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austinkleon:

Astronaut Chris Hadfield’s transmissions from space

Couple of cool facts about astronaut Chris Hadfield, the commander of the International Space Station who’s been Tweeting, Reddit-ing, and YouTube-ing from space:

1) The idea to go behind the scenes with social media was hatched 3 years ago at the Hadfield family dinner table — the Hadfields were trying to figure out how to generate interest for the Canadian Space Agency, which is facing major budget cuts. Hadfield wanted is “to help people connect the real side of what an astronaut’s life is – not just the glamour and science, but also the day-to-day activities.”

2) Hadfield does the posting and responding himself, but Hadfield’s son, Evan, is his unpaid assistant, doing most of the maintenance work: “I make it so that he can simply float up to the computer and post without wasting any of his valuable time.” (I love his Twitter bio: “Internet janitor”) Evan also fed his dad tips about what was going on down on Earth, so he could snap photos.

3) When he gets back: “He’s gonna land on Earth, he’s probably gonna vomit on himself, and then he’s going to pass out. That’s what happens when you come back from space.”

I love this quote from Canada’s first man in space, Marc Garneau, who said he wished he’d had social media during his flights:

“You need that feeling that you haven’t been abandoned up there. You need to feel that there are a whole bunch of people on the ground that are watching over you,” he said. “I think the connection is much stronger now because [Hadfield] has all these people who are tweeting to him and he’s tweeting to them.”

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