Dubai: Astronaut Chris Hadfield, who among his many accomplishments was the first Canadian to take a spacewalk, and the first to record a music video from space, held a Q&A session with fans on Saturday as part of the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature at Festival City.
Hadfield is also famous for taking pictures of the earth from the International Space Station, where he served as commander, and posting them on social media sites.
Among his many photographs, which have been compiled in a book ‘You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Hours,’ is a photograph of Dubai’s manmade islands. The Palm and The World can very clearly be seen in the photographs shot from space. Hadfield posted the picture on his Twitter account ahead of the Saturday’s event. Hadfield’s first book ‘An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth’ was an international bestseller. Signed copies of both books were available at the event.
Hadfield, who has more than 21 years of experience as an astronaut, told his fans to “set audacious goals for themselves. Because that will make it clear to you what your next step should be”.
He added that that even if such a goal doesn’t seem to be remotely possible today, it could be possible tomorrow. “Even if the goal is unlikely to ever happen, it’ll make clear to you the road you want to take.
“When I was born, sending a man to the moon was an outlandish thought,” he said, adding that he decided to become an astronaut when he witnessed the Apollo 11 landing on the moon when he was 10.
“Walking on the moon is my audacious goal and, although I haven’t walked on the moon, I wouldn’t consider myself a failure. The goal simply makes it clear which direction you want to take in life.”
Hadfield, who has flown two space shuttle missions and has spent six months in space on one trip, spoke of the rigours of space travel and the difficulties in readapting to earth’s gravity and atmosphere.
“After the body becomes used to being in space, the heart, inner-ear balance and bone density are all affected. After we come back to earth we need to wear a G-suit to ensure we don’t fall and break a hip.”
Hadfield, who since 1992 has held talks on space travel in front of thousands of students, said interest in space exploration had not suffered since its ‘golden age’, and if anything it’s become more popular. “Discovery is one of our fundamental curiosities,” he said, “if anything, recent Hollywood movies only go to show that interest in space exploration is only becoming more popular.”
When asked about the possibility of sending people to Mars, Hadfield said humankind simply didn’t have the technology to do that yet. “For a craft to be able to go to Mars, it needs to have a launch of 12 m/s. It also needs to slow down when coming close to Mars. We simply don’t have the engines for that kind of travel yet. But we’re working on it.”
The Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature which started on March 1, is scheduled to run until March 12.
Centred around the theme of ‘Time’, the event has attracted more than 150 writers, poets and illustrators from 30 countries.
With 2016 announced as the Year of Reading by the country’s leaders, the eighth edition of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature is putting a special emphasis on the habit, along with local traditions, and William Shakespeare, in honour of the famous bard’s 400th anniversary.
