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For The Last Several Years And Culminating In Six Months In Orbit Next Year, I've Been Training For My Third Space Flight. This One Is Almost In A Category Completely Different Than The Previous Two, Specifically To Live In On The Space Station For Six Months, To Command A Space Ship And To Fly A New Rocket Ship.

-Chris Hadfield

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For The Last Several

Chris Hadfield

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For The Last Several Years And Culminating In Six Months In Orbit Next Year, I've Been Training For My Third Space Flight. This One Is Almost In A Category Completely Different Than The Previous Two, Specifically To Live In On The Space Station For Six Months, To Command A Space Ship And To Fly A New Rocket Ship.

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One Chief Astronaut Used To Make A Point Of Phoning The Front Desk At The Clinic Where Applicants Are Sent For Medical Testing, To Find Out Which Ones Treated The Staff Well-and Which Ones Stood Out In A Bad Way. The Nurses And Clinic Staff Have Seen A Whole Lot Of Astronauts Over The Years, And They Know What The Wrong Stuff Looks Like. A Person With A Superiority Complex Might Unwittingly, Right There In The Waiting Room, Quash His Or Her Chances Of Ever Going To Space.

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Square Astronaut, Round Hole. But Somehow, I'd Managed To Push Myself Through It, And Here Was The Truly Amazing Part: Along The Way, I'd Become A Good Fit. It Had Only Taken 21 Years.

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You Can't Just Ignore Spacewalking Suit; It Partially Defines The Experience. So Maybe The Most Difficult Thing Is Becoming Completely Attuned To Efficiently Wearing A Garment That Is So Inhibiting To Motion, And Making It Look Effortless, As If It's The Most Natural Thing To Be Out There On A Spacewalk.

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For The Last Several Years And Culminating In Six Months In Orbit Next Year, I've Been Training For My Third Space Flight. This One Is Almost In A Category Completely Different Than The Previous Two, Specifically To Live In On The Space Station For Six Months, To Command A Space Ship And To Fly A New Rocket Ship.

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It Is Spectacular. From About Five Minutes In, When We Knew For Sure That We Were Going To Have The Weather To Go, The Smile On My Face Just Got Bigger And Bigger, And I Was Just Beaming Through The Whole Launch. I Mean, It Is Just An Amazing Ride.

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