Commander Chris Hadfield – the Canadian astronaut who has spent the last five months acting as a sort of ambassador from space to the internet, tweeting, tumbling and YouTubing the wonders of zero-g living – is preparing to leave the International Space Station. At eight minutes past midnight tonight (UK time), the Soyuz capsule returning him, US astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko to earth will undock, and two and a half hours later it will begin its descent towards the Kazakhstani steppes where it is planned to land. If everything goes according to the plan, it will touch down at 3:31am on Tuesday morning.
There’s a lot for Commander Hadfield to do between now and then, which is why his goodbye video went up 24 hours in advance. Written by David Bowie, performed (largely) in space by Commander Chris Hadfield, it’s a Space Oddity:
Hadfield is a mean musician; here’s his (earthbound) performance of Ride On from earlier this year, and here’s him playing his low-weight guitar on the Russian space-station Mir in 1995. If you need something to boost you on an overcast Monday morning, try watching the rest of his videos from space.
Videos from space. Can’t say that enough, really.
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