EXTRA MINUTES | Astronaut Chris Hadfield discussing the joys of zero-gravity. — Transcript

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1. 0:00extra minutes describe to me that very
2. 0:03first moment when you went into space
3. 0:05after all the training and after all the
4. 0:07flights and all of the routine to get
5. 0:09there was there that first pinch
6. 0:11yourself moment that i'm actually here
7. 0:13i'm actually in space
8. 0:15so when you when you first
9. 0:17uh launch
10. 0:19launch is a really rigorous process you
11. 0:22know riding a rocket ship
12. 0:23is dangerous and it is really physically
13. 0:27punishing it's it's a immensely powerful
14. 0:29vehicle and the accelerations on your
15. 0:31body you've never felt i was a fighter
16. 0:34pilot and a test pilot before but i had
17. 0:36never felt anything as relentlessly
18. 0:38powerful as a rocket ship
19. 0:41for minute after minute propelling you
20. 0:43faster and faster and squishing into
21. 0:45your chair
22. 0:46uh
23. 0:47that scene in 2001 where where he's the
24. 0:50all this kaleidoscope of color is going
25. 0:53by and he's headed somewhere and it
26. 0:54lasts longer than you think it should
27. 0:56launches like that
28. 0:58and you're very much focused and
29. 1:00involved with the mechanisms that are
30. 1:02getting you there but at the same time
31. 1:03it is a physical physical process and at
32. 1:06the end of it
33. 1:07instantaneously the engine shut off
34. 1:10and you're weightless and you're in
35. 1:12space
36. 1:13as if someone has slammed a door shut
37. 1:15and opened another one
38. 1:16and
39. 1:18oddly enough the first thing you notice
40. 1:20is that everything starts floating up in
41. 1:22front of you the checklist that you were
42. 1:24holding in your hand floats
43. 1:26and
44. 1:27someone just repealed the law of gravity
45. 1:30and everybody laughs in the whole
46. 1:32cockpit everybody laughs you know
47. 1:33there's a million things to do right now
48. 1:35and you need to separate from the
49. 1:36external tank and you need to fire the
50. 1:37thrusters to get clear you need to check
51. 1:40that everything pressurized you know
52. 1:41there's all sorts of important technical
53. 1:43things to do but none of us can help it
54. 1:45we all laugh
55. 1:46partially out of nervous relief but
56. 1:48partially out of
57. 1:50just
58. 1:51unbidden delight at the fact that uh
59. 1:56that suddenly things are way different
60. 1:59and and it's in the little bits of dirt
61. 2:01and and washers that the the technicians
62. 2:03didn't quite clean up off the floor come
63. 2:05floating up next to you and when you
64. 2:07unstrap from your chair
65. 2:09you
66. 2:10fly out of it i mean it's
67. 2:12um
68. 2:14if right now you and i were sitting here
69. 2:16and suddenly gravity was gone both of us
70. 2:18would laugh because it's just so
71. 2:20um
72. 2:22yeah it's it's so bizarre and so fun
73. 2:25and and so different that it's a
74. 2:27wonderful transformation