Hess Street School Welcomes Chris Hadfield

Textsize

A+ A-

Hess Street School Welcomes Chris Hadfield

Students and staff at Hess Street Elementary School had an out-of-this world visitor today, as Colonel Chris Hadfield arrived with an inspiring, funny and insightful presentation about his space travels.

Students at the school had prepared some great questions for Canada’s first space-walker, about sleeping in space and his preparations. He was even asked if he was afraid that his spacecraft wouldn’t survive the flight.

“Just because there’s danger, it doesn’t mean you have to be afraid,” said Hadfield, who is in town as part of the City of Hamilton’s Our Future Hamilton: Communities in Conversation initiative.

He talked about having 16 sunrises and sunsets a day; about the scorching 150C heat and freezing -140C temperatures on opposing sides of your body when in space; about the astounding physics of going from zero to 8km per second in just two minutes.

Hadfield even called up some student volunteers to involve them in his talk; in return they presented him with a book of student-created postcards from space and a beautiful watercolour painting by Grade 8 students Mimi, Valentina and Christina.

Hadfield said he was inspired as a boy by science fiction, TV shows like Star Trek and movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey. He grew even more passionate about space when he learned more about real space travel, realizing that the “impossible had been made possible” by real-life people. And that was the message he left with students – that everyday people can do amazing things.

“You turn yourself into the person you are going to be,” he said to the students in a packed gym. “Think about what you choose to do.”

Enjoy some photos from today’s visit below.