Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, US astronaut Thomas Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko returned safely to earth today: Soyuz capsule brings three-man crew to safe landing – SpaceflightNow.
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Hadfield’s “Space Oddity” music video (see Sunday posting) on the ISS has become viral sensation. It’s up to nearly 3.9 million views at the moment.
- Chris Hadfield’s ‘Space Oddity’ is a hit: What’s next for space superstar? – Cosmic Log
- “Planet Earth is Blue and There’s Nothing Left to Do” : ISS Sensation Hadfield Coming Back Home | Innerspace.net
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Hadfield defends the ISS as a research station and sees the big picture for why humans are learning to live and work in space: Chris Hadfield says [NASA]’s job is not to ‘titillate’ – BBC
“We are leaving Earth permanently,” he said with zeal. “It is a huge historic step and we are trying to do it right and it takes time, it takes patience and it takes tenacity – and we’re going to do it.”
His argument is that the construction and utilisation of the ISS will lead to the development of technologies that will eventually enable humanity to leave Earth and settle on other worlds. But that process will be a slow and incremental one.