An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth—Chris Hadfield

[boilermaker75]

I haven't read this book, but it was on my wish list. The kindle edition is on sale today for $2.99,

 

https://www.amazon.com/Astronauts-Guide-Life-Earth-Determination-ebook/dp/B00DTUHIDA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511709001&sr=8-1&keywords=an+astronauts+guide+to+life+on+earth

[Cigarbutt]

If you like the character, you may like:

 

Since we may have this galaxy to ourselves.

 

 

[Jurgis]

I read the book.

 

There's a number of books by astronauts nowadays. I've only read this one, so it's hard to compare, but it's possible that they cover a lot of the same ground.

 

I got couple interesting insights from the book.

 

Somewhat spoilers below... don't read if you don't want to know...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The book de-mythologizes and de-romanticizes astronaut job a lot. In essence, it's 99%+ repetitive training on Earth. You train for years... and then you might not even fly.

Big spoiler: after Shuttle was grounded, every astronaut or astronaut candidate over 6'something suddenly was not going to fly again. Cause Russian ships can't take tall guys/gals. Here goes your 10 year training+ and your dreams too.

Then the launch, the flight, etc.: I'm sure it's a lot of fun and wonder to go to space and to look at Earth from there, but the book covers all the physical issues. In short, hold your piss, hold your crap, hold your vomit. They can't go to craphouse for X+ hours during launch and until they dock ... I don't remember details anymore, but it's not much fun. Then at the ISS everything is an experiment. So not only you have to piss and crap in zero gravity, but you also have to take samples, etc. Fun.  ::)

They return to Earth and then cannot walk for month+ since the muscles degenerate even with all the exercise in space. If you are unlucky, you break your bones while landing or getting out of capsule. Ground crew drags you out if there's no emergency, so that you don't break something.

 

On the positive side, you really have to be very positive and you have to be go getter to get through the selection process. He tells a lot of how he got into astronaut lists (multiple times) because he did a lot of extra stuff (mission control, learning Russian, Russian comms, etc.) that pushed him up the list. This might be useful for people trying to achieve something hard.

 

In short: get the book, read it. Give it to your kids who want to be astronauts so they know what they are getting into.

 

Also: hate to be negative, but good luck Elon to get 1000+ people who would like to do that Mars trip. ;) Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people want it, but most of the ones who want it don't have a clue what they would get into.

 

[rkbabang]

I read the book.

 

There's a number of books by astronauts nowadays. I've only read this one, so it's hard to compare, but it's possible that they cover a lot of the same ground.

 

I got couple interesting insights from the book.

 

Somewhat spoilers below... don't read if you don't want to know...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The book de-mythologizes and de-romanticizes astronaut job a lot. In essence, it's 99%+ repetitive training on Earth. You train for years... and then you might not even fly.

Big spoiler: after Shuttle was grounded, every astronaut or astronaut candidate over 6'something suddenly was not going to fly again. Cause Russian ships can't take tall guys/gals. Here goes your 10 year training+ and your dreams too.

Then the launch, the flight, etc.: I'm sure it's a lot of fun and wonder to go to space and to look at Earth from there, but the book covers all the physical issues. In short, hold your piss, hold your crap, hold your vomit. They can't go to craphouse for X+ hours during launch and until they dock ... I don't remember details anymore, but it's not much fun. Then at the ISS everything is an experiment. So not only you have to piss and crap in zero gravity, but you also have to take samples, etc. Fun.  ::)

They return to Earth and then cannot walk for month+ since the muscles degenerate even with all the exercise in space. If you are unlucky, you break your bones while landing or getting out of capsule. Ground crew drags you out if there's no emergency, so that you don't break something.

 

On the positive side, you really have to be very positive and you have to be go getter to get through the selection process. He tells a lot of how he got into astronaut lists (multiple times) because he did a lot of extra stuff (mission control, learning Russian, Russian comms, etc.) that pushed him up the list. This might be useful for people trying to achieve something hard.

 

In short: get the book, read it. Give it to your kids who want to be astronauts so they know what they are getting into.

 

Also: hate to be negative, but good luck Elon to get 1000+ people who would like to do that Mars trip. ;) Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people want it, but most of the ones who want it don't have a clue what they would get into.

 

 

Mars gravity is 38% of Earth's so it won't be quite as difficult to re-adjust from weightlessness, but with no medical teams waiting to take care of those 1st pioneers who will be landing in rough shape anything that goes wrong could be deadly.  It won't be easy, but some will survive (hopefully) to build a civilization.  My question is what will happen to the human body once you've lived on Mars for 10+ years, or the people born and raised there, could you ever come back to Earth?  Probably not.

 

The book sounds interesting, I'm going to order it.

 

[Liberty]

If you guys are looking for more good test pilot/astronaut stuff, I recommend "The Right Stuff" by Tom Wolfe and "A Man on the Moon" by Andrew Chaikin.

[Liberty]

[augustabound]

 

#flatearth  ;D