FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

The Return of the Celebrity Astronaut

Col. Chris Hadfield managed to do what nobody's done before: he sent millions of eyeballs directly into orbit.
Image: Screengrab

Quick, name an astronaut that's actually been to space within the last five years. That means Neil's out, and so is Yuri and Sally. See? Tougher than it should be, considering that astronauts still rule even if they haven't been to the moon for a while.

If you did answer, chances are you came up with Col. Chris Hadfield, the Canadian cosmonaut. The evidently tireless man has spent the last five months aboard the International Space Station tweeting out cosmic observations, photographing the planet below, putting his zero-gravity life on display on YouTube, and serenading Earthlings with his guitar. All in between carrying out science experiments, making repairs on the station, and other staples of the space-faring daily routine.

Advertisement

Hadfield, who begins his journey home today aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, famously opened up his free-floating world aboard the ISS to the social media networks, starting with Twitter.

Tomorrow we send 2 crew out into the thermal vacuum wearing cloth-and-rubber pressure suits to repair ISS. Extra study of procedures tonight

— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) May 10, 2013

He now has over 830,000 followers. Hadfield also posted his space photography on what is probably the best Tumblr that has ever been Tumbld (that's California's Bay Area below).

And he produced a stream of fascinating YouTube videos that were viewed millions of times.

Hadfield did more than just provide us with an unprecedented conduit into space-life. He also managed to do what nobody's ever really done before: send millions of eyeballs directly into orbit.

Over the last couple of days, he produced a couple of tributes must-see videos to commemorate his time aboard the ISS. The first was a charming (and pretty solid, really) cover of Bowie's "Space Oddity":

The second was a much more sober reflection on his stay aboard the ISS:

If it appears that Mr. Hadfield is choked up a bit, it's because he is. It seems that the cosmonaut, who has made two previous forays into space, was genuinely unprepared to become such a social media superstar and celebrated public figure and that he's pretty moved by the whole phenomenon.

"Almost none of (the social media aspect) was sketched out in advance,” Hadfield's son Evan, who helps run the Twitter and Tumblr feeds, told the Montreal Gazette. “We had hoped that a lot of fun things could be done … but beyond hoping that he could provide some interesting media in new and interesting ways, we weren’t sure what would be possible.”

Now, of course, Hadfield's best videos and photos make news across the globe. All of the above, after all, has turned Hadfield into the first bona fide celebrity astronaut we've seen in decades—he's a sensation; every media outlet under the sun is covering his return to Earth. And that's a good thing. NASA could use an ur- stronaut, after all, an inspiring face for the deflating space program, and Hadfield fits the bill (even if he is Canadian). Now, Mr. Hadfield is prepared to continue his advocacy for space travel:

"We will go to the Moon and we will go to Mars; we will go and see what asteroids and comets are made of," he recently told BBC News. Now, with his newly anointed celebrity, he'll be in an ideal position to help generate interest in those pursuits—and he already has, by giving the public the best-ever pipeline into space they've ever had.

Almost time to leave Station. Hard to express all of my emotions, but mostly gratitude. I came here on behalf of so many people - thank you.

— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) May 12, 2013