with us uh some of the pre-flight rituals in the last couple of hours before you prepare to take off? What what must you do and what must you do personally?

Commander Chris Hadfield7:13

Some of them are. Less desirable than others. You, of course, you don't want to bring anything unhealthy up to the spaceship. So, just prior to putting on your spacesuit on my third flight in Russia, they rub your entire body down with rubbing alcohol, which in Russia in the winter is not that pleasant an experience, especially someone you hardly know. And you have to give yourself two enemas before you go, which doesn't seem like the glorious send-off you'd been picturing since childhood of what the flight was going to be like. And the very first person to leave Earth, Yuri Gagarin, got on the bus, drove out, and realized partway out that no one had reminded him he should go to the bathroom before he launches. So he had the bus stop as soon as they got to a fairly private place on the way out to the rocket. And he undid his spacesuit, which had all been carefully sealed up by the technicians, undid the whole thing, ran around, and weed on the right rear tire of the bus, which then, of course, became tradition and luck. And so every single crew that has ever flown into space since at that spot has run around. And we actually bring suit technicians on the bus now to redo up our suits again. And for some of the women astronauts, because the geometry and plumbing isn't quite the same, they actually bring a small vial of urine with them to squirt on the tire just to be part of the process and for luck.

Presenter8:31

On your third and final mission, you spent five months in in space.

Commander Chris Hadfield8:38

The biggest airliner that you've ever been in, which maybe a 747 or an Airbus 380, if you could imagine there were only six people total in that entire airplane, you can go for the better part of a day on board the International Space Station, never see another person. And you're inside this very workmanlike cylinder, but every time you catch a glimpse out the window, the whole world is silently, patiently pouring by and just waiting for you to steal a moment to go look.

Presenter8:43

Yeah.

Presenter9:06

Tell me about your second piece of music, Chris Hatfield.

Commander Chris Hadfield9:09

Sometimes you listen to a song.

Commander Chris Hadfield9:11

And especially when you're learning as a musician and you go, I didn't know that was possible. I didn't know you could change those chords. And my dad was a huge fan of a folk trio called the Kingston Trio, and he played them on this old reel-to-reel tape player. And when this song came around, you could see the question mark above my head. And I've always thought this song was unique in how it made me think about music.

Speaker 49:37

Gotcha soda

Speaker 49:40

But in your eye

Speaker 49:43

Baby, do I feel high, oh me, oh my

Speaker 49:50

Do I feel high?

Speaker 49:58

Dry martini

Speaker 410:01

Jigger of gin

Speaker 410:03

Oh what a spell you've got me in oh my

Speaker 410:11

Uh

Presenter10:11

Do I feel high?

Presenter10:14

The Kingston Trio and Scotch and Soda. So, Chris Hadfield, you have been flying fast planes, jet fighters, and so on and so on for much of your life. Um but your first flight, I read, was when you were three years old?

Commander Chris Hadfield10:26

Yeah, that's right. My my dad was a pilot also, and he had one of those little tiny two-seat airplanes, a Piper J-3 Cub.

Presenter10:33

When did he take the lid off and let you hang upside down in the air? And did he tell your mother?

Commander Chris Hadfield10:39

My mom and my dad met in high school before he was a pilot when he was farming. But his brother, for Christmas one year, bought him a ride in an airplane. And after one ride in an airplane, my dad said, this is better than farming. I think I'll do this. And immediately, as quickly as a human could, got all his licenses and ratings and started becoming a professional pilot. So she just accepted the fact that he's a good pilot. He knows what he's doing. And I'm not going to worry about it.

Presenter11:05

Uh tell me about July the twentieth, nineteen sixty nine, then. Um where were you?

Commander Chris Hadfield11:11

In the part of Canada I come from, a lot of people have some sort of cabin or cottage or place to get away from the city in the summertime, and and normally a pretty humble little place. And ours had no television. But on july twentieth, nineteen sixty nine, the very first two human beings were planning to walk on the moon.

Commander Chris Hadfield11:30

The landing was that day. I'd been following it in the news. I had a the National Geographic picture of the moon up on the bed behind me.

Commander Chris Hadfield11:38

And we all traipsed over to a neighbor's cottage, because one of the more progressive neighbors had a television, one of those little black and whites with the two uh bunny ear wires up the top. And everybody from all the nearby cottages had gathered in their living room fairly late on that night.

Commander Chris Hadfield11:55

And watched as Neil and Buzz defeated all the odds and managed to. I mean, he landed with 16 seconds of fuel left. The whole world watching. And he was calm enough to be able to do that. And then them stepping out. Terrible image, right? You know, just sort of gray, grainy, slow refresh rate, but real. And I was a science fiction fan, and Star Trek looked way more real than the reality of it. But even at nine, I was just about to turn 10, I could see that.

