Astronaut Chris Hadfield interview

[Solon]

I was reading an interview on NPR with Cris Hadfield, recently retired Canadian astronaut, who has performed EVAs from both a shuttle and from the ISS. His words seem quite unequivocal, that space is an endless blackness in all directions. Am I to take his words at face value?

The contrast of your body and your mind inside ... essentially a one-person spaceship, which is your spacesuit, where you're holding on for dear life to the shuttle or the station with one hand, and you are inexplicably in between what is just a pouring glory of the world roaring by, silently next to you — just the kaleidoscope of it, it takes up your whole mind. It's like the most beautiful thing you've ever seen just screaming at you on the right side, and when you look left, it's the whole bottomless black of the universe and it goes in all directions. It's like a huge yawning endlessness on your left side and you're in between those two things and trying to rationalize it to yourself and trying to get some work done.

 

[Bandersnatch]

He doesn't say blackness in all directions. What he says is that when you have a very bright object on your right, the sky on the left looks extra black.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

FYI here is a link to the full interview
http://www.npr.org/2013/10/30/24183...field-brings-lessons-from-space-down-to-earth

 

[Solon]

He doesn't say blackness in all directions.

He doesn't?

"it's the whole bottomless black of the universe and it goes in all directions"

What he says is that when you have a very bright object on your right, the sky on the left looks extra black

I think you are putting words in his mouth that don't belong. Astronauts have probably the best vision of anyone, yet from my own experiments, it takes less than 5 seconds after blinding myself with a flashlight for the stars to be visible again, and I'm in an area of poor star visibility due to prevailing marine air conditions, and even without my glasses on. For a person person with normal eyesight, the pupillary light reflex speed is initially pretty fast, both for constriction and dilation, so long dark adaptation time is only required to see REALLY dim objects. I think Mr Hadfield would have mentioned if he had any circumstances that prevented him seeing the satrs, a dark visor, sun in his eyes, dark adaptation time.
He also wonders about "our planet and how it reacts with the energy from the sun and how our magnetic field works and how the upper atmosphere works", so he has given this some serious consideration. If he can not see stars within a few seconds while looking away from a bright Earth, and does not state that this was due to a specific reason, then I am puzzled, and would really like him to clarify his statement. If the stars are not easily visible from orbit, but are from Earth, then there is something very much amiss with our models of how light works, which has some very serious implications indeed.

 

[D H]

He doesn't?

He doesn't.

"it's the whole bottomless black of the universe and it goes in all directions"

You intentionally left out a key part of that quote. He said "when you look left, it's the whole bottomless black of the universe and it goes in all directions."

What's to the right? The Earth. It fills almost half the sky at the altitude of the ISS.

I think you are putting words in his mouth that don't belong. Astronauts have probably the best vision of anyone, yet from my own experiments, it takes less than 5 seconds after blinding myself with a flashlight for the stars to be visible again, and I'm in an area of poor star visibility due to prevailing marine air conditions, and even without my glasses on. For a person person with normal eyesight, the pupillary light reflex speed is initially pretty fast, both for constriction and dilation, so long dark adaptation time is only required to see REALLY dim objects. I think Mr Hadfield would have mentioned if he had any circumstances that prevented him seeing the satrs, a dark visor, sun in his eyes, dark adaptation time.
He also wonders about "our planet and how it reacts with the energy from the sun and how our magnetic field works and how the upper atmosphere works", so he has given this some serious consideration. If he can not see stars within a few seconds while looking away from a bright Earth, and does not state that this was due to a specific reason, then I am puzzled, and would really like him to clarify his statement. If the stars are not easily visible from orbit, but are from Earth, then there is something very much amiss with our models of how light works, which has some very serious implications indeed.

You are the one putting words in his mouth and you are speculating about those words you put in his mouth. Stop that.

The astronauts see the stars from the ISS.