Astronaut Chris Hadfield & Two Expedition Crewmates Have Returned Safely to Earth

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and his Expedition 34/35 crewmates, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, have safely returned to Earth after spending the past five months aboard the International Space Station (ISS). They successfully undocked from the ISS and made their return to Earth in their Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft.

Landing in Kazakhstan at 10:31 pm EDT, Hadfield would emerge from the Soyuz in good health, helped by the local ground crew. Hadfield became the first Canadian Commander of the ISS during Expedition 35, performed over 130 science experiments, and was at the center of an impressive social media campaign that captured the attention and support of people from around the world.

We have certainly enjoyed covering Col. Hadfield’s space-to-earth communications here on Laughing Squid and in this recent article on The Atlantic, they write about his internet popularity, “He was the right guy at the right time — and in, wow, the right place…”

He’s a natural performer who seemed truly excited to share his sublime stage with the rest of us. But his performances were intimate rather than epic: He subtly rejected the aura of distant heroism we normally associate with space flyers. Instead, he was nerdy. He was excited. He was delightfully, winkily mustachioed. He was your dad, or your uncle, or your mentor, the kind of guy who probably gets a little choked up when he makes toasts at weddings. Which is to say: He is quirky and real, and he made a point of putting those facts to use. He took all the corporate logic of social media — the ethos of the “personal brand,” the edict of “conversation rather than presentation” — and applied it, seamlessly, to his life in space.

video by Canadian Space Agency

Rusty Blazenhoff
Rusty Blazenhoff

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