View from International Space Station courtesy Cmdr. Hadfield
Is it just me or does anyone else get really excited by the photos Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield routinely sends back from space?
He has completely mastered the social media sharing experience as he tweets – @Cmdr_Hadfield – several photos everyday.
Storytelling par excellence
Each photo has a little story to go with it. The photo and a sentence usually sum it all up. Or it’s part of a bigger theme he’s embarked on that day.
He learned he’s being followed by lots of people in the United Kingdom so he’s promised to send out more photos concentrating on that area. Last week, he tweeted photos of New Orleans in honour of the Super Bowl.
Today he ended his posts with this breathtaking shot of, as he wrote, “From here to the horizon to forever – a quick glance out the window of the Space Station.”
He’s an astronaut. A Leafs fan. A consumate teacher. A proud Canadian. A talented photographer. And a poet who has an uncanny sense of what to shoot and say in 140 words or less. Incredible.
And he’s doing this all from space. Literally floating around in the International Space Station, orbiting the Earth.
Sarnia, Ontario from the International Space Station. Photo courtesy of Cmdr. Chris Hadfield.
Walk off the Earth
Maybe it’s my age and the nostalgia nerve that’s being tweaked – I remember being in our sunroom on Charing Cross Road in Chatham, Ontario in the humidity of July, 1969 watching Neil Armstrong step down onto the moon’s surface. I was in awe.
I’m still in awe, sitting on the shore of Skeleton Lake in central Ontario in the same July humidity, picking out stars and the space station as it silently drifts by.
Now, benefiting from technology and the expertise and perspective of an incredible astronaut, I can enjoy the views of Earth from space via a Twitter feed. Several times a day.
Wow. Thank you Chris Hadfield.
(I can’t wait for the NASA robot rover Curiosity to start tweeting from Mars!)
saysshelly 
I wonder if tweeting his photos and seeing the responses part of how he stays connected to us all down here. I feel like space would be a lonely place, and maybe knowing that people look forward to his pictures reminds him that we haven’t forgotten about him way up there! I truly thinks astronauts are incredible people. It takes a lot of courage to shoot yourself up into the abyss!
What an interesting point! I hadn’t thought of it that way. It could very well be that it is his way of staving off loneliness and staying connected at the same time. Maybe I should send him a tweet and ask?!
I definitely think you should! Let me know if you hear back!
Hadfield was one of the first people I followed on Twitter. His photos have been so amazing.
Whether it was intentional or not, he’s also given space activity a more human aspect by connecting us to what he is seeing on a very regular basis. Before he started his mission on the ISS, I was aware of some of what was going on, but not really engaged with it.
Also, I was wrong in class last night – there are now actually SIX people serving on the ISS at a time (usually 3 from NASA or related agencies, 3 from Russia). They rotate on and off in “expeditions” of 3 that overlap with the 3 from before and then the next group when it arrives.
Thanks for setting the record straight. It makes me happy to hear there are a few folks up there but I nominate Hadfield to have a star named after him!
This comment is a little late, but I just wanted to let you know that the Curiosity Rover actually does tweet from Mars (kind of). You can follow him (her?) at https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity.
Thanks for that! I definitely will start following it. I’m going to be sad when the Commander comes back from the International Space Station. I have loved every tweet he’s put out there.