Chris Hadfield on Earth, Mars and space blindness | Guardian Live — Transcript

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1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:12[Applause]
3. 0:12[Music]
4. 0:27there's nothing wrong with ambition and
5. 0:29and there's nothing wrong with setting a
6. 0:31long-term goal I think there there is a
7. 0:34problem with setting an unrealistic
8. 0:36timeline because if you make an
9. 0:38unrealistic timeline then you um
10. 0:41inherently disappoint the people that
11. 0:43should be supporting it so if we told
12. 0:45everybody we're going to be on Mars
13. 0:46within two years and then two years came
14. 0:48and went and we still weren't on Mars um
15. 0:51why would anybody believe us or support
16. 0:53us you don't know John Young but he flew
17. 0:56the first flight of Gemini he did the
18. 0:58first flight of the lunar lander on
19. 1:00Apollo 10 he landed on the moon on
20. 1:02Apollo 16 and walked on the moon and he
21. 1:04did the first flight of the Space
22. 1:06Shuttle John
23. 1:08Young says something regularly which I
24. 1:10think is great he says Mars is further
25. 1:12away than most people
26. 1:15think and John knows because he's walked
27. 1:18on the moon um Mars a lot of the time is
28. 1:22on the other side of the Sun from us it
29. 1:25is immensely far away and and and the
30. 1:29distance between us and Mars in time
31. 1:31with the engines we have right now is
32. 1:33like 6 months just if things go
33. 1:35perfectly it's going to take 6 months to
34. 1:37get there if we started going to Mars
35. 1:39anytime soon everybody would die on
36. 1:42every single flight we don't know what
37. 1:43we're doing yet we have to have a bunch
38. 1:46of inventions between now and Mars so I
39. 1:49think it's a fine long-term destination
40. 1:51but what we're learning on the space
41. 1:53station right now is absolutely pivotal
42. 1:55to go to Mars how to store your food how
43. 1:59much food do you need how does the body
44. 2:00process food after months in
45. 2:02weightlessness um how do you keep the
46. 2:04body healthy how do you not have your
47. 2:05bones degrade how do you not go crazy
48. 2:08how do you communicate and then and once
49. 2:10we get away from the world how do you
50. 2:12navigate and when the communication
51. 2:14becomes so slow because of the distances
52. 2:16and how do you uh protect yourself from
53. 2:18the radiation because close to the Earth
54. 2:20we got the magnetic field it's like a
55. 2:22like a force field protects us going
56. 2:23through the Van Allen belts and then
57. 2:25into pure um interplanetary space the
58. 2:28radiation we don't even know what effect
59. 2:29has in the human body if we go to the
60. 2:31Moon we're only 3 days away as soon as
61. 2:34we have fired those engines so we're
62. 2:35going 12 km a second or faster we can't
63. 2:38turn around we we won't have the fuel to
64. 2:41slow down to zero and then accelerate to
65. 2:43come back we have to go all the way to
66. 2:46Mars just to use the the gravity of Mars
67. 2:49if we had a real problem to slingshot
68. 2:51around and come back to earth so as soon
69. 2:52as we fire those engines we are
70. 2:54committed to a year in space minimum no
71. 2:56matter what fails we're going to SP on
72. 2:58the space station for the next 15 years
73. 3:01and then that same sort of international
74. 3:02Consortium that has allowed us to build
75. 3:04and and peaceably build a space station
76. 3:07we should include China and we should
77. 3:09include India and we should have a
78. 3:10permanent base on the moon just like
79. 3:12we've done in Antarctica for the last 50
80. 3:14years and then and and not as the main
81. 3:16effort of the world but as one of the
82. 3:18things we're doing we'll learn so much
83. 3:20about the planet from seeing it from the
84. 3:22moon permanently because it's a
85. 3:24wonderful Observatory and on the other
86. 3:25side to understand the universe without
87. 3:27the atmosphere in the way and once we've
88. 3:29tested and invented new engines then
89. 3:31we'll go to Mars in my right hand you
90. 3:34can see I'm holding a big drill called
91. 3:36the uh pistol grip tool and in the
92. 3:38middle of the arm I had to do up these
93. 3:39big expandable diameter Fasteners to
94. 3:41make the arm rigid and I was working
95. 3:43away and suddenly something went into my
96. 3:45left eye that made it just sting like
97. 3:48crazy it it was as if you know the worst
98. 3:51painful chemical had just gotten into
99. 3:53your eye and it's screaming and it's
100. 3:54tearing our eyes are a beautifully
101. 3:56evolved design under Gravity right you
102. 3:59have your tear right up here and it's a
103. 4:01modified sweat gland and it flows this
104. 4:02weird chemical of oils and sea water and
105. 4:05everything down into your eye and then
106. 4:07the the duct in here picks up that and
107. 4:09drains it out your nose and that's why
108. 4:10your nose runs when you cry but it also
109. 4:12if you tear if you cry a lot it runs
110. 4:14down your face as everybody knows unless
111. 4:16there's no gravity in which case your
112. 4:18tear duck squirts out all this stuff and
113. 4:20continues to squirt like dilutant into
114. 4:24your eye but it doesn't go
115. 4:26anywhere unlike Sandra bulock where hers
116. 4:28came squirting out of her
117. 4:30ey like who wrote that movie anyway um
118. 4:34and so the tear got big enough that it
119. 4:36went across this little Bridge of the
