• Astronaut won't let gravity's ill effects bring him down

    NASA

    Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield, Expedition 34 flight engineer, floats freely in December 2012 in the Unity node of the International Space Station.

    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.

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  • Chris Hadfield's 'Space Oddity' is a hit: What's next for space superstar?

    The current commander of the International Space Station, Commander Chris Hadfield, has recorded a David Bowie re-make in space during his five-month shift. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield finished out his five-month flurry of songs, snapshots and social media from outer space with a real doozy: a rendition of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” that even Bowie is retweeting.

    The music video was months in the making: With Bowie's approval, the song's lyrics were tweaked to reflect Hadfield's return from the International Space Station on Monday aboard a Russian Soyuz craft. "Lock your Soyuz hatch and put your helmet on," Hadfield sings in the video. After showing scenes of Hadfield strumming on his guitar and gazing soulfully out the station's windows, the video winds up with a Soyuz parachuting down to its landing.

    Since "Space Oddity" went up on Sunday, it's been viewed on YouTube more than 2.7 million times.

    The YouTube hit caps off an orbital tour of duty during which Hadfield sent down thousands of pictures via his Twitter account, performed the first original song recorded on the space station, mixed it up with "Star Trek" icon William Shatner and unveiled Canada's new $5 bill. For the past two months, he was doing all this while serving as the station's first Canadian commander.

    "He's brought space back, not just for Canadians but for the world," fellow Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen told NBC News.

    Dreams of space
    Hadfield, 53, began his path to stardom during his childhood on a corn farm in southern Ontario. Watching Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon in 1969 inspired him to dream of becoming an astronaut when he was 9 years old. He started flying airplanes in his teens, and went on to become a fighter pilot in the Canadian Armed Forces. He's been an astronaut since 1992, and he flew on space shuttle missions in 1995 and 2001.

    Last December, he finally got his shot at a long-term stint in space — and he definitely made the most of the experience.

    Slideshow: The antics and artistry of astronaut Chris Hadfield

    Canadian spaceflier Chris Hadfield has posted incredible pictures of the world from space. He has also explained how to brush your teeth, shave and clip your nails while weightless.

    Launch slideshow

    Hadfield's 28-year-old son, Evan, told NBC News that his father put in several hours a day snapping pictures and sending tweets, in addition to his usual 10-hour work shift aboard the station. "When he wasn't working directly for space station maintenance, or on one of his science experiments, he was doing something with his time to benefit people down here," Evan Hadfield said.

    Evan worked long hours, too, without pay. Over the past five months, he has been managing his father's social-media accounts and taking the lead in getting videos like "Space Oddity" produced. "I work about 16 hours a day, seven days a week," he said. "Last week I worked 19 hours a day. ... I read about 13,000 to 17,000 messages a day, and that's just in the morning."

    "Space Oddity" was a special case, in part due to a tangle of international copyright issues. The Hadfields started working with Bowie and his team, as well as NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, even before the astronaut's launch in December. "It was definitely something we wanted to do," Evan said.

    Why do it? Chris Hadfield hinted at the reasons in a different farewell-to-space video: "Who'd have thought that five months away from the planet would make you feel closer to people?" he asked. "Not closer because I miss them — just closer because seeing this [experience] this way and being able to share it through all the media that we've used has allowed me to get a direct reflection back immediately from so many people. ... It makes me feel like I'm actually with people more, that we're having a conversation. That this experience is not individual, but it's shared and it's worldwide."

    Hansen said all of Hadfield's pictures, videos and tweets could be boiled down to a simple message: "We do live on a spaceship, a spaceship called Earth, and we need to work together to protect it."

    The next chapter
    So what's next? After Hadfield and his two Soyuz crewmates touch down in Kazakhstan, they'll be whisked away in separate directions: Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko will head toward Moscow, while Hadfield and NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn will be flown directly back to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for medical checks, debriefings, rest and recuperation.

    "We have a lot in store for these guys over a number of weeks," Hansen said. And that's not counting a single tweet.

