An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

by Chris Hadfield

The secret patterns of our planet are revealed: mountains bump up rudely from orderly plains, forests are green gashes edged with snow, rivers glint in the sunlight, twisting and turning like silvery worms.

Square astronaut, round hole. It’s the story of my life, really: trying to figure out how to get where I want to go when just getting out the door seems impossible.

In my experience, fear comes from not knowing what to expect and not feeling you have any control over what’s about to happen.

don’t assume you know everything, and try to be ready for anything.

When you’re the least experienced person in the room, it’s not the time to show off. You don’t yet know what you don’t know—and regardless of your abilities, your experience and your level of authority, there will definitely be something you don’t know.

In Node 3, for example, the treadmill sticks out from the wall, the toilet and exercise machine are on the floor, and to reach the Cupola you float upside down. The whole module is the size of a city bus, so at any point you can have four people in there doing different things, each with a different understanding of which way up is.

Node 1 (Unity)—was launched in 1998, the psychiatrists who were consulted thought that soothing colors were the key to mental health, so they chose… salmon. Either they changed their minds or stopped dabbling in interior design, because the rest of the USOS is, mercifully, white.

would not be back in the ISS again, but that was all right. Earth is home to everyone I love.

If you start thinking that only your biggest and shiniest moments count, you’re setting yourself up to feel like a failure most of the time.

The whole process of becoming an astronaut helped me understand that what really matters is not the value someone else assigns to a task but how I personally feel while performing it.