Commander Chris Hadfield12:23

This wasn't just fantasy. On the morning of that day, this was an impossible thing. And by late bedtime that same day, the impossible had become possible, which is a wonderful lesson to learn as a ten year old boy. It was almost like um

Commander Chris Hadfield12:39

An unplanned gift that Neil and Buzz and Mike Collins, the guy who was orbiting the moon, that they gave me that night, which was.

Commander Chris Hadfield12:47

Um, sort of a sense of purpose. And and I uh I just resolved that night, especially later looking up at the moon, that that's what I wanted to do. I mean, I if I'm gonna grow up to be something, which seems sort of inevitable, why don't I grow up to be that? Let's have some more music, Chris.

Presenter13:03

This Hanfield, what are we gonna hear?

Commander Chris Hadfield13:05

The first album I bought when I was thirteen or fourteen years old was Elton John's big double album, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Commander Chris Hadfield13:14

and listening through it the variety of music was crazy. And there was one song right at the start, Funeral for a Friend,

Commander Chris Hadfield13:21

Going, how is that happening? What are those sounds? This song is crazy. I'd never heard a synthesizer before. And I just played it over and over, amazed at the creativity of it and sort of, in effect, opening my eyes to the possibilities of what music could be.

Presenter14:16

That was part of Eldon John's funeral for a friend. Sir Chris Hatfield, growing up as one of five children, as you say, your father had been a farmer, but became a pilot. But you you lived on a working farm.

Commander Chris Hadfield14:26

My parents made a conscious decision when the eldest of us was about eight, that rather than raise us in the suburbs of a city, they wanted to raise us on a farm, as both of them had been raised. And it was a good way I grew up with a great respect and pride in work, doing something that is the fruit of your own toil, an expectation that you will do your chores properly, that you'll be responsible for yourself, but also a great curiosity of the world.

Presenter14:55

There there is a lot of discipline in you, I guess people would expect that, meeting somebody who's done what you have done with your life, you know, being a a a a scientist, being an engineer, being an astronaut. Was that apparent even as a teenager when you were in the air cadets and you were having to, you know, polish your shoes and play by the rules and get your belt buckles straight and all of that stuff?

Commander Chris Hadfield15:12

Um when I finished high school I was young. So I actually went and hitchhiked around Europe for six months and just bummed around and thought about things and and started growing a fledgling moustache and didn't cut my hair and and went right from the Arctic Circle up in in Narvik in Norway all down to Turkey and and across um Spain and Italy and and uh Greece.

Presenter15:33

Let's have some more music, Chris Hanfield. Tell me about this. We're going to hear your fourth.

Commander Chris Hadfield15:37

Right after that I went to military college out on the Pacific coast of Canada. And as a recruit there, there's all sorts of traditions and silly things and good things. One of them was in the morning the alarm would sound and they would play a song.

Commander Chris Hadfield15:52

And by the time the song ended, you had to be standing in front of your quarters perfectly turned out. Your bed had to be made super taut, and you had to be perfectly dressed, and as you say, your belt buckle straightened and polished. And the song they chose was No Time by the Guess Who. So this song puts a slight panic into me when I hear it, because it harkens back to my 18-year-old rush to be turned out properly.

Speaker 416:14

No time left for you. On my way to better face, I found myself some ways for you. Distant roads are calling me You No time for a summer friend No time for the love you send Seasons change and so did I You need not wonder why You need not wonder why There's no time left for you

Presenter16:52

That was the guess who and no time. So, Chris Hadfield, it was 1982 when you graduated top of your class from military college. And as being a fighter pilot is really traditionally the sort of first step to becoming an astronaut, you set about doing that. You went to the fabulously named, I want to say it again, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. And by this time, in fact, the year before, I think, you'd married Helena, who had been your teenage sweetheart. You were a jet pilot, then you were a test pilot. I think you flew, what was it, 32 different planes in one year. I mean, a risky, risky job. Did you always feel.

Speaker 417:23

Yeah.

Presenter17:27

That your risks were calculated as you were doing that, you know, actually rather terrifying sounding job.

Commander Chris Hadfield17:33

The quick and the dead. Absolutely. And we watched a good friend die every year, I think, for fifteen years from starting into jet flying until we'd settle into the astronaut office. It's a dangerous profession. We expect our test pilots to die.

Presenter17:40

Goodness.

Presenter17:49

What was the most dangerous position you ever found yourself in during that period?