    It's hard to believe that Hadfield will be out of the social-media spotlight for long. "We've still got a lot of stuff," Evan Hadfield said. There are still lots of photos and videos from his father's spaceflight that have yet to be shared. But not even the Hadfields know how all those visions from outer space will come out, and on what timetable.

    "I don't know, and I don't even want to speculate, because what if I'm wrong?" Evan said. "I hope, I really hope that people take Dad's message to heart and continue it past his return."

    Update for 12:25 p.m. ET May 14: The "Space Oddity" video viewership is up to nearly the 7 million mark, and Hadfield commented on the YouTube phenomenon shortly after his landing in Kazakhstan. "I'm very happy that ... 7 million are interested. It is very interesting and historic to be in space," Reuters quoted Hadfield as saying.

    "It's part of humanity to be in space," Hadfield said in Russian. "What we were feeling, what we were doing there, the music we played, this is a big part of our lives." 

    More about Chris Hadfield:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

    This story was originally published on Mon May 13, 2013 7:49 PM EDT

  • Space station skipper gives Canada's new $5 bill an out-of-this-world debut

    Watch the unveiling of Canada's new $5 bill, featuring space station commander Chris Hadfield.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    Canada's new printed-polymer $5 bill has received the country's highest sendoff, altitude-wise, from International Space Station commander Chris Hadfield. Tuesday's currency-unveiling ceremony in space was just the latest in a series of achievements that have drawn attention to Canada's best-known spaceflier.

    Hadfield already has made his mark as a photographer, a musician and composer, and an explainer of outer-space phenomena ranging from crying to vomiting in zero-G. There's a reason why the Bank of Canada turned to him to introduce one of the last currency notes to be converted to counterfeit-resistant polymer: One side of the $5 bill celebrates Canada's contributions to space exploration, including the space station's Canadarm2 and DEXTRE robot.

    "I just want to tell you how proud I am to be able to see Canada's achievements in space highlighted on our money," Hadfield told Canadian officials via a space-to-Earth video link. Hadfield said the pictures played to Canada's strength in space robotics.

    As Hadfield spoke, he plucked a bill from the wall of the station's Destiny laboratory and set it spinning in zero gravity in front of the camera. The other side of the bill has a less spacey theme: It features a portrait of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who was Canada's prime minister from 1896 to 1911.

    Bank of Canada spokeswoman Julie Girard said the outer-space ceremony was "quite a few months in the making." The polymer note was flown up to the space station with Hadfield back in December, and held in reserve for Tuesday's ceremony. "We wanted to be the first to unveil a bank note in space," she told NBC News.

    Bank of Canada

    This rendition of the Canadian $5 bill shows Canadarm2 and DEXTRE in more detail. The bank note is to be issued in November.

    Canada's new $10 note, which commemorates the country's rail system, was unveiled at the same time in Ottawa. The $5 and $10 bills will complete Canada's conversion to polymer-based currency, tricked up with transparent areas and hologram markings to make them harder to counterfeit. The Bank of Canada says these notes should last two to three times longer than the country's cotton-based paper bank notes — and when they wear out, they can be traded in and recycled.

    The new notes won't be rolled out to the Canadian public until November. That'll provide enough lead time for training clerks and law enforcement officials to get familiar with the bills. Hadfield will be back on Earth long before November: He's due to get on board the next Soyuz capsule leaving the station on May 14, alongside NASA's Tom Marshburn and Russia's Roman Romanenko.

    So what happens to Hadfield's $5 bill? Girard said the astronaut will bring the note down with him, and it will eventually be put on exhibit at the Bank of Canada's currency museum.

    Several of Hadfield's priceless photographs of Earth from space are already on exhibit in our latest Month in Space Pictures slideshow. Check out the pictures, plus this bonus 3-D picture of Mars from NASA's Curiosity rover. The 3-D photo was featured in our "Where in the Cosmos" contest on Facebook. Cosmic Log fan Ryan Meader was the first to report that the mountain featured in the picture is referred to as Mount Sharp (by Curiosity's science team) and Aeolis Mons (by the International Astronomical Union).

