♪ Hello, and welcome to another edition of Canada Files .

I'm Jim Deeks.

Our guest on this episode is Chris Hadfield who made himself world famous in 2013 by being the first astronaut to sing and play the guitar while commanding the International Space Station orbiting 250 miles above the earth.

Born in Sarnia, Ontario in 1959, Chris was recognized as an outstanding aircraft test pilot.

Prior to becoming the author to three best-selling books, he was acknowledged as one of the most experienced and respected astronauts in NASA history.

>> Chris, most young boys growing up in Canada during the 1960s probably wanted to be firemen or hockey players.

Personally I wanted to be a PGA Tour player but that was never going to happen.

From what I read about you, it was 'astronaut' all the way.

>> Jim, it started in my mind.

I was growing up on a farm primarily.

So I wasn't surrounded by all the opportunity and stimulation of a city.

What I had was books, comics and science fiction books to go beyond the horizons of where I lived.

Then Star Trek came on television.

It wasn't Bonanza .

This was a western but this was in space-- Kirk and Spock and all those characters.

Then 2001 A Space Odyssey came out-- ...I went to a friend's birthday party That combination of huge opportunity through imagination really got me fired up.

At the same time, as firemen and hockey players were stimulating young Canadian kids, people were starting to fly in space for real!

It wasn't just fantasy .

There was a link between this wild imagination that was being fed by science fiction and the actual opportunity that might exist for a little kid like me.

When they all came together with the first moon landing and the race to the moon in the late 60s, I felt like this has never happened before.

This is a door opening to a previously unattainable world and maybe I could be one of the people that can go through and do this thing.

It captured my imagination.

<< You and your two brothers were also struck with the idea of spending perhaps, a lifetime above the clouds.

You all became aircraft pilots as young adults.

As kids, you enrolled in the national Air Cadets program.

Even then, how realistic was it to think that maybe one day a little Canadian boy, here in Sarnia, Ontario could be an astronaut?

>> It wasn't unrealistic.

It was impossible .

We didn't have astronauts or a space agency.

Canada didn't have rocket ships or capsules.

We had none of that.

But you didn't have to take a very big leap to realize that space flight, just a few years previous, had been impossible for everybody.

When you and I were born, no-one had ever flown in space.

I was two years old when Gagarin and Al Shepherd flew.

Space flight was still brand new.

So even though by definition, it wasn't something a little Canadian kid could do.

I thought, not very long ago Neil Armstrong couldn't do that either.

So I can't predict the future but I really thought maybe I could work on myself.

That's why I and my brothers joined the Air Cadets.

To try and get that first step away from the world.

Start to fly and see how high the future could take us.

>> Before we go onto space with you, let's talk about before you became an astronaut.

You became a test pilot for the Canadian Armed Forces -- the RCAF, and the US Navy .

Tell us what you did as a test pilot and the things you accomplished.

>> I was a fighter pilot in the Canadian Air Force flying F18s intercepting Soviet bombers during the Cold War off the coast of Canada.

Then I got selected to go to test pilot school.

I went to the US Air Force Test Pilot School, out in the desert in Edwards.

Where Chuck Yeager had broken the speed of sound and Scott Crossfield had gone Mach2 in the X15 he flew.

Then I got selected to be a test pilot on exchange with the US Navy over the Chesapeake-- a little airport called Patuxent River .

I was an F18 test pilot but I flew a lot of other airplanes.

In my life, I've flown 100 or so different types of airplanes.

We were testing F18s in the late 80s, early 90s-- the Persian Gulf conflict.

Trying to make those F18s better, safer airplanes but also more effective airplanes.

The Navy was putting them out of control and crashing them so I did an 'out-of-control' program with F18s.

Where we took one up and did things to make it start tumbling through the air, then experiment with different ways to get it back under control.

We put a hydrogen-burning engine on the wing tip of the F18 that someday may lead to the type of aircraft that can take you halfway around the world in a couple of hours.

A supersonic combustion ramjet , a scramjet .

So it was partially military testing but also partially straight aerodynamics testing, and a lot of scientific research.

It was a fascinating job.

If I hadn't the next step to being an astronaut I would still be a test pilot.

I love that job.

>> How did you get into the astronaut stream?

How did you qualify?

>> There was no path from where I started to where I wanted to end up.

There was no-one to follow in Canada.

There were no role models.

All my role models were Soviet or American.

They were pilots-- a lot were test pilots and engineers.

So that's the route I had chosen.

