Chris Hadfield’s An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth is something to read. Self-reflective and detailed, Hadfield offers a glimpse into what it really means to be an astronaut. If the only thing you really enjoyed was whipping around Earth in a spaceship, you”d hate being an astronaut. You train for a few years, minimum, before you’re even assigned to a space mission. You practice tricky, repetitive tasks as well as highly challenging ones to the point of exhaustion, and you’re away from home more than half the time.(37)

Intellectually, I’d known I was venturing out into space yet still the sight of it shocked me, profoundly, In a spacesuit, you’re not aware of taste, smell, touch. the only sounds your hear are  your own breathing and, through the headset, disembodied voices. You’re in a self-contained bubble, cut off, then you look up from your task and the universe rudely slaps you in the face, It’s overpowering, visually, and no other senses warn you that you’re about to be attacked by the raw beauty. (89-90) Oh, and another thing about Colonel Hadfield: he certainly knows his hockey.