By Irene Klotz
Reuters

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Back on Earth, Canadian astronaut and cyberspace tweeter Chris Hadfield is getting a rough re-introduction to gravity after a five-month stint aboard the International Space Station, the former commander told reporters during a video webcast from Houston.

Hadfield became a social media rock star with his zero-gravity version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" and a continuous stream of commentary on Twitter about his life in orbit. But living without gravity for five months has left him feeling dizzy, weak and prematurely aged. A veteran of three space flights, he is wearing a pressure suit under his clothes to help his circulation as his body re-adapts to getting blood back to his brain.

"Without the constant pull-down of gravity, your body gets a whole new normal, and my body was quite happy living in space without gravity," Hadfield, 53, said in a video conference call with Canadian reporters on Thursday, three days after returning to Earth.

The video conference was posted on the Canadian Space Agency's UStream channel.

"Right after I landed I could feel the weight of my lips and tongue ... I hadn't realized that I had learned to talk with a weightless tongue," he said.

He is suffering overall body soreness, particularly in his neck and back, which are again having to support his head after months in weightlessness.

"It feels like I played full-contact hockey, but it's getting better by the hour," Hadfield said. "The subtle things and the big things are taking some re-adaptation to get used to and they are coming back one by one."

Hadfield, who is the first from Canada to command a space station crew, NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko landed in Kazakhstan on Monday. He and Marshburn were then flown to Houston to begin rehabilitation.

As a departing finale Hadfield created a music video rendering of Bowie's classic "Space Oddity," which as of Friday had 13 million hits on YouTube.

Hadfield, who is the lead singer and bass guitarist in the all-astronaut rock band Max Q, said it is too early to think about what he will do next.
"For now, I'm still trying to stand up straight. I have to sit down in the shower so I don't faint and fall down, and I don't have calluses on the bottom of my feet yet, so I'm walking around like I walked on hot coals," he said.

It usually takes about three weeks until a returning astronaut can return to driving, according to the Canadian Space Agency.

"We're sort of tottering around like two old duffers in an old folks home," Hadfield said, referring to his crew mate Marshburn.

Hadfield's orbital odyssey ended with a parachute descent of their Soyuz space capsule onto the steppes of Kazakhstan.

"We hit the Earth just like a car crash, like we expected," Hadfield said. "There was enough wind so that we rolled up on our side. I was the guy hanging from the ceiling."

"Our first true sense of being home was a window full of the dirt of the Earth and the smell of spring and the growing grasses in Kazakhstan wafting in through the open hatch," he said.

By Robert Z. Pearlman
Space.com

The United States Navy's first academic research ship to be named for a woman will be christened after NASA's first female astronaut to fly in space.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced Friday that the next ocean-class auxiliary general oceanographic research (AGOR) ship will be named the R/V Sally Ride.

"As secretary of the Navy, I have the great privilege of naming ships that will represent America with distinction as part of the fleet for many decades to come," Mabus said in a statement revealing the names of seven ships, including the Sally Ride. "These ships were all named to recognize the hard-working people from cities all around our country who have contributed in so many ways to our Navy and Marine Corps team."

Mabus named the future R/V Sally Ride in memory of the astronaut, who also served as a professor, scientist and innovator at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California in San Diego. Scripps will operate the R/V Sally Ride when it enters the Navy's fleet in 2015.

Ride died on July 23, 2012, from pancreatic cancer at age 65.

She made history when she lifted off with the STS-7 crew on space shuttle Challenger in 1983. The first U.S. female astronaut to fly into space, she was only the third woman worldwide to reach orbit, following two Soviet cosmonauts, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982.

This June will mark the 30th anniversary of Ride becoming the first American woman in space. [Photo: Female astronauts honor Sally Ride] 

After her second launch on the shuttle, Ride left NASA to become a physics professor and a champion for improving science education. She founded her own company, Sally Ride Science, to pursue her passion for motivating girls and young women to pursue careers in science, math and technology. 

"Sally Ride's career was one of firsts and will inspire generations to come," Mabus said. "I named R/V Sally Ride to honor a great researcher, but also to encourage generations of students to continue exploring, discovering and reaching for the stars." 

Traditionally, AGORs are named for nationally recognized leaders in exploration and science. In September 2012, Mabus named the first of the Navy's new class of modern AGOR ships the R/V Neil Armstrong after the first man to walk on the moon, who died a month after Ride. 

