Astronaut Chris Hadfield's message to Emirati astronaut Hazza Al Mansoori

Gulf News

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00:00Hi, this is Commander Chris Hadfield, astronaut, and someone who's really excited to see that

00:08Haza al-Mansouri is flying to space.

00:17Haza, it is so important what you're doing.

00:29Not just personally for you, not just professionally in your own career, but the real big impact

00:35is global.

00:37You represent the hopes and dreams of millions of Arabic-speaking people, as well as children

00:44all around the world.

00:46You're a role model for those people to make different choices with their lives.

00:50That's what's so important about international cooperation, allowing people to see an opportunity

00:56they didn't know existed for them.

01:12It was hugely influential for me, as a kid, to see the first people flying in space and

01:17go to the moon, and it changed my decision-making, and you're doing that exact same thing.

01:26Without gravity, of course, you don't need anything to hold you up.

01:41You can just completely relax, and you don't even need a pillow in space.

01:46You don't even have to hold your head up.

02:17And so if you keep crying, you just end up with a bigger and bigger ball of solar.

02:40I think there's three important things you need to remember.

02:42Number one is be good at your job.

02:46Do the work.

02:47Be competent.

02:48You have to focus and do every single thing as well as any human being can do.

02:53You've got a background to do all those things.

02:55You're working like hard.

02:56I like crazy hard at it, I know, but you have to do that as job one.

03:00Your job is to be the best astronaut that's ever flown in space.

03:04The second is be a good crew member, a good teammate.

03:08Support the team members from all the other countries and organizations, all of the people

03:12supporting you on the ground.

03:15Build a team of people that can cooperatively together do something that nobody else can

03:20do.

03:21And you're sort of at the pointy end of the sphere for that.

03:24The third important point after, of course, being good at your job and building a really

03:29good and cooperative and capable team is share the experience.

03:35Don't keep any of it to yourself.

03:37Share it now in advance.

03:39Share it on the day of launch.

03:41Think about how you can let other people in on what's going through your own mind.

03:45What does it feel like?

03:47And during the flight, seek every opportunity to not just squander it and make it your own,

03:54but to let other people in on the magic of this brand new human experience.

03:58And then, of course, afterwards, your legacy will live for decades right across the UAE,

04:05across the Arab world, and around our whole planet.

04:08So make sure that you're really noticing all the fine detail, having fun in it, loving

04:13it, and then sharing that joy and that love and that technical depth with as many people

04:20as you can.

04:21You're changing your own life.

04:23You're changing, to some degree, the future of human capability.

04:27But it's the lives of the future that you're changing are the really important ones.

04:30Have a great voyage.

04:31I look forward to talking to you, maybe while you're in space, but definitely when you land

04:36back on Earth.

04:37Au voyage.

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