Commander Chris Hadfield17:52

I did an out-of-control program in the F-18 where we would tumble them out of control. I did flutter testing where you get the airplane up to the point where the wings start going uncontrollably flexible. But the most dangerous was testing the air pressure and airspeed measuring system. You have to fly very close to the ground and go by this little engineer sitting there with a sighting tower who's looking at your exact altitude. You're only 50 feet above the ground. And I was over Chesapeake Bay where there were a lot of birds.

Commander Chris Hadfield18:22

And I was doing the last test point, which was 550 knots, very fast, you know, nine miles a minute. And just as I was coming by the flight test engineer, sitting there with his theodolite tower, I saw a seagull right where I was about to fly. But he was slightly above me, so my hand instinctively started to push forward on the stick. But then I thought, pushing down would be a bad idea. I'm 50 feet above the Chesapeake Bay. So all I could do was roll the airplane slightly, and bang, he hit my airplane, just missed the canopy, which would have killed us both. And at least from my perspective, it only killed him. And I thought he'd gone down an engine, and I shut that engine down, or at least pulled it to idle and came back and landed and survived it. But that was a matter of an inch.

Presenter19:04

Were you ever put off? Did you ever think, Okay, I have been incredibly strategic. My wife is with me on this journey actually enough now?

Commander Chris Hadfield19:14

In nineteen eighty six, when our kids were very small, my best friend crashed an F eighteen. He pulled up hard into cloud in in in Prince Edward Island and just a minute later came vertically out of the cloud at six hundred miles an hour straight into the bay.

Commander Chris Hadfield19:32

And his little girls were the same age as our little boys. And, um,

Commander Chris Hadfield19:39

I had to go to his memorial service and his wife gave me his twelve string guitar to play a song for him at his memorial service, which I probably played a hundred times and and broke down every time before I could finally find a way to get through it.

Commander Chris Hadfield19:53

There was only one way for me to deal with that, and that was to figure out why and how did this kill him? He was a good pilot.

Commander Chris Hadfield20:02

And I I just I was uh

Commander Chris Hadfield20:06

Fanatical about it, I guess, relentless in digging into what were the problems with the machines at the time? How were they lying to us? How could this have happened? What did he see? Until I eventually arrived at a comfort for me of this is how the airplane killed him. And now I need to learn from that myself, but then I need to teach as many other pilots as I possibly can of this is what killed Tristan.

Commander Chris Hadfield20:29

And this is something you need to look out for. And uh we can't let anybody else die the same way on this thing that that tricked Tristan that day into plummeting into the bay.

Presenter20:39

Let's have some of your music, Chris Hadfield. Tell me about what we're going to hear. Now, this is your fifth choice.

Commander Chris Hadfield20:44

In the uh, as you say, the quaintly named town of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

Commander Chris Hadfield20:50

There was a small chapel on the military base, and they had a little choir. And the preacher was the only male voice in the choir. And I'd been playing guitar and singing various times, not in church, but other places. And he actually came and recruited me because he wanted another male voice in the choir. And I really enjoyed it. But we did one song, which I'd never heard before.

Speaker 121:04

Wanted it another

Commander Chris Hadfield21:10

which is very passionate. I I vow to thee, my country. What's lovely is it comes from a suite of music about space exploration, about the planets. And this is the one for Jupiter. And for me a really good song is where the melody stays in your head when it's done.

Commander Chris Hadfield21:29

Where, while the song's being sung and played, it sends something warm up your back. And when you read the words, they mean something to me. And this song's all of those.

Presenter22:48

That was I Vow to Thee, My Country from Hulse the Planets, recorded at St Paul's Cathedral with the choir and congregation conducted by Barry Rose with Christopher Dernley on organ. So here is this young Canadian man who from a boy has wanted to be an astronaut. In 1992, you read in the paper that the Canadian Space Agency was recruiting astronauts. Around about 5,000 people applied. You got through. It was three years later when you clambered into the space shuttle for the very first time. What were your thoughts on that occasion?

Commander Chris Hadfield23:19

An amazing three years from the day they phoned me and said, Would you like to be an astronaut? to, as you say, wearing the big orange pressure suit and getting in my hands and knees and crawling into the side of space shuttle Atlantis. At this point now, extremely trained but still a complete rookie, about to help pilot a spaceship to leave the atmosphere. Extremely dangerous undertaking. And one had already failed spectacularly with the Challenger explosion a few years previous. But this is a risk I'm going to take. So let's get over that part. Now my whole job is making this thing work.

Presenter24:02

And part of the purpose of that visit was to see the Russian space station Mir, and when you got there you couldn't get the door open.

