Some astronauts will tell you that optimism got them to space. But Chris Hadfield will tell you that optimism in space will get you killed. He's the first Canadian to ever command the International Space Station. Five months in orbit, leading an international crew in the most hostile environment humans have ever worked in. Before that, he was intercepting Soviet bombers in the Arctic, test flying experimental aircraft for the U.S. navy and systematically preparing for a goal that didn't even exist when he started chasing it at age 9. And then he made one of the most epic pivots in human history. He became a best selling fiction author, writing the Apollo Murders, the Defector and the subject of today's conversation, Final Orbit.

Chris draws on his 25 years in the military, not for his training on how to kill people, but how to stop wars. He uses his expert knowledge about intercepting Soviet bombers and flying into outer space to helping build the space station near with those same Soviets that he once viewed as enemies. Working cooperatively in peace, in orbit. But now, in his new thriller, Final Orbit, Hadfield tells the true story of the Chinese space program. Political witch hunt, an exile, genius battles in space, and 70 years of consequences later, we're still dealing with a new rival that's rising in the east and what the rise of conspiracy theorists and even encounters with unidentified flying objects mean for the future of humanity in space. This is Commander Chris Hadfield on how America created its worst rival but rose to the occasion. Let's go deep into the impossible.

That's a great pleasure to have back on the show. Commander Chris Hadfield, one of our most requested and favorite guests on the podcast. Welcome back to the into the Impossible podcast, Brian.

I've been looking for a reason to be talking to you again, so I'm glad a new book is it and I really enjoyed our last conversation. So thanks for having me back.

I just couldn't resist when I saw this new book coming out. I begged, borrowed, stole. I love the audiobook. Kress, the narrator, is just phenomenal. You guys did a great job on it.

Thank you. Yeah, Ray Porter's the best in the business. Andy Weir, who wrote the Martian and Project Hail Mary, is a good friend and Ray does all of his books as well. But this book, it was great because Ray was actually stopping during the recording to send me notes to say just how great and how much fun he was having recording this book. So I'm really delighted with it.

Yeah, Andy Weir is a frequent guest and he was on. And he also gives his encomia to this book which is, which is Lovely. Andy was not a graduate of ucsd. He never graduated. But he's a proud son of San San Diego. So we'll claim them. We'll claim them anyway. Anyway, happy International Space Week.

This book comes out. I don't think it's a coincidence, is it, Chris, that the book comes out on the anniversary almost of Sputnik's launch in 1957. Right.

Well, it's always Space Week for me in my life, but October sky, it shocked everybody when that little beeping ball went around the world. I launched from the same launch pad that Sputnik did, which is just bizarre to how that all links together. And the same one Yuri Gagarin launched from. So, yeah, it is indeed a small world, but also amazingly short amount of time since that first launch to what has happened now.

Yeah, I want to talk about that. Especially with the newly thawed and then frozen relationships with the former Soviet Union, with the Russians, including their space program. But before we get there, I mean, since we're on the subject of, you know, kind of Sputnik, which I believe had at least the shell of it, right, Chris was from a nuclear warhead or was a decommissioned nuclear warhead.

Gosh, you've exceeded my Sputnik knowledge. I mean, that's obviously where the rockets came from. When people asked why the Soviets won the space race, they said it's because our military biggest in the world, our microcomputers biggest in the world. And so they needed big powerful rockets in order to be able to wage war. And that gave them an advantage over the Americans so that they could launch Sputnik in 1957 and Yuri Gagarin in 1961. And it took a huge effort under Kennedy and beyond for the US to catch up. But yeah, I mean, Sputnik wasn't much. It just transmitted a beeping noise, but you could see it.

That was the amazing thing. For the first time in human history, you could walk outside pretty much anywhere on Earth and watch a man made satellite go over. And it was kind of a weird revelation of what the future was going to bring.

Incredible. And of course, the Cold War figures prominently in all three of your novels. And I always have to, you know, take a little bit extra time when I prepare for a novelist like you or when Andy's been on the few couple times he's been on, because I don't want to give away anything about the book because for one thing, it would be a crime against my audience because to deny them the pleasure of all the cliffhangers and my favorite Part of the book, which are the endnotes. Chris. I love that you guys read the endnotes. And it's science fact. I mean, it's not science fiction. Most of it is based on factual events.

Right?