Astronaut Chris Hadfield Reveals He Was Blinded On First Spacewalk — Transcript

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1. 0:02What's it like to cry in space? And of
2. 0:04course, despite what you'll see in the
3. 0:06movie Gravity, uh, in space, tears don't
4. 0:09fall. They just they just build up as a
5. 0:12big ball of tear on your eye because the
6. 0:14tear duct uh you know, the little gland
7. 0:16that secretes the tear still works, but
8. 0:18the duct that drains it, there's no
9. 0:20drainage because there's no gravity. So,
10. 0:22if you cry in space, you need a
11. 0:23handkerchief because it just builds up.
12. 0:25And what happens if you've got your
13. 0:26space suit on? If you're on a spacew
14. 0:28walk, uh well then you can't rub your
15. 0:30eyes and and you can't touch anything
16. 0:32with your eyes. So uh if and I was
17. 0:35blinded during my first spacew walk uh
18. 0:37because of contamination in the suit and
19. 0:39got in my eye and I was in fact uh blind
20. 0:41for a half hour. When you say blind, you
21. 0:43mean the tears were meaning no I had
22. 0:45contamination in my eyes. So it was as
23. 0:47if you'd squirted a a something costic
24. 0:49into your eye and first it contaminated
25. 0:52one eye and that eye of course snapped
26. 0:54shut with the pain and teared up and
27. 0:56then the the contaminated tear got big
28. 0:58enough that it crossed into my other eye
29. 1:00across the bridge of my nose. So then
30. 1:02both eyes it's like you had pepper oil
31. 1:04in both eyes so I couldn't. And you were
32. 1:06in a space suit outside of the space
33. 1:07station on my very first spacew walk I
34. 1:09was blind for about a half hour until
35. 1:11finally is this is this the actual
36. 1:13moment of Houston we have a problem? I
37. 1:15actually called down to Houston with one
38. 1:17eye blind. I figured, you know, I still
39. 1:18get another. Maybe that's why we have
40. 1:20two eyes, you know. I'm still okay. But
41. 1:22of course, but once once the second I
42. 1:23went blind, I figured I had to fess up.
43. 1:25So, I called down and told Houston I was
44. 1:27blind. And they were quite appropriately
45. 1:30concerned. They thought maybe my um
46. 1:32lithium hydroxide, which removes the
47. 1:34carbon dioxide from the air, had broken.
48. 1:36It started leaking into the suit and
49. 1:38it's nasty stuff. The first symptom is
50. 1:40is eye irritation, and the second is
51. 1:42lung damage. So they said, "Okay, we
52. 1:44want you to start venting your suit." So
53. 1:46I opened up a vent valve on the side of
54. 1:48my suit. So in fact, I was hissing my
55. 1:51oxygen away into the universe uh while
56. 1:54being blind, while hanging on to the
57. 1:56outside of the spaceship on my first
58. 1:58spacew walk. But eventually I cried
59. 2:00enough that it diluted the contaminant,
60. 2:02which turned out just to be the the
61. 2:04anti-fog that was on our visor, just
62. 2:06like an oily soapy stuff. Um eventually
63. 2:09I cried enough that it diluted it so I
64. 2:11could start to see again. and I could
65. 2:13stop venting my oxygen into the universe
66. 2:15and get back to work again. I I don't
67. 2:18even know where to start. It does sound
68. 2:20like something straight out of the film
69. 2:21Gravity. We're going to ask you about
70. 2:22that. I'm sure you get asked about all
71. 2:24these other way around. Gravity is
72. 2:26straight out of things like that. Oh,
73. 2:27goodness me. Absolutely extraordinary.
74. 2:29How do you um deal with um should we say
75. 2:32um things that not Yes. Not what goes
76. 2:34in, but what comes out when you Well, uh
77. 2:35you can't burp in space. You can't.
78. 2:38Well, because try try standing on your
79. 2:39head and burping sometime. you you'll
80. 2:42see it doesn't work very well. The gas
81. 2:44has to be at the top of your stomach and
82. 2:46if you're in weightlessness, the gas
83. 2:47doesn't float to the top of your
84. 2:48stomach. So therefore, your stomach is
85. 2:50full of gas and liquid and solid. You
86. 2:52can't burp. You'd throw up. So that
87. 2:54means the gas has to go somewhere. And
88. 2:56so unfortunately, it goes where gas
89. 2:58always goes if you don't burp. And uh so
90. 3:01there's a lot of that on the space
91. 3:02station, but but it's non-propulsive,
92. 3:04which which you know is an experiment
93. 3:06you'd want to try, I think. Uh because I
94. 3:08think the nozzle design is bad. But uh
95. 3:10wait a minute. If someone opened the the
96. 3:12spaceship door, it would just absolut
97. 3:15it'd be horrific. Yes. Yes. So, we have
98. 3:17really good ventilation on the space
99. 3:18station, too, and not too much spicy
100. 3:20food. So, you just you know, it is what
101. 3:22it is. I'm so glad we've ended on that
102. 3:23really classy, intelligent load. Well,
103. 3:26we I've been busy inspiring the next
104. 3:28generation of space. I'm going to be
105. 3:29really naughty and go to the news late
106. 3:30because I want I want to know a more
107. 3:31important question. really this do you
108. 3:34wish in one some way that you'd either
109. 3:35lived a bit earlier and you'd been able
110. 3:37to walk on the moon or that perhaps you
111. 3:38were born in you know a century's time
112. 3:40and you could travel to Mars or travel
113. 3:42outside I got to be the first Canadian
114. 3:45to go to a space station the first
115. 3:47Canadian to operate our robot arm in
116. 3:49space first Canadian to walk in space
117. 3:51and the first to command a spaceship I
118. 3:53count myself immensely lucky immensely
119. 3:56lucky and and what I tried to do through
120. 3:58all of that was open every one of those
121. 4:01doors for other people to be able to
122. 4:02come through with me and afterwards. So,
123. 4:04no, there is no better time to live than
124. 4:06when you're alive. Don't be wishing for
125. 4:08something else.