An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me about Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything

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His own extraordinary education in space has taught him some counterintuitive lessons: don't visualize success, do care what others think, and always sweat the small stuff. It felt like I was reading the same thing over and over again, I spent the whole time wishing there would be a climax but there never was one. In space, if you don’t hang on to them, things like spoons, pencils, scissors and test tubes simply drift away, only to turn up a week later, clinging to the filter covering an air intake duct. If you turn your head quickly, that huge, wet glob of sweat might dislodge, sail across the module and smack an unsuspecting crewmate in the face. When you can’t even go outside to let off steam, personality conflicts can compromise a mission or derail it altogether.

I don't often use this term but Chris Hadfield is certainly a hero to myself, a person who exemplifies positive change in the world around him and encourages others to pursue their dreams. Only when we knew the vehicle was intact could we change out of our Sokhols and into regular blue spacesuits, which, like all Russian space clothing, have straps that go under your feet to pull the pant legs down. These are extremely small so that all the really big astronauts immediately had their chances of getting into space dropped to nil. I don’t think that what I’ve experienced is anything new; there are scores of others who likely experience the same problem every day: working on a team where not everybody pulls their weight and you’re stuck being viewed as an equal to someone who continually slacks off and takes the credit for things you may have had to help them out with.Without gravity, heat doesn’t rise, so air doesn’t mix and move; the fans and pumps that are necessary for comfort and survival whir, clunk and hum, a continuous blur of sound that’s occasionally punctuated by the loud ping or bang of a micrometeorite hitting the Station. I usually give my bedtime reads a perfunctory paragraph review, but I had to do a proper review for this one. After about two and a half hours it’s time: they turn the ship tail-first and set up for deorbit burn. In his book, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, Chris Hadfield takes listeners deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. Hadfield most recently served as Commander of the International Space Station, where, while conducting a record-setting number of scientific experiments and overseeing an emergency spacewalk, he gained worldwide acclaim for his breathtaking photographs and educational videos about life in space.

Hadfield proves himself to be not only a fierce explorer of the universe, but also a deeply thoughtful explorer of the human condition. For the last few years the Mars rovers have been the sexy at NASA with the demise of the shuttle, the hitchhiking on Russian craft, oh and that psycho cross-country drive diaper caper really doing a number on NASA astronaut public image. Hadfield takes readers deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. I also appreciated the writing about the impact his choice of career had on his family, it's covered in a powerful and reflective, but never sappy way.S. Navy test pilot of the year in 1991, Hadfield was selected by the Canadian Space Agency to be an astronaut in 1992. All this preaching though is underpinned with solid of examples of Hadfield being an absolutely sterling human being , including having a sense of humour about his tendency to pontificate. Other anatomical changes associated with long-duration space flight are definitely negative: the immune system weakens, the heart shrinks because it doesn’t have to strain against gravity, eyesight tends to degrade, sometimes markedly (no one’s exactly sure why yet).

Opening the hatch always takes longer than anyone would want, because first the crew has to ascertain that the impact of docking hadn’t damaged the Soyuz. Through eye-opening, entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerising wonder of spacewalks and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises, he explains how conventional wisdom can get in the way of achievement - and happiness. It's much more than a narrative of his journey into space (although everything he does tell us about space is fascinating and even exciting), it explores his philosophy for life in general and gives much food for thought. It's about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it, especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter.Lessons which in fact seemed to go against conventional thinking and life coaching such as visualising success, not sweating the small stuff and not caring about what others think. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. If you’re looking to get into a memoir that explores the life of someone extraordinary who does extraordinary things yet still stays humble and true in his account of it, I highly recommend this. but he accompanies this with a very healthy acknowledgement of the risks that he would never have flown. Or what zero gravity can do to your body, going to the bathroom in the space station, or preparing to leave from Russia.