Chris Hadfield, the Canadian Commander of the International Space Station is back on earth preparing for a recovery that will take almost as long as the time spent in space.
Chris Hadfield spoke Thursday via webcast from NASA in Houston, Texas, about the challenges and the rewards of his twice-in-a-lifetime experience. He said the first thing he noticed after crashing back to earth in Kazakhstan, was the smell! He said the grass, the smell of spring, as well as the smell of their burning spacecraft, was a re-awakening of one sense.
And then there’s that other sense most of us can’t comprehend; gravity. “Right after I landed, I could feel the weight of my lips and tongue and had to change how I was talking,” he recalled. “I didn’t realize I had learned to talk with a weightless tongue.”
His neck and back are sore as he must hold his head up now, and he said “I was walking around like I was walking on hot coals yesterday” after months of flying in space. Hadfield described weightlessness as a superpower.
But the accelerated aging that comes with orbiting high above the earth for 5 months, is what has rendered Chris Hadfield a “full-sized human lab rat” as he describes himself now. Doctors and scientists are observing and probing him as he undergoes the rehabilitation program necessary to adjust and regain the strength to enjoy life back on earth.
Raffi Kuyumjian, Chief Medical Officer at the Canadian Space Agency, said that astronauts typically lose one per cent of bone density per month while in zero gravity.
For now, Chris Hadfield continues the rejuvenation process, and just as he tweeted and shared the experience above the earth, we can expect him to share the reality of returning to earth. But he won’t be at the NASA facility for too long; he’s expected in Ottawa July 1st for our Canada Day Celebrations.
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