Chris Hadfield: What’s next?

It’s the question everyone wants to know: What’s next for Chris Hadfield?

The ubiquitous Canadian astronaut invaded our lives with the stealth of a mouse. His daily tweets not only reminded us that there were people orbiting our planet a neck-breaking speed of 27,500 km/h, but it also reminded us that we were part of something far more grand; that country borders mean nothing from space.

His poetic  musings on the planet that lay beneath him enriched many lives and fuelled an interest in space.

But what’s next for the man who brought space to millions of people around the world?

“Well, we’re getting him back in Houston tonight. And then he’s going to be a lab rat,”  said Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. ” He’s still going to have a lot of rehabilitation to do,” he said referring to getting his body back to being accustomed to Earth’s gravity.

“One of the huge things we do is debriefs. We need to learn as much as possible. We talk about experiments, science, spacewalks, everything.”

The whole process, he said, can take two to three weeks.

And after that?  “We’ll see Chris do more of what he’s been doing. He’s very passionate about sharing space with humanity,” Hansen said.

“You can kind of steer things where you want to make the impact you want,” Hansen said.

Although Hadfield was a trained CF-18 pilot, he retired as a Colonel from the Canadian Air Force in 2003 after serving in the military for 25 years. From 2003-2006 he served as Chief of Robotics for the NASA Astronaut Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Following that, he served as the Chief of International Space Station Operations from 2006-2008.

But now, Hadfield’s career is wide open. His passion for educating the public about space is something of a new turn for him.

“He’s very motivated about inspiring the next generation,” Hansen said.

We can be sure that the man who tweeted from space, will continue to tweet from Earth.