    Meader says he's a long-time reader: "I think it's fair to say that I'm on the hard-core passionate end of the spectrum — so it was to my great delight that I got the jump on this little contest," he wrote.

    We're delighted to send Meader a free pair of red-blue 3-D glasses, compliments of Microsoft Research's WorldWide Telescope project — and we'll have a few more spectacles to give away in the weeks to come. So click on the "like" button for the Cosmic Log Facebook page and get ready for the next "Where in the Cosmos" contest.

    Slideshow: Month in Space: April 2013

    Chris Hadfield / CSA

    Feast your eyes on an alligator-like mountain range and other curiosities seen from outer space in April 2013.

    Launch slideshow

    NASA / JPL-Caltech

    A stereo image from NASA's Mars Curiosity rover shows the terrain between the robot and Mount Sharp (a.k.a. Aeolis Mons) inside Gale Crater. Wear red-blue glasses to get the 3-D effect, and don't dwell too much on the hardware in the foreground. Trying to focus in on that part of the picture can make you go cross-eyed.

    More about Canada's best-known spaceflier:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Happy Earth Day, from above Earth

    Chris Hadfield / Canadian Space Agency

    The robotic arm of the space station give the Earth a "thumbs up" according to the spacecraft's commander, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

    By Miriam Kramer
    Space.com

    Earth Day is celebrated even in space.

    Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield sent down some well wishes from the International Space Station Monday in honor of Earth Day.

    "Good Morning, World, and Happy Earth Day from orbit!" the current space station commander wrote from his Twitter account (@Cmdr_Hadfield) on Monday. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."

    Hadfield also spoke to a group of Canadian students and journalists about how life in space has changed his view of the Earth.

    "If anything my respect and my concern and my love for the Earth has only been deepened by [having this] new perspective on the planet," Hadfield said.

    Hadfield thinks that a "vital" part of his job is to show the world what it is like to live in orbit, he said during the Canadian event.

    The first Canadian commander of the station is known for beaming down beautiful pictures of the Earth from the space station's perspective as well as creating videos detailing everything from cooking on the station to cutting his nails in microgravity.

    Chris Hadfield / Canadian Space Agency

    Chris Hadfield loves taking photos of Earth, including this picture of a mountain range, taken on Monday.

    Hadfield also reflected on the significance of the Earth through Twitter later in the day.

    "One quick look at our planet reminds me of the importance of Earth Day," Hadfield wrote.

    NASA has scheduled its own set of Earth Day activities on Monday. The space agency is releasing photos and hosting social media events in honor of the Earth celebration. These events are the culmination of a month-long campaign by the agency to help engage the public with Earth science from space.

    Hadfield and two other residents of the International Space Station — Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and NASA's Tom Marshburn — are scheduled to fly back to Earth in May after a six-month stint on board the orbiting outpost.

    The $100 billion space station has been permanently staffed by astronauts from around the world since 2000. The station was built by five different space agencies representing 15 countries, with construction beginning in 1998.

    Slideshow: Our fragile Earth

    AFP - Getty Images

    Images from outer space highlight the fragility — and the resilience — of our beautiful blue planet.

    Launch slideshow

    Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter and Google+. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

    Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • What happens when you wring out a washcloth in zero-G? Now we know

    Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield performs a simple science experiment designed Kendra Lemke and Meredith Faulkner, 10th-graders at Lockview High School in Fall River, Nova Scotia.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    We've recently been reminded about the problems posed by zero-G poop and weightless weeping, but here's a real puzzler for zero-G hygiene: What happens to the water when you wring out a washcloth on the International Space Station? That's the question addressed in Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's latest silly science experiment  — and the answer might not be what you expect.

    This experiment takes the prize ... literally: It was designed by Kendra Lemke and Meredith Faulkner, two 10th-graders at Lockview High School in Fall River, Nova Scotia, and entered in a science contest sponsored by the Canadian Space Agency. A panel of judges selected the "Ring It Out" demonstration as the contest's winner.