When Canada started selecting astronauts in the 80s and '92, they were looking for people with operational skills.

People that had done complex things, with advanced academic backgrounds, healthy bodies.

All the standard things you picture for astronauts.

So I put together the best resume possible.

I bought the expensive paper-- shipped with the best shipper to make sure it got there on time.

I tried to list everything I'd done.

There were 5,300+ other people that had applied too.

I think the work that I'd done since I was that 9 year-old kid watching Neil and Buzz step onto the moon had given me an acretion of capabilities and qualifications that my name kept making it to the top of the pile.

In the final week, they brought the last 20 of 5,300.

They looked into our bodies and our minds, as far as they could, making sure we were fundamentally healthy.

Also, this is a 20 year commitment and you're going to be asked to risk your life.

Lots of your compatriots are going to die doing this job.

Are you the right type of person-- able to do super-complex things and represent your country?

It was an exhaustive week.

At the end of it, they chose four of us.

And I was one of those four.

>> There has since been another five Canadians who have gone to space.

You weren't the first.

Marc Garneau and Roberta Bondar were the first two Canadians.

You and Julie Payette who is now our Governor-General.

Americans didn't have to allow Canadians into the program.

But they did.

How did that happen?

>> Canada has never built a rocket that can take a human being to space.

Anytime a Canadian has flown in space, it's been in co-operation with another space agency, another country or both.

When Marc Garneau, Roberta Bondar or Steve MacLean flew, we had provided the big robot arm for the American space shuttle.

Since we had a major, important necessary component of the Space Shuttle Program, that allowed us a few people to be part of the program.

Those were our first astronauts-- very much scientists on-board the shuttle.

When we started building the International Space Station , and we'd proven ourselves to be a good partner with the Canadarm and our astronauts, we were invited, not just as scientists on board but to be completely qualified full crew members.

To do anything anybody might have to-- operate the big arm or do space walks or whatever.

That was the hiring plan in '92 when Julie, Mike, Dave and I were hired.

I immediately got shipped, along with Marc Garneau, down to the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas.

I'd visited there as a teenager, dreaming someday I might have a chance to work here.

It was an amazing August 3rd, 1992 when I got into my old family station wagon, because we had three kids and drove through the gates of the Johnson Space Centre realizing that this great new adventure of life was just beginning.

>> A dream come true >> It was more than a dream come true.

It was the start of a long-imagined dream.

The details had yet to be worked out.

Like a familiar novel where you've started turning the page, and you know it's going to be great.

But you just don't know how yet.

<< Let's talk about the details.

You did three separate space missions.

Give us some of the numbers-- the total number of days in space.

>> You don't count those while you're in space.

Someone counted-- it's a little under half a year.

I think it's 165 - 166 days.

About 2,650 times around the world.

About 70 million miles.

You get 16 sunrises a day.

If you multiply 166 by 16, that's how many extra sunrises and sunsets I've seen.

>> What was the longest stretch?

>> My first flight, we were helping build the Russian space station, Mir .

We went up on a space shuttle, Atlantis .

We were only up for eight days.

Second flight, I was doing space walks to build the International Space Station.

That was a little more complex-- we were up about 12 days.

My third flight, I flew as the pilot of a Russian space ship, a ' soyuz '.

It's a taxi that takes you to the station, then you live there.

We lived there for 5 months.

So my third flight was the long one.

Five months living on board the International Space Station with our little soyuz parked as a life boat, if we need it.

But also like a horse that's been tied up outside waiting 'til you get on it and head back home again.

If I'd scripted it, it couldn't have been better.

I had those first two flights to learn what was going on-- to get accomplished.

To learn how to be a good technical astronaut, and how to be a leader.

Then to be asked, to go live in space for five months and command a crew.

It was a huge privilege.

I loved every second of it.

>> What were some of the things that you were the first to do, or you alone, have done in space?

>> ...As a Canadian, because there's only been a handful of us fly in space, almost everything you do is 'the first'.

I was the first mission specialist, meaning a fully qualified shuttle crew member.

I was the first Canadian to operate the Canadarm .

I was the first Canadian to do a walk in space.

We celebrate it on our $5.00 bill.

I unveiled that bill in space for the Bank of Canada .

I was the only Canadian to command a space ship...so far to live on-board the International Space Station .

And be the commander of the International Space Station .

Lots of things are first .

What is more important, realistically for me, is every single one of those was the first time for me.

You can let history decide if it's a worthy thing, or not.

The responsibility of each of those things-- the import of doing them badly was huge .