120. 4:37nose it went into my other
121. 4:39eye
122. 4:41great so now both eyes were blind so
123. 4:44that when this picture was taken I had
124. 4:46called down to Houston and said hey
125. 4:48Houston I have a problem
126. 4:51um I I can't see some there's there's
127. 4:54contaminant in my suit the way we get
128. 4:57the carbon dioxide out is a filter on
129. 4:59our back it a chemical lithium hydroxide
130. 5:01that soaks up the carbon dioxide but
131. 5:03lithium hydroxide is nasty stuff and if
132. 5:05it um somehow breaks through its little
133. 5:08seals and you get a squirt of lithium
134. 5:10hydroxide in the first symptom is really
135. 5:12bad eye irritation and the second
136. 5:14symptom is like permanent lung damage so
137. 5:17Houston's going hm hope it's not lithium
138. 5:18hydroxide here's what we want you to do
139. 5:20we want you to open up the purge valve
140. 5:22on the side of your helmet you can just
141. 5:23sort of see it on the left side where my
142. 5:25left ear would be there open up your
143. 5:27purge valve and start squirting your
144. 5:28oxygen out into space
145. 5:32please so I couldn't see but I practiced
146. 5:35it many times reached up you sort of
147. 5:37push it in turn it 90 degre and pop it
148. 5:39out and then I'm in the universe holding
149. 5:41on to a ship blind listening
150. 5:46to as my limited supply of oxygen is is
151. 5:50is squirting out of my suit through a
152. 5:51little hole and it turned out to be just
153. 5:53the antifog the chemical that we used to
154. 5:56wipe and and polish on the inside of our
155. 5:58visor was a mixture of of oil and and
156. 6:00sort of this strong soap because that's
157. 6:02nice for an antifog so now we use
158. 6:05Johnson's No More Tears which we we
159. 6:08probably should have been using you know
160. 6:10since the beginning would have been
161. 6:11would have been a better choice I think
162. 6:13the first time you go around the
163. 6:15world uh you are just like anybody else
164. 6:18the first time seeing something you want
165. 6:20to look for stuff you recognize and you
166. 6:22actually sort of point out to yourself
167. 6:24to places that you've been probably
168. 6:26everybody here at some point has said go
169. 6:27to that Facebook app or something and
170. 6:29said which countries have I been to and
171. 6:31stuck a little virtual pin into those
172. 6:33say like these countries have
173. 6:35significance because I was
174. 6:38there right that I don't know why else
175. 6:41we do that I do that I and and uh you
176. 6:45feel that way in space and in fact you
177. 6:47want to grab one of the other astronauts
178. 6:48and go hey look that's where my high
179. 6:50school graduation was right there look
180. 6:52look look and the other person goes yeah
181. 6:55hey nice
182. 6:57um and then the second time you come
183. 7:00around the world you go oh yeah that's
184. 7:01where my high school graduation was and
185. 7:03then the third time come around you go
186. 7:04wow look look at the Great Lakes I had
187. 7:07no idea that's how they looked and then
188. 7:08the fourth time around you're going holy
189. 7:10cow look at James Bay you can see where
190. 7:11the glaciers receded for the last 15,000
191. 7:14years and the fifth time around you
192. 7:16start to see the whole world and the
193. 7:18500th time around you see the whole
194. 7:21world as one place it's inevitable it
195. 7:23seeps right into you and to answer your
196. 7:26question um every single person in this
197. 7:28room probably right now whether you've
198. 7:30thought about it or not to yourself you
199. 7:32have some circle that is us and you have
200. 7:36everybody outside of that little ven
201. 7:38diagram Circle that is them there's
202. 7:40there's an us and them in your life like
203. 7:42if something right now they are getting
204. 7:44pounded in the Philippines by an
205. 7:45enormous typhoon and almost a million
206. 7:48people have evacuated but for most of us
207. 7:51in this room all those people in the
208. 7:53Philippines are them and it's not really
209. 7:55affecting you and so even though it's in
210. 7:58a tremendous number of people under
211. 7:59stress imagine if that were happening
212. 8:01right here it's beyond the line of us
213. 8:03and them and so you don't fret about it
214. 8:06you might not even think about it you
215. 8:07might not even know about it you might
216. 8:08not even know where the Philippines are
217. 8:11because it's them um if you came on
218. 8:13board the spaceship with me and did we
219. 8:16did 100 orbits together that line starts
220. 8:19to disappear you have to let people see
221. 8:22the whole world for what it truly is cuz
222. 8:24you can focus on your little square of
223. 8:26pavement or sand or or whatever and and
224. 8:29think that that's the only part that
225. 8:30matters just like your your great great
226. 8:32great grandparents did or you can start
227. 8:34to see the world as one place where we
228. 8:36are all in this together as soon as we
229. 8:39can start to see ourselves that way we
230. 8:40will advance tremendously but it's it's
231. 8:43it's a tough process and uh and we have
232. 8:46years and years and centuries of
233. 8:48traditions that are that work against it
234. 8:50but it's getting better I think and uh
235. 8:54and um hopefully uh through continued
236. 8:57education influence travel and
237. 8:58communication we can uh we can treat
238. 9:01each other better