Astronauts and Dinosaurs

   
STATION TO STATION: As mentioned in yesterday's post, we had been looking forward to seeing Col. Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency since last August, when it was announced and I bought tickets. It was worth the wait and the evening exceeded our expectations!

I'll let CJ tell you a bit more about it.

Last night, on 11/12/13, we went to Seattle's Town Hall to see Chris Hadfield, who is a retired Canadian astronaut. At the speech, Chris explained how being in space was different from being on earth, and how awesome it was to be in space.

Before the speech, there were many images of space-themed drawings that people drew, and also some poems. Many of these pictures & poems were very interesting and almost made me forget that Chris Hadfield was going to appear here in the first place. (Editor's note - the images were from the Humans in Space competition -http://www.lpi.usra.edu/humansinspaceart/)

One of the many things that Chris Hadfield did during the show is let the audience ask questions. One person asked if it was harder, or easier to play the guitar in space. Chris said it was VERY hard to play a guitar in space, as even the slightest touch could send the guitar flying around the ISS, and not only that, but the guitar could get detuned VERY easily. Due to how hard it is to play a guitar in space, his producer on Earth asked him why his guitar playing sounded so awful, though it wasn't Chris' fault, it was space's.

Another question (asked by me) is if the Space Needle is visible from space. Chris said the Space Needle was not visible from space, as it is too small of an object to see from space. However, he did say that the shadow of the CN tower (a similar tower in Canada) was visible from space, and he said he would presume that the shadow of the Space Needle is visible from space, as well.

Another part of the speech explained how it feels to be on a space launch. He said that before & during the launch, one half of your body would be like "Check this, check that, make sure that works." while the other part would be like "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Some video from his appearance popped up online today. Here, The Museum of Flight shares Hadfield talking about what it's like to lift off.

Here's Annabelle's recap of the evening:

On 11/12/13 (November 12, 2013) Iwent to see Chris Hadfield at Seattle Town Hall.

I must say that it was amazing! He had a very good sense of humor, and one of the examples is when he was describing how it is to launch. He said: "When you're launching, part of you is like
'check this, check that, check that again..' while the other half is going 'Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!'."

Chris Hadfield is one of 4 Canadian Space Agency astronauts from a field of 5,330 applicants, who flew on STS-74 and 100, installing the Canadarm2 on STS-100, and being the first Canadian to spacewalk. He has grown popular over social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Back to the talk with Chris Hadfield, some questions he answered were "How is guitar different in space?" to which he replied, "Well, your fretwork is horrible, because there's no gravity, and whenever you press down on the guitar it flies away." 

Overall I LOVED going to see Hadfield, and I hope if you ever see him you feel the same.

And a YouTube user shared Hadfield talking about what he thinks is next for the manned spaceflight program.

Post by The Museum of Flight.

One audience member asked if he thought NASA ended the space shuttle program too soon. Hadfield didn't mince words. He talked about the Columbia disaster and matter-of-factly said, "We killed those people." Ouch. :0

He went on to explain how NASA had known for years about the foam flying off the external tank, and nothing was done to remedy or mitigate the problem - until AFTER the Columbia crew burned up upon re-entry during STS-107.

That was the beginning of the end of the shuttle program, Hadfield explained. It was decided that only enough missions would be flown to finish work on the ISS.

Another audience member asked an interesting question. After noting that Hadfield had survived being an astronaut, she asked (paraphrasing), "Now what do you think is going to kill you."

He said that he'd actually researched what most astronauts die of, and the answer is aviation accidents. He said it was a grim reminder to him not to jump in a plane when he was rusty/hadn't piloted in awhile. He said the second leading cause of death was cancer, but while that sounded bad, astronauts, on average, live longer than most folks, and "we're all going to die eventually" (paraphrasing), and that if you're lucky to live long enough, you'll eventually die of prostate cancer as a very elderly man.  At that point he reminded the crowd that it's "Movember."

And here's a snippet some event attendee posted to YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLPwo4fKOeo. He's talking about the future of spaceflight for NASA. Hadfield thinks we're going back to the Moon before Mars or elsewhere on a manned spaceflight.

Hadfield's on stage appearance lasted about 60 minutes, with the first 15 being him talking about prepping for his very first launch and sharing a minute by minute account of launchpad to zero gravity.

For the next 45 minutes, he took questions from the audience. He offered great thought and detail on each question, so there was only time for about 5 of them. Questions asked included.

Happily, CJ was one of the lucky audience members who got to ask a question!!

CJ asked him "Can you see the Space Needle from space?" Of course, the audience full of Seattleites laughed. Hadfield gave a thoughtful and interesting reply. He said he didn't see the Space Needle from the ISS specifically, but he took a lot of photos of Seattle, and it's no doubt in one or some of them. He also noted that while the Space Needle isn't very big/wide from above, what a person could probably spot from space would be it casting a shadow on a nearby building. He said he's seen photos like that of the CN tower in Toronto.

There were hundreds of people at the sold out event. After Hadfield was done speaking, I was sooooo happy I'd scoped out where the autograph table was and had chosen seats right next to it. We were first in line!

It was a little chaotic, but Hadfield was efficient and engaging. He signed our books, talked to the kids and asked without being prompted, "Who's your photographer?"

Without being asked, he took our Very Special Space Friends poster from Annabelle and posed for a perfect photo!

The photo of Hadfield is great. CJ and Annabelle ... not so much. ;) Guess Commander Hadfield has had a few more years of posing-for-photos experience!

Last night I posted Hadfield's take on "Space Oddity." Tonight, in case you haven't yet seen it, I will share his duet with Barenaked Ladies, "I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing?)." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvAnfi8WpVE

DINO DAY: Once a month at the school the kids attend up north once a week, there is a "Spirit Day." Today's theme was dress like an animal. About 10 minutes before we walked out the door, I recalled it was a dress up day, and my mind immediately went to something quick and easy - a couple of dinosaur costumes I've had up in my closet for a couple of years, since we plucked them out of a 'free' box at a garage sale.

They are the kinda-dorky costumes where the wearer's face sticks out from under the costume character's head. I've never really understood those. To me, it looks like the wearer has been swallowed or something. 

The kids pulled on the just-a-tad-too-small costumes and off we went.

Lots of kids had dressed up for the occasion, so it was fun to see the different costumes. The kids' (awesome) science teacher had taken the time to turn the occasion into much more than a dress up day. In the lobby there was a great display about the animal classification system.

And kids who took the time to fill out a kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species card and post it on the board were rewarded with a Hershey's Kiss. CJ and Annabelle were happy to take on that task.

Below, you can see Annabelle's classification form.

Here's what it looks like when dinosaurs do math, in case you were wondering.

In only slightly related news, today a Facebook friend posted a story about parents who stage a Dinovember every year for their kids. So cute! Wish I'd thought of it, and what lucky kids!

https://medium.com/thoughts-on-creativity/6f4cb1886d41