The life-or-death, and the financial risk of making a mistake is staggering.

Billiondollar mistakes and instantaneous deaths for seven people.

You take it hugely seriously and afterwards if you say "Hey, you were the very first Canadian to do that!"

I say, "Well, that's great.

I'm proud, and for my country."

But that really wasn't the reason that I did it.

Nor was it uppermost in my mind while it was happening.

>> You've been described as the most savvy social media astronaut in history.

Not that there's a category for that.

>> It's becoming bigger with time.

>> For sure.

I think you started a trend.

You were constantly one of the most-celebrated astronauts ever to be in space.

Partly because of the marvellous cover you did of the David Bowie song, Space Oddity .

>>Major Tom >> By the time, you were up there, there's no question that the mass public appeal and support of space travel had diminished quite a bit from the Armstrong-Aldrin days.

>> Of course.

>> In view of the important work that you were doing, the ground-breaking work, was it disappointing that there weren't as many people interested and watching as there had been a generation before?

>> Not at all.

If you'd been there to entertain people, perhaps you would have been disappointed.

I was exploring the rest of the universe in person.

...In any movie theatre, there are more people than have ever flown in space.

It's still an extremely rare human experience.

And I got to be doing those things.

I wasn't there so I could come home and brag about it.

Or....try and give other people transient entertainment.

We forget that by the time Apollo 13 happened-- Apollo 11 was when Neil and Buzz walked on the moon... the people that just wanted to be entertained by space were like, "We already went to the moon."

"Why would we ever go back again?"

Who remembers anything about Apollo 16?

It was a hugely important scientific flight.

People risked their lives to do it.

But the aura of entertainment had already washed away.

That's normal.

That's a normal pattern.

How about the fiftieth person to climb Everest?

It wasn't that much easier than when Sir Edmund Hillary went.

>> Of course.

>> But it was not nearly as publicly celebrated.

Or if you come 5th in the Olympics.

You worked really hard and it was a huge accomplishment.

But the entertainment value is low.

Fortunately, that's not why we're exploring space.

It's not why the astronauts are in the business.

>> While you were up there, aside from all the tasks that you had to do, what was the biggest challenge for you personally, living through those weeks and months?

>> ...there's a lot of challenges, Jim.

>> I was thinking boredom or concentration- >> Keeping up is the hardest thing.

There are 7.7 billion human beings.

Six of them are off the planet.

Everything that's done off the planet has to be done by those six people.

Right now there's just three.

Not just maintaining and operating the most complex spaceship we've ever built.

But doing the hundreds of experiments on board.

Being the focal point of the world's space programs.

Trying to carry that off properly.

Being cognizant and ready for all of the dangers that could crop up at any second.

I had the added responsibility of being the commander of the ship.

As things went wrong, it was up to me to decide.

I had the ultimate vote on whatever was going to happen.

And nothing goes as planned.

Everything's different.

None of the simulators are perfect.

Everyone is over-optimistic.

Then the Queen wants to talk to you, and then something breaks.

There's life up there, and nowhere does it ever say-- go to the bathroom or go look out the window.

Or notice what's happening around you.

Or record Space Oddity .

Nowhere does it ever say-- love the experience.

The hardest part for me was staying ahead of the demands, but still loving and absolutely revelling in the experience of being there.

I worked really hard at both.

>> You were cooped up there in a large tin can with 4, 5 or 6 other people for weeks or months at a time.

How difficult is it not to get on each other's nerves or find you can't stand one other?

>> Fortunately, we don't run into strangers very often when we're on board a spaceship.

When I first got hired as an astronaut in August '92, and the 24 of us sat down for that group picture, even then I was looking around.

I'm going to be in space with some of these people.

I may have to save the life of any of these people or they may have to save mine.

It's time to start building relationships now of respect, trust and camaraderie.

That circle of people just grew with the rest of the American Astronaut Corps.

Then, with the International Space Station, came the Europeans, Japanese and Russians.

A constant, decadal effort to build all of the bridges of support and familiarity, mutual goal setting, an understanding of success.

All of that in preparation for the inevitability of flying with a subset of them.

So, by the time you got to space, you knew and trusted each other.

You knew everybody's weaknesses and strengths.

You understand what the purpose was.

You found a way to build great joy of celebration into what we were all doing together.

In the movies it's so bad-- everyone's so sad in the movies.

Why is everyone so glum on a space flight?

It can be so joyful .

You're seeing the entire world every 92 minutes.

The universe is around you.