According to the Navy, the Sally Ride will include acoustic equipment capable of mapping the deepest parts of the oceans and modular laboratories to provide the flexibility and capability to meet a wide variety of research activities conducted by academic institutions and laboratories. The R/V Sally Ride, which will be a Neil Armstrong-class AGOR ship, will be the U.S. Navy's 28th auxiliary general oceanographic research ship. 

The research vessel will be 238 feet long (72.5 meters), have a beam length of 50 feet (15 meters) and will be able to operate at more than 12 knots. The R/V Sally Ride will be built by Dakota Creek Industries in Anacortes, Wash. 

In addition to the Ride and Armstrong, the Navy has three other ships named after U.S. astronauts. The USNS Alan Shepard, named after the first American in space, was launched in 2006; the USNS Wally Schirra, named after the only pilot to fly Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules, was launched in 2009; and the USNS John Glenn, named for the first American to orbit the Earth, is scheduled to be delivered to the Navy in 2014. 

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By Tariq Malik, SPACE.com

You don't need gravity to have a great St. Patrick's Day, just ask astronaut Chris Hadfield on the International Space Station.

Hadfield, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut, is celebrating the Irish holiday in orbit by wearing a green shirt and a bright green bow tie Sunday while photographing Ireland from space.

"Maidin mhaith from the International Space Station! Happy Saint Patrick's Day to the Irish all around the globe. Good morning!" Hadfield wrote in one of several Irish-themed Twitter posts today. Maidin mhaith is Gaelic for "Good Morning."

Hadfield also snapped a photo of Tralee, Ireland, as the space station passed over the region this morning and even recorded a cosmic version of the traditional Irish song "Danny Boy." Tralee was the first patch of green land Hadfield saw as the space station soared over the Atlantic Ocean today. [Astronaut Chris Hadfield's Amazing Space Photos]

"Danny Boy strikes home with me now more than ever. I've recorded a version for today in orbit," Hadfield wrote. He posted his version of Danny Boy on the Soundcloud.com audio website.

Hadfield is an accomplished guitarist and is the first astronaut to record an original song in space. Last month, he was one of several astronauts to perform with the Irish band The Chieftains during a Feb. 15 concert in Houston. NASA astronauts Cady Coleman and Dan Burbank joined the Chieftains live on stage during the concert, with Hadfield prerecording his portion for the show.

Coleman also performed with the Chieftains from space during a mission to the International Space Station that ran from December 2010 to May 2011. She took five different flutes to the space station and also performed an Irish song in space for St. Patrick's Day.

Hadfield commands the Expedition 35 mission on the International Space Station and took charge the orbiting lab last week when the previous Expedition 34 crew returned to Earth. He is the first Canadian ever to command the space station. 

The space station's Expedition 35 crew consists of Hadfield, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko. The three men launched to the space station in December and are due to return to Earth in May.

Hadfield and his crew will welcome three more crewmembers on March 28, bringing the space station back up to its full six-person crew size.

You can listen to Chris Hadfield's version of Danny Boy on SoundCloud.com here.

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

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By Clara Moskowitz
LiveScience

The coast of the northeast United States is silhouetted against the shimmering water of Cape Cod Bay and Long Island Sound in a new photo captured by astronauts on the International Space Station.

The phenomenon of light from a setting sun reflecting off water to create a shining, mirrorlike surface is called sunglint, and is evident throughout the photo.

"The Atlantic Ocean — including Cape Cod Bay and Buzzards Bay, along the coastlines of Massachusetts and Rhode Island — has a burnished, mirrorlike appearance in this image," the NASA's Earth Observatory wrote. "This is due to sunlight reflected off the water surface back towards the astronaut-photographer."

The photo was taken on Feb. 14 at 4:26 p.m. EST by the space station's Expedition 34 crew, which includes commander Kevin Ford of NASA, as well as U.S. astronaut Tom Marshburn, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy, Evgeny Tarelkin and Roman Romanenko.

At that time of day, the sun was low on the horizon, as evidenced by the wide extent of the sunglint effect, which reaches all the way from Long Island Sound to the waters of Chesapeake Bay, more than 250 miles (400 kilometers) away. From the vantage of the International Space Station, 260 miles (420 km) above Earth, much of the region is visible, as well as the limb of the planet and its thin atmosphere fading away into the blackness of space.

