This is from an interview by Terry Gross (NPR-Fresh Air) with astronaut COMMANDER CHRIS HADFIELD that I found very interesting... Hadfield has flown three space missions, conducted two spacewalks and spent a total of six months in space. Hes witnessed awe-inspiring beauty, faced life-threatening dangers and held onto a spaceship orbiting Earth at 17,500 miles an hour. Hadfield is the author of the new book An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth. A former Royal Canadian Air Force fighter and test pilot, hes been the director of operations of NASA in Star City, Russia, and the chief of International Space Station operations in Houston. In space, he served as the commander of the International Space Station. GROSS: If youre just joining us, my guest is Commander Chris Hadfield. He has a new book called An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth. He did three space flights and two space walks. Im wondering about the transformative nature of the experience of being in space and doing space walks. I dont know if you were ever religious or not. Either way, Im wondering if being in space changed your concept of your place in the universe and whether any sense of spirituality or organized religion or a god figures into that or not as a result. HADFIELD: Its an amazing place to think about that topic. You know, picture yourself separated from the other six and a half, seven billion people where you can see them all from a distance. You know, every 90 minutes you go around and the world turns underneath you like a big jewel. And you have left all of them and youre looking at - its almost like a god-like view of the world, right? At least our limited human understanding of what that god-like view might be, looking down almost paternally on everybody. And so it really makes you think. And the world, you look at it, it just cant be random, looking at it. I mean, its so different than the vast emptiness that is everything else. And even all the other planets weve seen, you know, at least in our solar system, you know, none of them even remotely resembled the precious life-giving nature of our own planet. Maybe theres life on Mars too, but the big pervasive feeling onboard looking at the Earth is one of tremendous, exquisite privilege that it exists. And so we talk about religion onboard all the time. And we have all different faiths. You know, because the astronauts come from all around the world - cosmonauts. I mean we respect each others faiths. And I hate to talk publicly about my own just because people really get a lot of strength out of their own set of beliefs, and if you start talking in depth about your own, you are excluding other people who have different faiths that give them strength. And theres no point in that. I have huge respect for how people get strength and the faith that gives that to them. And I think what everyone would find, if they could be in that position, if they could see the whole world every 90 minutes and look down on the places where we do things right and look down where were doing stupid, brutal things to each other and the inevitable patience of the world that houses us, I think everybody would be reinforced in their faith. And maybe readdress the real true tenets of whats good and what gives them strength. GROSS: So you do have a faith. Im not asking you to tell us what it is, but you do have a faith, a religious faith, and felt that that was affirmed in space. HADFIELD: Oh, absolutely. The things that you believe that give you the strength, I mean there are no wishy-washy astronauts. You know, you dont get up there by being uncaring and blase. And whatever gave you the sense of tenacity and purpose to get that far in life is absolutely reaffirmed and deepened by the experience itself. {Perhaps randomness is just counter-intuitive? Like quantum physics...}
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 19:22:11 +0000
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