Commander Chris Hadfield24:11

Yeah, we were building the Russian space station Mir. And when the shuttle was designed, it sure wasn't intended to go dock with a Russian spaceship, but we'd figured a way to do that. And this huge tunnel, we called it a Stikovsniotsek or the docking module, our job was to drive it up into Mir, like a big rail car docking, and then float down to the end of it and open up the hatch. But when I got to that hatch, some overzealous, extremely beefy Russian engineer had strapped it tight and tied it up in wires and safety wire and cladding. And we had to get the hatch open. And the Russians on the other side, the cosmonauts, were like pounding on the hatch with their feet. And I'm there, and I'm going, how do I... And in my pocket, I had a Swiss Army knife. And I got that out, and I was basically cutting my way into the Russian spaceship. And if you go to the Viktorinox Museum in Switzerland, in their museum, there's that little clip of me floating that knife in space.

Presenter25:03

I bet.

Presenter25:09

Time for some more music, Chris Hatfield. This is your sixth.

Commander Chris Hadfield25:12

I love Simon and Garfunkel. And there's a lot of lovely tunes they did, but one called America has some lines in it that are just desperately good poetry. And every time I hear it, even if I say it out loud, it evokes emotion in me, which is, Kathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping. The desperation that he felt with which to say that, but it says so much, and that particular line is in my head on a regular basis.

Speaker 425:44

Cathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping.

Speaker 425:51

I'm empty and aching and I don't know why Counting the cars on the new jersey turn back they've all come to look for America

Speaker 426:16

I'll come to the fly.

Presenter26:19

That was Simon Garfunkel and America, and my guest Chris Hadfield just said, How ridiculously good is that song? Um, Empty and Aching and I Don't Know Why, Suddenly I think of you getting back from space and when I read when I read in your book how much it hurts it really hurts when you come back from space. What's hurting most?

Speaker 126:29

When I

Commander Chris Hadfield26:29

Hi there.

Commander Chris Hadfield26:38

your head hurts at most at first. You're you're so overwhelmed, uh both psychologically but also just straight physiologically. The world is spinning and y it you have this horrible waves of nausea and and you can't sit up properly and you faint if you stand and it's just oh and yeah, it took about a year and a half to get back to normal.

Presenter26:56

And all of those places on planet Earth that you've made your home and that you've taken your family, sometimes your kids have have been back at boarding school. You know, i when you look at the experiences you've been through, because of your dream,

Presenter27:09

Uh you know, how do how do you look at it?

Commander Chris Hadfield27:12

I imagine every parent looks back and goes, How did I do? And what if I'd made different choices? And

Commander Chris Hadfield27:18

Mine were very defining for the family. We lived in Russia. My kids have all been to 70 countries or so.

Presenter27:25

Sent seventeen

Commander Chris Hadfield27:26

70, 7-0. They've traveled extensively. They've lived all around the world. And there are definite downsides. I was away from home a lot. I had a very public and a very risky job, which has a toll. My children lose a sense of their own destiny and identity because their father's so famous. As soon as someone learns their last name, then they are not who they are. They're the son of somebody else or daughter of somebody else. So all of that definitely has an impact. Some of it very positive. They've gotten to meet everybody. At one point, we were going to the White House to meet the president, and my seven-year-old son said, again, you know, which just delighted me.

Commander Chris Hadfield28:04

That's it.

Commander Chris Hadfield28:05

Um'cause for him it was an uncomfortable day with a tie on. He's like

Commander Chris Hadfield28:10

Can't I just go play? And I always put work very high on my priorities. There's a great pure sense of urgency to exploring the universe. And it's hard not to let that trump a lot of your day-to-day decision making. But all three of my kids are healthy and happy and successful at what they're doing. And none of them want to be astronauts, that's for sure. But.

Commander Chris Hadfield28:33

Looking back, I'm I'm content with how it went.

Presenter28:36

Let's have some more music, Chris Hanfield. Tell me about your seventh.

Commander Chris Hadfield28:40

As a young guitar player, Gordon Lightfoot was an idol and a role model. He was huge in Canadian folk.

Commander Chris Hadfield28:47

And in this song, If If You Could Read My Mind.

Commander Chris Hadfield28:51

Of all the songs of his that I've listened to and that I've learned and that I've played in pubs, to me this is the most thoughtful.

Speaker 428:58

If I could read your mother

Speaker 429:01

What a tale your thoughts could tell.

Speaker 429:05

Just like a paper backing all the way

Speaker 429:09

The time the drugstore sells

Speaker 429:13

When you reach the park

Speaker 429:16

Where the heartaches come

Speaker 429:18

The hero would be me.