    Would the water spray out in a hail of fast-moving droplets, or blurp out in slow-moving globs? Actually, the students hypothesized that the water would just stay on the washcloth — and Hadfield proved them correct during Tuesday's live demonstration.

    "The experiment worked beautifully," Hadfield said. "The answer to the question is, the water squeezes out of the cloth, and then because of the surface tension of the water, it actually runs along the surface of the cloth and then up into my hand, almost like you had gel on your hand, and it'll just stay there. Wonderful moisturizer on my hands."

    It's one thing to read those observations, and quite another to see them on video. Watch the experiment, and then dig into these other hot topics in zero-G hygiene:

    More about life in space:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Why you better not cry in space

    Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield demonstrates the physics of tears in space.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    Is there anything Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield can't do? He's the commander of the International Space Station, a guitar-strumming space troubadour, a prolific orbital photographer and a frequent commentator about life in space. Hadfield seems to do it all, but apparently there's at least one thing he can't do — namely, shed a tear in zero gravity.

    Hadfield demonstrated why there's no crying in space last week, in an instructional video from the space station. He squirted water from a bottle into his eye, and then showed how the liquid just kept piling up on his face.

    "If you keep crying, you just end up with a bigger and bigger ball of water in your eye," he said, "until eventually it crosses across your nose and gets into your other eye, or evaporates, or maybe spreads over your cheek — or you grab a towel and dry it off. So, yes, I've gotten things in my eye. Your eyes will definitely cry in space. But the big difference is, tears don't fall."

    "Tears Don't Fall" ... that sounds like a great title for Hadfield's next orbital ballad.

    For more about the "no crying in space" phenomenon, check out The Atlantic's detailed explanation from January. And for more fun facts from Hadfield, watch his video guides to brushing your teeth in zero-G, shaving in space, how to clean up a space spill, and how to clip your fingernails on the space station.

    More about life in space:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Astronaut and musician perform first original duet from space and Earth

    CBC Music

    Chris Hadfield (left) performed from the International Space Station's cupola, while Barenaked Ladies singer Ed Robertson (right) sang with his bandmates and a youth choir in Toronto, Canada.

    By Elizabeth Howell
    Space.com

    An astronaut and a rock singer recorded an original song together and released it Friday as the first duet of new music performed simultaneously in space and on the ground.

    A rocket launch and the beauty of planet Earth are the subjects of the song, performed in space by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, while accompanied by Canadian singer Ed Robertson of the band Barenaked Ladies, and others on Earth.

    The song, called "I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing)," focuses on the experience of a person in space missing his loved ones on the Earth below:

    "If you could see our nation from the International Space Station, you'd know why I want to get back soon."

    Hadfield and Robertson began co-writing the song when Hadfield was still in training in Russia for his five-month mission on the International Space Station. Next month, Hadfield will be the first Canadian commander on the orbiting complex when the Expedition 35 mission begins. [Astronaut Rock: NASA's Final Space Shuttle Wake Songs]

    A duet from longtime friends
    Hadfield and Robertson first met more than a decade ago when Hadfield gave the award-winning Barenaked Ladies band a tour of Mission Control in Houston.

    The duet, mixed in Toronto earlier this week, included other members of the Barenaked Ladies as well as the Wexford Gleeks, a youth choir from the Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts. Hadfield performed from the cupola, which is an observation deck on the ISS.

    "Welcome to the cupola. I'm ready to play a little music," Hadfield said, clutching a guitar, in a video of the song recording released today.

    "Indeed. Your scenery looks a little nicer than ours," Robertson responded from the studio.

    Hadfield then proudly showed off his guitar pick, to which Robertson quipped: "I know, yours matches your mission patch."

    As the collaborators sang, Hadfield periodically looked up through the cupola windows to gaze at Earth. On one occasion, he did so right after singing, "Pushed back in my seat, look out my window – there goes home."

