'Success is feeling good about the work you do, not lifting off in a rocket' says astronaut Chris Hadfield

‘Imagine if Columbus’ voyages could have been seen on the Internet by everyone in Europe,” famous astronaut Chris Hadfield hypothesises.

“It would have been so much more exciting to share it that way than having to rely on a third person, and so much more powerful.”

He should know. The YouTube clip of him singing Bowie’s Space Oddity on the ISS spaceship going viral and viewed by hundreds of millions of people around the globe, igniting an unprecedented interest in space not witnessed since Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, and in so-doing inspiring a whole new generation.

Chris disagrees, he doesn’t think interest in space ever went away and says that in the hundreds of schools he visits every year there is “still the same interest”, that it’s the technology that has changed, enabling us to engage with space on a whole new level. He does however accept that the YouTube clip “made a huge difference”, although his motivation “was more about making a big effort to share what was happening up there,” than a social media experiment.

Either way, space is back in a big way and Chris Hadfield is largely responsible, namely through his two books, the first — An Astronaut’s Guide To Life — a fascinating insight into how ambition, drive and determination can get you to the top, as well as his inspiring experiences in space — the second, You Are Here, his series of photographs of the earth in all its splendour taken from space.

Brought up on a Canadian farm, his father was a commercial pilot and his mother raised five children. Aged nine Chris Hadfield went round to a neighbour’s to watch Neil Armstrong land on the moon and promised himself there and then that he would one day be an astronaut too. Millions of other little boys and girls no doubt pledged the same, but Chris meant it and devoted his life to bringing about his dream.

“I knew, with absolute clarity, that I wanted to be an astronaut. I also knew as did every kid in Canada, that it was impossible, but then it had been impossible to walk on the moon and Neil Armstrong hadn’t let that stop him.”

Moving from the Royal Canada Air Cadets to a glider scholarship in 1975, to becoming a fighter pilot, test pilot and then an astronaut, his ascent was swift and utterly focused. “I was determined to finish first. If you’re striving for excellence, whether it’s flying a jet or playing the guitar, there’s no such thing as over preparation. It’s your best chance of improving your odds,” he says. “But you’re not born an astronaut. The most you can hope for is good astronaut material.”

He obviously had it, becoming the top graduate of the US Air Force Test Pilot School in 1988, US Navy test pilot of the year in 1991, and selected by the Canadian Space Agency to be an astronaut in 1992. His three space missions were obviously the pinnacle of his impressive career, but as he says in exasperation: “When people find out I’m an astronaut they often ask ‘so what do you do when you’re not flying in space?’ as if we sit around in a waiting rooms between lift-offs.”

To answer their question, he was CAPCOM for 25 Shuttle launches, served as Director of NASA Operations in Star City, Russia, from 2001-2003, Chief of Robotics for the NASA Astronaut Office in Houston from 2003-2006, and Chief of International Space Station Operations from 2006-2008, most recently serving as Commander of the International Space Station.

So far, so good, but the reason we know about any of this is because he garnered our interest in the world’s first space music video and followed it up with An Astronaut’s Guide To Life which he wrote while still an astronaut. “It took me 2.5 years to write, but now it’s published in 17 languages, was a New York Times bestseller and has remained the number one book in Canada since it came out. It was a lot of work like everything else but I’m very pleased with it because it is not a biography or just a bunch of stories about space. I wanted it to be more than entertaining. I wanted it to make people think, about how to deal with the things that happen to you, with life, and fear, and the glorious moments we all experience. I intended it to be useful. And it seems to have worked. People stop me wherever I go and say it has changed how they do things.”

That Chris is enormously articulate helps, his description of his first ascent into space in 1995 for example going like this: “It feels like magic, like winning, like a dream. I feel like a little kid, like a sorcerer, like I’m the luckiest person alive. I am in space, weightless and getting here only took 8 mins and 42 seconds, give or take several thousand days of training.”

Following it up with You Are Here, which brings him back to Oxford for a book signing, his job as a motivational speaker and author still taking him around the very world he used to circumnavigate.

No rest for the wicked then? “I’m a real believer that if you do something unusual with your life you shouldn’t keep it to yourself. I have been privy to an amazing sequence of events and feel a responsibility and obligation to share them. I have no desire to do nothing. I don't see the point. I would rather do something. You only get one life,” he adds, “so even though I’m not a thrill seeker or a risk taker I do want to experience something every day.”

No regrets then? “I don’t see anything I did as a sacrifice otherwise why would you do it? It was more a sequence of choices that I made, opportunities seized. I’m quite content with that. The nature of my job enabled me and my family to do things, travel the world and access people that they wouldn’t have ordinarily experienced. There were a lot of benefits for all the trade-offs, and who’s to say that if I’d been a baker and been home everyday it would have been a more positive experience, that I wouldn’t have been unhappy?”

And then he pauses and adds: “Put it this way, if when I was 21, someone asked me to write a film script for the life I wanted it would’ve gone like this - fighter pilot, test pilot, astronaut, happy marriage, healthy kids, interesting experiences.” Job done then. “Yes, but success is about feeling good about the work you do, not lifting off in a rocket. The secret is to enjoy it.”

Commander Chris Hadfield will be signing copies of You Are Here at Blackwell's Oxford on Tuesday December 16 at 2.30pm - 4:30pm in the Norrington Room. 01865 333623.