An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me about Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything

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In zero gravity, there’s no need for a mattress or pillow; you already feel like you’re resting on a cloud, perfectly supported, so there’s no tossing and turning to find a more comfortable position.

There was the Sahara, there was Lake Victoria and the Nile, snaking all the way up to the Mediterranean.Since first reading it in 2014 I have bought multiple copies for others, and have found that I often quote the concept of being a +1 that Chris Hadfield discussed in this book.

Through eye-opening, entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks, and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises, he explains how conventional wisdom can get in the way of achievement-and happiness. This again is not self-help, it's because every single thing that happens in space has to be dealt with with only the resources and training of the men aboard. I picked this book up for insights and information into that world and put it down changed for life! His music video, a zero-gravity version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," received over 10 million views in its first three days online.Proper etiquette on the ISS is to have a towel tucked into your clothes or floating beside you while you work out, to soak up your sweat. Other anatomical changes associated with long-duration space flight are definitely negative: the immune system weakens, the heart shrinks because it doesn’t have to strain against gravity, eyesight tends to degrade, sometimes markedly (no one’s exactly sure why yet). To try and be an astronaut is to seek to perform a task to perfection even though it is most likely that task will never be performed by you.

Afterward, a doctor took swabs of all parts of my body - behind my ears, my tongue, my crotch - to see if I had any infections, then rubbed me down with alcohol just in case I did.

Most of us won't ever get to go to space, but we can learn about it and get inspired to live on Earth by doing so. In space, if you don’t hang on to them, things like spoons, pencils, scissors and test tubes simply drift away, only to turn up a week later, clinging to the filter covering an air intake duct. At certain angles, it’s possible to see clear from one end to the other, but poking out along the length of it, like branches on a massive tree, are three Russian modules and three American ones, along with a European and a Japanese module.