Most of us who have cultivated a lifelong love of science have been inspired by a popularizer. There have been some greats. Isaac Asimove, Carl Sagan, Ray Bradbury, Gene Roddenberry, Bill Nye (the science guy), Bob McDonald, Richard Feynman, David Suzuki, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, just to name a few.
Can there be any doubt, though, that the current greatest ambassador of science on the planet-as of Monday-is Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.
In the past five months while hurtling around the Earth in the International Space Station, Hadfield has almost single-handedly made space the coolest thing going again. Not since the space race and Neil Armstrong's famous small step for man, has an astronaut captured the imagination of the planet as Hadfield has with his virtual visits to classrooms, prodigious tweeting and of course, the now legendary video of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" released Sunday as the ISS commander prepared to turn the vessel over and return to Earth.
I say almost single-handedly because obviously there are many people who made it possible for Hadfield to become the new face of science popularization, not the least of whom was Major Tom himself, who was on board with the production of the video and consented to certain contextual lyrics changes.
Of course, it's easy to forget with all the social media buzz and traditional media coverage of Hadfield's extra-curricular activities that he is a real scientist and he was doing real science out there "sitting in a tin can, high above the world."
All of the fun stuff, singing with the Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson, dropping the puck to kick off the hockey playoffs, releasing the new five dollar bill, and of course, the Bowie video-now up to more than 7 million views on Youtube-was on top of his 10-hour-a-day job and two hours of exercise to keep his bones from disintegrating.
In my opinion the term 'hero' is bandied about too frequently these days. By definition a hero is a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
I honestly cannot think of very many people who truly fit that description, but Chris Hadfield is definitely one of them.
And not just to Canadians-although he did do us very proud. He has inspired and is admired by people around the world.
Welcome home, Commander Hadfield.
