He’s a long way from home but Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has a fan in this country’s first man in space.
Former astronaut Marc Garneau, who was in Charlottetown for a Liberal leadership campaign stop Monday, said Hadfield has been able to use social media to provide unprecedented access to life in space.
“It’s outstanding,” he said.
Hadfield has been on the International Space Station since December where he has wowed his legions of Twitter followers with a seemingly unending stream of photos taken from aboard the station.
As of Tuesday morning, Hadfield had more than 242,000 followers on Twitter and he has been treating them to stunning views of Earth on a daily basis while mixing in the occasional shot of life in space.
Hadfield has also been talking to schools across the country through ham radio and
even dropped the ceremonial first puck on the station for the Toronto Maple Leafs home opener.
Garneau first went to space in 1984, long before the advent of Twitter and social media, but he said it’s something he wished he had access to when he last flew aboard a space shuttle 12 years ago.
“I would have been tweeting all the time,” he said.
Hadfield is going to be the first Canadian to command the space station when he takes over later this year and Garneau said Canadians are proud of what he is doing.
“The interest in what he’s doing has just exploded.”
Garneau said he had the opportunity to sit in on one of Hadfield’s talks with a school in Bedford, N.S., which took about eight tries before they were able to make contact with him.
Once they did, seven kids were able to ask Hadfield questions, Garneau said.
“That was fun.”
