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Former astronaut Chris Hadfield is not afraid of death
This may seem surprising considering security of human space flight. To date, 565 men and women have ventured into space and 32 have died while climbing, descending or preparing to fly. Do the math, and that means that the chances of an astronaut dying at work are greater than 1 in 20.
It was a harsh reality for someone like Hadfield, who spent 35 years as a military pilot and astronaut before retiring from Canada. Space Agency in 2013. Hadfield has entered Earth orbit three times, including two trips aboard the Space Shuttle and one aboard the Russian Mir Space Station.
For his last trip to space, in 2012 he spent 144 days on board. Chris Hadfield “/>
Maybe you are among the 39 million people who watched the video of him covering David Bowie's "Space Oddity" while he was floating in weightlessness in the station's seven-window dome.
He does not seem to be afraid in the video. In fact, he looks quite serene.
A Frequently Asked Question
Astronauts hear the question all the time: when you put on a huge stick of explosive fuel and shoot in space, afraid of dying?
Hadfield's answer is always "no". For him, the question is based on a false premise: "In the common life, we are scary and dangerous, but they are not," he says. They only seem like that because few people are preparing much for dangerous things, he explains, but getting ready is exactly what astronauts do after years of intensive training
. "If you spend 10 years preparing for a launch, then, thankfully, by the time you arrive, you have changed your skills, so that a launch is no longer stranger and unknown. In fact, it's the opposite. It's exhilarating. "
Like a bicycle
As Hadfield says, astronauts consider space missions as most of us consider cycling." When you do not know how to do it, it's scary. " he said, "It makes the little children cry. But eventually you master the skills. Then you can ride a bike, and this is no longer scary. "
This state of mind is almost true through the body of astronauts, which helps to explain why astronauts are rarely heard talking about fear, or the number of corpses in their line of work. [19659004] They focus instead on the skills they've gained floating in the simulated zero-g world of the Neutral Buoyancy Lab at Houston's Johnson Space Center; learning high-speed maneuvering while flying a T-38 plane; or snuggle inside NEEMO, an underwater habitat off the Florida Keys. (Hadfield was also a commander there.)
NASA uses such drills to prepare astronauts for almost any foreseeable situation. Of course, some of the problems that inevitably arise are unexpected events
There was a time when defective sensors prevented Hadfield's space capsule from docking with Mir, forcing him to improvise a passage. And the surreal incident in 2013 when the helmet of the Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano He nearly drowned during an outing in the space outside the ISS.
Hadfield had his own accident during an outing in space in 2001: a chemical defogger that had been applied to his visor. He was so out of whack that for a few scary moments, he was unable to see.
At the last expedition of Hadfield, the ISS leaked ammonia. "Ammonia is a very nasty chemical that you do not want to get into the boat," he says in a neutral tone. "We had to make an emergency exit in the space one day to go out and repair a leaking system."
Combating risk with expertise
Hadfield sees such incidents not as exceptions to his metaphor but as proof of that. The "skill" he is talking about does not refer to a specific set of instructions, but to a general approach to problem solving that occurs whenever necessary.
As for the escape of ammonia, prepare for, for a decade or more: how to prepare for something that will push you to your limits, physically and mentally and perhaps even tactically, and then summon the reserves to run it properly, "says Hadfield. "It's the life of an encapsulated astronaut."
Hadfield and his teammates quickly repaired the leak. Nobody got sick and the incident even barely made the news.
Of course, not all crises facing astronauts are manageable. Some end like the Challenger and Columbia disasters, both of which have killed entire crews of space shuttles. Surely it must scare the astronauts, is not it?
Hadfield recognizes Challenger and Columbia as proof that death is always a possibility. But instead of losing his life, he and his space companions focused on the positive lessons of disasters. "We said," What can we learn from these horrific events to make space flight safer in the future?
In other words, do not worry about things that you can not control. Keep working to solve problems until the last possible moment. If you die, you die. In the end, death is something that escapes the control of an astronaut, so in a sense it's irrelevant. This state of mind is part of what NASA selects and is part of what astronauts train to accomplish.
The fear that astronauts can not conquer, no matter the training and mental discipline that they bring, is the fear of their friends. and the family. Yet even here, Hadfield treats the question as a series of variables to handle
"I went so far as to invite my wife to participate in one of the simulations in which one of the members of the 39, crew dies on takeoff or orbit.We call a "contingency sim" – because I wanted her to see how the process would react to me being killed, "said Hadfield
The Deadly Jump to Mars
If the world's space agencies and emerging private companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic continue to push further into the solar system, it is inevitable that some of these contingency simulations will come true.
Life aboard The ISS is dangerous, but the Earth is only 240 miles away.Saving or evacuation is always an option.On a lunar base, the risks would be greater, and even bigger for a mission to Mars. Once the hatch closed, a crew from Mars will be alone for a year or more.
"Either someone will have to take a huge risk of failure where the crew is killed, or we will have to spend a lot of money on reliability and predictability and redundancy to increase the probability of a safe return to Earth, "says Hadfield.
He can not vouch for the equipment but he is almost supernaturally confident in the crew.According to him, it is simply another application of the formula of intense skill that nullifies fear and minimizes danger.
"C & Is risk arbitrage, always. What skill sets do not we have yet? What are the chances that things go wrong? "Hadfield meets the requirements as he made a list of groceries." Let's try to make the best compromise possible. Just like the crews of space stations, we will do the same for Mars.
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