It's wondrous.

I worked really hard, especially as the commander, to build that esprit de corps and that sense of magnificence of where we were.

>> One of the aspects when you were up there-- you were very proud to be Canadian.

It took great pains to remind the people on earth you were Canadian.

And a Toronto Maple Leafs fan.

You wore the Leafs jersey-- good for you!

>> I did.

>> You'd been living in the US for many years.

What caused you to have so much pride in being Canadian?

What does being Canadian mean to you?

>> Growing up, I didn't see much difference between Canadians and the rest of the world.

It was my sphere of reference.

I know what it's like.

Even I have lived in little parts of Canada.

There's lots of Canada I don't know well.

I tended to impose my particular view of normal wherever I was.

But the longer you live somewhere else, the more you realize there are subtle differences.

There are strong subtle differences between the culture of the US and Canada.

I boil it down to-- Canadians are raised with a fundamental trust in authority.

Americans are raised with a fundamental mistrustof authority.

I think that manifests itself a lot of different ways.

It comes from having a different birth as a nation.

US fought its way through revolution to become a country.

Canada was granted over 30 years to become a nation.

We reflect our own pasts.

I was born Canadian.

I would rather be Canadian.

It suits me better.

I like it better.

There's no country on earth that has opportunity like the US.

They were the ones that gave me the opportunity to be the test pilot that I was.

And to have the chance to fly in space three times.

I'm eternally thankful to the co-operation between the two.

But I'm fiercely proud of being a Canadian.

...My great-grandfather was a physical trainer for the Maple Leafs in the late 30s.

How can I not be a Maple Leafs fan as well?

I've always been a Maple Leafs fan.

>> Chris, let's go ahead 200 years.

With all the problems on earth today, it's hard to believe that the space program will even continue.

But let's say it does.

Do you see us in 200 years living on another planet?

Or visiting other planets?

I know there's Mars in the future but will humankind be able to exist somewhere else in the universe?

>> As an astronaut, I'm perhaps more personally informed about the world than a lot of people.

Been around it 1,000s of times and seen it directly.

I'm more optimistic than the picture you just painted.

You said 200 years from now.

How about 200 years ago, trying to predict how far we've come since then?

Or 200 years before that?

Or any 200 year slice in history?

The existential threat to being a success as a species and a planet has always been wicked.

Yet we've prevailed like never before.

I am optimistic.

You have to be optimistic to fly a rocket ship.

We'll find a way to muddle through.

The combination of our own cleverness and creativity and the technology that supports us will continue.

I don't think it's going to stop.

If anything, I think it will accelerate.

Given that, we've already put people on the moon.

24 people have gone to the moon.

12 have walked on the surface.

Our robots have been driving around Mars since the 70s.

We have sent robots to every planet in the solar system.

Beyond our solar system-- we have probes that have left our solar system.

They're in the space between the stars.

Interstellar space...right now.

It seems crazy that we could be living on the moon, or living on Mars.

But in 1911, the very first person got to the South Pole.

Just 1911 !

There are people alive that were born before that.

One long lifetime since Roald Amundsen walked on the South Pole.

Now 1,000s of people live there.

To think that can happen in just one human lifetime.

All you really need is the right technology to be able to stay there.

11 million people a day fly in airliners-- in a poisonous, unlivable environment going 500 mph.

Our technology is so good that people take that for granted.

To think that there's a natural barrier to that, at the top of our atmosphere somewhere, is limited thinking.

I'm very confident within that short period of time we'll have people living on the moon, just as they do in the more remote parts of the world.

And we'll be figuring out ways for them to be living wherever our rockets will take us, including Mars.

>> You retired 7 years ago.

Would you want to go back up?

Like John Glenn did, 36 years after his last mission.

>> I'd love to fly in space again but not just for a ride.

I wouldn't turn it down.

If you're offering, Jim, I'd love to go in space again.

The real grand benefit of it is the challenge and adventure.

What you learn from it and what it brings back to everybody else.

Not just the personal stimulation of nerve endings.

It is fun!

It's a great experience!

But it's the big picture that I'm most interested in.

It's why I'm talking to you today.

It's what directs most of the things I'm doing in my life now.

>> What you've brought back to earth has benefitted so many-- the experience, the tales that you brought back.

And you are an exemplary Canadian.

Thanks so much for joining us on Canada Files .

We really appreciate it.

>> My pleasure.

Nice to talk with you.

>> Thank you.

And thank you for watching.

We'll see you again on the next episode of Canada Files .

♪