On the photo's right side, the waters off the Massachusetts coast and in Long Island Sound are especially bright where the peak reflection point is, according to the Earth Observatory.

The photo shows the northeast United States just days after a powerful blizzard blanketed many areas in heavy snow on Feb. 9.

"There is little in this image to indicate that the region was still recovering from a major winter storm that dropped almost one meter (three feet) of snow over much of the northeastern USA less than a week earlier," the Earth Observatory wrote.

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By Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor

An astronaut on the International Space Station beamed festive messages to Earth Saturday to mark Chinese New Year celebrations across the planet.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, a space station flight engineer, sent good wishes and amazing photos of China via online Twitter messages to celebrate the Chinese Year of the Snake, which began Sunday, Feb. 10.

"Happy Chinese New Year! May it be filled with joy and success," Hadfield wrote. "To celebrate, we sent a Progress spaceship to burn like fireworks in the sky."

That unmanned Russian Progress 48 spacecraft undocked from the space station early Saturday to clear a parking spot for a new robotic cargo ship, Progress 50, due to arrive at the station on Monday.

Hadfield then posted a series of dazzling photos of China from space, including a view of daybreak over Taiwan, a striking image of Shanghai at night, amazing windswept clouds and a view of the city of Hangzhou.

"Hangzhou, China. As one of the few space-faring nations, I salute China, her astronauts, and their accomplishments," Hadfield wrote.

In 2003, China became the third country (after Russia and the United States) to achieve human spaceflight with the successful launch of its first astronaut, Yang Liwei, aboard the country's Shenzhou spacecraft. The country subsequently took bolder steps into space, with two-person and three-person spaceflights, a spacewalk and the launch of the Tiangong 1 space laboratory module.

In 2012, China launched its first crew to the Tiangong 1 space module, a three-person team that included the country's first female astronaut, Liu Yang.

In 2013, China is expected to launch another crewed mission to the Tiangong 1 space lab (the Shenzhou 10 mission), as well as the Chang'e 3 moon mission, which is expected to send a lander to the lunar surface.

Hadfield is one of six astronauts currently living aboard the International Space Station. In addition to the Canadian, the station's Expedition 34 crew includes three Russian cosmonauts and two American astronauts.

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+. 

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By Miriam Kramer, SPACE.com

Life in space isn't easy. Even basic hygiene, like clipping your fingernails, is a cosmic challenge without gravity, one astronaut says.

A new video by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield shows exactly how complicated (and a little gross) it is to cut your nails in the weightless environment of space. Hadfield currently lives on the International Space Station, where astronauts are forced to devise inventive ways for dealing with basic bodily needs that many folks may take for granted on Earth.

"Now, if I just cut my fingernails here, fingernail bits are going to fly everywhere," Hadfield explained in the zero gravity nail-clipping video as he floated about inside the space station. "They won't fall to the ground. You can't sweep them up. They'll float everywhere. They get in your eyes, people breathe them. Not good. Got to figure out a plan."

Hadfield's solution is to position his hand over an air duct where air is pulled in and filtered throughout the station. The nail clippings get sucked into the duct's mesh filter, making cleaning up relatively simple.

"So, there we go," Hadfield said. "Nails are ready for guitar playing. I'm going to vacuum this [the air duct] later in the week. It'll all clean up just fine."

There are many other ways astronauts tackle daily life without the pull of gravity. They attach strips of Velcro to all of their belongings since anything that isn't tied down can float away and get lost somewhere inside the International Space Station, which has the same habitable space as a five-bedroom house.

The astronauts share hair-cutting duty with their crewmates, using a vacuum to clean up clippings after each snip. A complicated procedure using hoses and airflow allows astronauts go to the bathroom in space. There are two toilets for the six astronauts living on the space station today.

Hadfield is a flight engineer representing the Canadian Space Agency on the station's Expedition 34/35 crew. Two American astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts round out the team. In March, Hadfield will take command of the station's Expedition 35 crew, to become Canada's first space station commander.

Hadfield has already developed a reputation for snapping amazing photos of Earth from space, writing and performing songs in space on the guitar, and Tweeting with celebrities like William Shatner, "Star Trek's" famed Captain Kirk, since arriving on the station last month.

Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter @mirikramer or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

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