Chris Hadfield announcing his retirement from the Canadian Space Agency yesterday in Longueuil, Quebec.

Photo Credit: CP/Paul Chiasson

Chris Hadfield retiring and coming home to Canada

Chris Hadfield’s life in space is over and he’s moving back home to Canada.   He made the announcements on a quick visit back to Canada yesterday.   Hadfield met Prime Minister Stephen Harper at his residence in Ottawa, and later, at the Canadian Space Agency just outside Montreal, announced his retirement.

The first Canadian Commander of the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield is still recovering from his 5 months in orbit around the earth.  During that time he brought the Space Station back into the lives of millions of people with his beautiful and revealing photos, his music and his reflective tweets.

As of July 3rd, Chris Hadfield will take “the opportunity to pursue new professional challenges” according to the CSA.  “I’ve had such an interesting career and after 35 years it’s time to step down.  I’m the last astronaut of my class that’s still around,” he told the assembled press.  “There are so many young astronauts in the program, I would be an obstacle for them,” he said.

This latest voyage was the third for Hadfield.  The only Canadian to visit the Russian space station Mir in 1995, he was also the first to perform a spacewalk when he installed Canadarm2 onto the ISS in 2001.

Chris Hadfield has lived in Houston, Texas since the 1980’s and his days as a fighter pilot.  He said, “I’ll be making good on a promise I made my wife nearly 30 years ago, that yes, eventually, we would be moving back to Canada”

He said he hasn’t decided what he will do next, but plans to continue to doing presentations on space in the meantime.  And despite the loss of up to five per cent of his bone density in some areas, he expects to be back to normal by the holiday Labour Day weekend at the beginning of September.

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