After a stellar career in the military, Hadfield realized his lifelong dream of becoming an astronaut and flew into space in 1995. Among a long list of galactic accomplishments, he spent 146 days on the Space Station, was commander of the Space Station, and spent fourteen hours on spacewalks.

He is the recipient of the Order of Canada, the Meritorious Service Cross, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, and named the Top Test Pilot in both the US Air Force and the US Navy. Chris Hadfield is the definitive Swagger man.

Anything going on when you were 9 that lit that spark?

Hadfield: Science fiction. I was reading comic books with all the space heroes. I read all the classic stuff like Ray Bradbury, Jules Vern. All of that opened up a lot of room in my head. Then, Star Trek came on TV – I could watch it for the first time in the 60s. Then, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968.

All of that was fun and games, but the real determinator was that it was happening in real life. There were actually people flying around in space. When I was two years old, someone flew in space for the first time.

Then, there was a whole race between the Soviet Union and the United States, and they were trying to put a person on the moon… There was just this enormous thrill that inspired – there were real people doing this. This wasn’t X-men and fantasy. These were real people that had somehow put themselves in a position to do something that even recently was the stuff of only comics. I thought, ‘Wow.’ What could be more exciting than that, or a bigger challenge?

Can you give me an overview of what your time in space lent us a better understanding of?

Hadfield: I flew in space three times. I helped build the Russian Space Station on my first space flight. I helped build the International Space Station, and did Canada’s first space walks on my second flight. I commanded the International Space Station on my third flight.

We learned an enormous amount about space technology through all three flights. How do you build a space station using an American space ship, Canadian robot arm, and a Russian module? You have metric and American units, multiple languages, times zones, different mission controls - there is great complexity doing something like that.

We ran about 200 experiments while I was on the space station. We discovered a new state of flame that we didn’t understand existed, because it had always been concealed by the effects of gravity on earth. We learned about solar radiation and the function of the earth’s magnetic field. We were collecting subatomic particles – particles that are smaller than an atom. There is this huge alpha magnetic spectrometer on top of the space station that is trying to understand the very nature of matter, and the universe itself.

Our technologies have led to where we are right now in so many different fields – telecommunications, GPS that we take for granted, miniaturization of circuitry, weather forecasting, a lot of stuff that is ‘invisible,’ but so important.

How do you keep in shape?

Chris Hadfield: I use a rowing machine in the winter. I have a treadmill but pounding old joints isn’t great. Then, in the summer I used to be a relatively competitive water skier. Now I just slalom. I don’t just ride behind the boat. I do full, heavy full body pulls.

Tell me about the guitars you used in space and on earth.

Chris Hadfield: My brother and I decided we were going to be rock stars when we were 10. We were at an auction sale and an auctioneer held up a guitar and we bought it for $5. I don’t even think it was worth $5. It was a terrible little guitar. But it taught us the basics. Then, we saved our money and bought a Yamaha FG180. That’s been my lifetime guitar, and it’s a really nice guitar. Yamaha did a commemorative version of it and gave me one as well.

In space, I had a guitar made and brought up in my first space flight. That was made by a guy out in Eugene, Oregon named Roscoe Wright and he had Wright guitars. He built travel guitars where everything could fold up small. It worked for me. I brought it up there as a gift to a classical guitarist on board. My third fight, there was already a guitar up there that is still on the space station right now. It’s probably, now, my favorite guitar. It is a Larrivée. It was made by John Larrivée and his family in Vancouver. It’s a ‘parlor guitar’ with a slightly smaller body on it. That’s the guitar I used on the space station to write that whole album of music and record Space Oddity.

You have a new book coming out – what’s it about?

Chris Hadfield: It is a thriller, a fiction novel called The Apollo Murders.

I chose to write historical fiction, and I chose a really interesting moment in time – the summer of ’73 – which had Watergate, the rise of women’s rights, civil unrest, the Cold War, and the end of the space race. To put all of those stories together using as many real characters as possible, I found so many threads of possibility. The Soviets had this secret space station at the time called Almaz that was armed with a machine gun on the outside, that mysteriously malfunctioned. They had a Rover that mysteriously malfunctioned. Nixon cancelled the American secret space station, and cancelled the last couple of Apollo missions.

So, I took all those things and created a story that was just on the edge of what might have been. It follows through the arc with astronauts and cosmonauts.

Because I’ve flown rocket ships, commanded a space station, have done spacewalks, and have been a fighter pilot and test pilot, it really gave me a depth of direct experience that most authors wouldn’t have.

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Col. Chris Hadfield’s Space Highlights

1. Hadfield was the first Canadian to walk in space. He did it twice, spending more than 14 hours outside in total

2. He was commander of the International Space Station from March 13, 2013 – May 12, 2013

3. In his three space missions, he helped build two International Space Stations

4. On his first mission in 1995, he was the first Canadian to operate the Shuttle Atlantis’ Canadarm to install a docking module between Atlantis and the Russian Space Station, that would allow the teams to work together.

5. Hadfield was Canadian Space Agency’s chief astronaut from 1996-2000.

6. From 2001-2003 he was Director of Operations for NASA in Star City, Russia at the Yuri Gagarin Training Center, where he organized Space Station crew activities and was a go-between for the Russian space program and other international participants.

7. In his last trip to space, he spent 146 days on the Space Station

8. He hosted several classes while on board various Shuttles and the Space Station, doing experiments and teaching kids in classrooms around the world.

9. After working in Russia, he eventually became the flight engineer of the Russian Shuttle Soyuz, cleared to perform all tasks in a Russian space suit.

10. He released a music album, Space Sessions: Songs From a Tin Can, and his version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity has been seen by hundreds of millions.