    Despite the great distance between the collaborators, Robertson wrote that the work of writing the song mostly went smoothly between himself and the orbiting astronaut. The exception came when they were finalizing the chorus.

    'Chris always felt that it was a real mouthful'
    "It’s a line in the chorus that I wrote, 'If you could see our nation from the International Space Station.' Chris always felt that it was a real mouthful, and it is a real mouthful, but that’s what’s cool about it," wrote Robertson on a blog for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Canada's national broadcaster.

    "His alternate was 'From way up here on this space station.' So I said, 'You just sung the exact same number of syllables and haven't changed the meaning of it. You just didn’t say 'International Space Station', which is this awesome place where you actually are, so I really want you to sing that line."

    Hadfield is reportedly working on making enough songs for an album — in between his other duties on station. He released another original song from orbit in December called "Jewel in the Night."

    When the album is released, Robertson already has a suggested title for Hadfield.

    "How about, 'Turns Out in Space Lots of People Can Hear You Scream?'" he offered.

    Hadfield isn't the first musical astronaut to perform on the space station. In April 2011, NASA astronaut Cady Coleman collaborated with Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson on the ground to play the band's song "Bourree" over a satellite connection. Coleman played the flute during the performance, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of humanity's first spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961.

    You can listen to Hadfield and Robertson's space song here.

    Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

    Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • William Shatner makes a call to astronaut in space -- for real

    By Clara Moskowitz 
    Space.com

    Capt. James Kirk of the Starship Enterprise called up an astronaut in space today for a cosmic conversation that began on Twitter and warped all the way into space.

    Actor William Shatner, who famously portrayed Kirk in the original science fiction TV show "Star Trek," called the International Space Station Thursday to ask real-life astronaut Chris Hadfield what life is like on a spaceship.

    "I'm so moved to be able to speak to you for this brief moment," Shatner told the astronaut via phone.

    You can see a video of Shatner's call to the space station here.

    Hadfield, representing the Canadian Space Agency, is serving a five-month tour on the football field-sized space station orbiting Earth. Last month, he and Shatner struck up a virtual conversation on Twitterwhen the actor wrote, "@Cmdr_Hadfield Are you tweeting from space?"

    Eventually, their conversation pulled in other "Star Trek" notables like George Takei (who played Hikaru Sulu), Will Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) and Leonard Nimoy (Spock).  

    Today, Shatner and Hadfield connected in real time for a chat about life in space, and life on the stage.

    "You've been a test pilot, the utmost example of courage," Shatner said. "How do you deal with the fear, which is also applicable to space?"

    "I read somewhere that you always knew your lines whenever you had a job in the acting profession," Hadfield replied. "I have tried to always know my lines. What I'm scared most of is not knowing what to do next. … After years of training, you practice everything down to the details so you have the confidence that comes with that."

    "The fear comes from something unexpected happening, like forgetting your worlds or an audience reaction that was unexpected," Shatner said. "In my case, your face flushes, in your case, you burn up. It's a little different."

    "Well, in both cases you go down in flames," the astronaut shot back.

    Shatner also got philosophical, asking whether flying in space helped Hadfield contemplate the enormity of the universe. "Are you able to see the unifying parts of it so that you become at one with the universe?" he asked.

    Hadfield said that in between the everyday engineering problems that occupy his mind, he does think about how humanity is poised on the cusp of exploration, looking toward a future of living out in the solar system. 

    "I feel hugely connected to that," he said. "It's what inspired me as a kid. Now I'm doing my absolute best to help people see that, to help us understand where we are philosophically and historically in our increased understanding of where we are in the universe."

    The fictional and real-life space travelers had a lot to talk about, but limited time, so the two made plans to continue their conversation at Hadfield's cottage in Ontario, after the astronaut returns home in May.

    "It's a pleasure Chris, I look forward to meeting you in person and siting down with a whiskey and a cigar," Shatner said.

    You can follow Space.com assistant managing editor Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz. Follow Space.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook  and  Google+.

    Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.