BOOK CLUB: An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

Welcome back after a busy year to the Physoc Outreach Book Club. We return with a look at An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, written by Chris Hadfield, former Canadian Space Agency astronaut and commander of the International Space Station.

Image from panmacmillan

Myself included, I'm fairly sure it is almost very kid's dream - at least at some point - to be an astronaut and go into space. Chris Hadfield was also among them - but he also knew how incredibly unlikely it was that it would ever happen. In the past 53 years, since Yuri Gagarin in 1961, only 543 people have ever been to space (depending on the definition used). Each year NASA picks just 8 candidates to become trainee astronauts - last year these were chosen from a list of 6100 applicants. Add to this the fact that when Hadfield decided upon his dream upon watching the moon landing as a child in 1969, Canada didn't even have a space agency (NASA only selects US citizens as astronauts), and even to those of us who know what his future would be, the chances seem pretty slim. 

Nevertheless, Hadfield thought it couldn't hurt to do everything he would need to to acheive his dream and become an astronaut. He writes "I had to imagine what an astronaut would do if he were 9 years old, then do the exact same thing... Would an astronaut eat his vegetables or have potato chips instead? Sleep in late or get up early to read a book?" He was determined to always be ready for anything. After all, even if he could never become an astronaut, at least he knew he was on a path that would take him somewhere good. 

This is one of the overarching messages of the book - keeping your intended destination is sight, because even if you don't make it, at least you'll be somewhere on the way towards it, doing something you enjoy. Hadfield talks about "attitude", which in space flight refers to the direction your vehicle is pointing relative to the Sun, Earth and other space craft, and applies the same meaning of the word to the way he lives his life, keeping check on your attitude and whether it's what you want it to be. 

Some of the messages are perhaps a little surprising to those of us who don't have the trained mind of an astronaut - for instance, always sweat the small stuff, and the power of negative thinking - as an astronaut, "What's the next thing that could kill me?" is one of the most important questions you can ask. It may sound morbid, but according to Hadfield, it keeps him very calm to focus on these small details and know that he's been over and over a hundred times and more every possible way something could go wrong - so there's less chance of allowing it to happen, and he'd know what to do if it did. I guess this is parallel to going over a job interview in your head before it happens, the possible questions you could be asked - or taking practise papers for an exam. When you think about it, negative thinking makes sense. 

One thing which I was aware of already, which Hadfield highlights, and is perhaps particularly important to remember at the moment, is how space programs bring together people from different countries and incredibly different cultures, as one country simply could not have achieved the things that we as a planet and a species have through our joint efforts. It has in the past been especially important to reviving the relationship between America and Russia. We need to remember this going into the future, and not let idiotic bureaucracy, political, cultural or social differences get in the way of our coming together as a species through science, the manifestation of our innate curiosities about the world - and the universe - around us. 

Very much worth reading, and inspirational. 

See you again soon (and apologies for getting ranty and political at the end)
Jen

Oh, and Chris Hadfield has a new book coming out in October called "You Are Here - Around the World in 92 Minutes". Exciting!