In a time of declining interest in space exploration, one man has peaked the imagination of thousands thanks to simply being ‘social’. That man is the one, the only, Chris Hadfield.
Most people think of astronauts as death-defying science geeks who are focused solely on their boring weightless experiments. While that might be true for some of them, it’s certainly not for one astronaut who’s currently orbiting the earth as we speak.
The Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield blasted off for his current mission from Kazakhstan back on December 19, 2012 and when he left terra firma he had around 20,000 Twitter followers – which isn’t uncommon for a man of his title.
However, after only 22 days floating around on the International Space Station (ISS) in the vast nothingness that is space, the 53-year-old’s followers grew to a whopping 165,000. It’s currently at 222,400. So how does someone gain 200,000 followers in less than a month? Well, by simply being a social media hero.
Chris has been doing what most astronauts have failed to do before. He’s managed to capture the imagination of many by bringing space back to earth simply by tweeting out incredible pictures and filming some extremely interesting footage.
Take his floating watch video for example, or the footage of him clipping his toenails in 0-gravity. Okay, so it’s not as if they’re complicated science experiments, but it’s the fact that he meets the demands of those who wouldn’t necessarily have been interested in space before; we want to see cool sh*t and he certainly delivers. He also has a sense of humour when it comes to his tweets.
As we said, Chris is known for his incredible high-definition aerial pictures of Earth. He’s taken pictures of the recent wild fires in Australia, Egypt’s pyramids and a rake of other pics from all around the world. But it’s not just his pictures and videos that make him such a hit with people back on Earth.
Chris also records himself playing the guitar aboard the ISS and he has posted sounds bites of space to his SoundCloud profile, so you can actually hear what it’s like being in space. Have a listen for yourself here.
While some people are considered heroes for saving lives or for standing up for their rights in the face of oppression, Chris is a hero for reigniting our interest in outer space with the use of social media.
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