Hadfield says of the incident: "Our ability to prevail on that day was the direct result of visualising failure and then using the time between now and when the event begins to start preparing for things to go wrong."
However, a spacewalk is never easy on the body, thanks to the extreme temperatures and highly pressurised suits. "It's a wicked place to work", says Hadfield. "Little fragments of the universe are sandblasting you the whole time… You come out of that suit fighting all of that pressure, You come out of it bloody at the end of a spacewalk."
That means the film Gravity took some poetic licence with astronauts' appearances. Take this image of real-life astronaut, Karen Nyberg compared to the one below of Sandra Bullock, for example.
3. 'You get an unfettered understanding of the world'
Hadfield speaks about the analogue beauty of being in such a technologically-advanced situation. Here he discusses his realisation that it was the human moments that stood out for him aboard the station:
Chris unapologetically recounts that the coolest thing for him was "to be alone out in the universe… with the world just pouring by next to you at 2800Km/hr. If I look over my left shoulder, it's the eternity of everything all around yawning in all directions."
"You would never see it properly if you didn't push yourself to the limit and make that next level of impossible into reality and then reap the unexpected benefits of it all… You get an unfettered understanding of the world from on board this ship that would otherwise be impossible to see."
This moment of quiet and staring into the void was summed up in one sentence, describing a space walk: "Your whole link with 7 billion people is holding on with one hand."
"it's an amazing time in history and we're just starting to figure all this stuff out."
4. 'Gravity is the ultimate oppressor'
Hadfield is keen to state that his love of the Earth has only been reinforced by having had a rare view of it, although he seems to feel a little sad that the joy of weightlessness can't be enjoyed by us earth-dwellers.
Hadfield describes re-entering earth's atmosphere like this: "You feel awful. You're so dizzy you faint, you stand up, you just wanna throw up and go lie down somewhere." However, that doesn't stop him from giving props to three science entrepreneurs who want to make space travel possible for the masses.
Sir Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, are all currently working on private space programs in varying stages of completion.
During the panel, he shows us the first two attempts to land Elon Musk's Space X launch experiment.
The first rocket crashed, as did the second. But Hadfield deems it "pretty good" and says "pretty soon he's gonna get it right." Once Musk, or perhaps one of the others, perfects the launch process, a whole new realm of travel will open up.
5. 'It's a great mix'
Aside from Hadfield's burgeoning musical career (he's just released an album of songs recorded aboard the ISS, with a new music video) he's found the time to write a book based on what he learnt in space and a picture-based coffee table book, as well as travelling around the world giving talks on his experiences, inspiring minds everywhere.
Clearly, culture matters to Hadfield. So we had to know, what is his favourite space movie?