Speaker 429:22

Heroes often fail.

Speaker 429:26

You won't read that book again because the ending's just too hard.

Presenter29:33

That was Gordon Lightfoot, and if I could read your mind. Sir Chris Hatfield, you talked about becoming a member of the choir because you you you know you were asked for your voice when you were a young man and and of course I'm I'm sure you've been asked plenty times about the any notion you might have of faith and and the fact that you've seen the world from a very unique perspective and seen it really in all its glory. Indeed some of the photographs you've taken are quite literally breathtaking of the beauty of the earth. Has that influenced any faith you might have or not have?

Commander Chris Hadfield30:04

I wish everybody could see our Earth for what it actually is.

Commander Chris Hadfield30:09

Um to rise above it.

Commander Chris Hadfield30:12

And go around it once is not enough because you're overwhelmed. But to go around it enough times until the patience of it starts to seep into you and the eternity of it. And it's times like that you you think about your own faith.

Commander Chris Hadfield30:30

And they're all different faiths uh amongst the astronauts and cosmonauts.

Commander Chris Hadfield30:34

and how whatever it is that you believe brought you to where you are. And we talk about it on board. We talked about it at Christmas on board. And I I don't know of anybody now that it's changed their faith, but it deepens it.

Commander Chris Hadfield30:49

It it gives you a feeling of appreciation for all the things that you believe that brought you to be able to see the world with that perspective.

Presenter30:58

This remarkable life that you've had, you must want to thank your nine-year-old self.

Commander Chris Hadfield31:05

Yeah, if if I could go back.

Commander Chris Hadfield31:08

Before my third space flight, which I launched from Kazakhstan, my dad, who was in his eighties, just said I can't travel in December to Kazakhstan. But my dad sent my my older brother with something to say, which was trust yourself.

Commander Chris Hadfield31:26

You didn't get to this stage of life by accident. You have worked hard, and you're going to be asked in the next six months as a crew member and as the commander of this spaceship to make decisions on your own and trust yourself.

Commander Chris Hadfield31:40

And I think if I were bumping into my nine-year-old self, uh it'd probably be um the same words that I would say to him.

Commander Chris Hadfield31:47

is trust yourself.

Presenter31:49

Let's hear your final disc. Tell me about this.

Commander Chris Hadfield31:52

This is the newest of all the songs that I would want to take to the desert island with me. And this song to me is the absolute expression of passion, of the highs and lows of it, of the waves of it, of how it makes you think and, more importantly, how it makes you feel. And as I was sitting on my desert island far away from everything, it's one of those songs that I would go back and play again and again and again.

Speaker 132:19

I climbed across the mountain top

Speaker 132:24

Swim across the ocean.

Speaker 432:27

And love

Speaker 432:29

I crossed over land and I rolled all road.

Speaker 432:34

Baby, I brought them up for you.

Speaker 432:39

Oh, because I knew when I was black broke. You made me feel like a million bucks. You do I was made for you.

Presenter32:57

That was Brandy Carlyle and the story. So, uh, Chris Hatfield, it's time for me to give you some books. Uh, Every Castaway Gets the Complete Works of Shakespeare and the Bible. You're looking surprised, but you're gonna get.

Commander Chris Hadfield33:08

That's the beauty of being Canadian. I'm surprised by this. How delightful is that? Thank you. Complete works. That's great.

Presenter33:13

Yeah, and so your book, what's your book going to be?

Commander Chris Hadfield33:16

I'm a mechanical engineer, and I grew up on a farm fixing tractors. And there's a book called Mark's Engineering Handbook that is the Bible of how to make and build and fix things and make things actually work. And when I'm trying to turn my little coconut tree into a piston engine, I think I've already got all of the collected works of literary brilliance with Shakespeare, and I've got all of the historic cultural ideas of the Bible. So I think Mark's Handbook would be great.

Presenter33:46

And if there is any castaway who can turn a coconut tree into a piston engine, I think I may be looking at him. Um you also get to take a luxury.

Commander Chris Hadfield33:54

A guitar, no question. I I want to bring an acoustic six-string guitar.

Presenter34:00

It's yours. And if I were to say that the the waves are going to wash away the disks, which one do you run through the sand to save?

Commander Chris Hadfield34:11

I would I think I would feel

Commander Chris Hadfield34:14

least lonely and and most part of uh everything that I value and and everybody if if that song were uh were the soundtrack to the rest of my life on that desert island.

Presenter34:23

We will give you that then. Uh Commander Chris Hatfield, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Commander Chris Hadfield34:28

Thank you. It's been a delight to talk with you.

Presenter35:10

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website, bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.