Chris Hadfield becomes the first Canadian Commander of the ISS

Uploaded on March 13, 2013

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Chris Hadfield becomes the first Canadian Commander of the ISS

2013-03-13 - Highlights of the milestone Transfer of Command ceremony that made Chris Hadfield the first Canadian Commander of the International Space Station. Hadfield will command Expedition 35 until he returns with his crewmates in mid-May, 2013. (Credits: Canadian Space Agency, NASA)

Kevin Ford:  Chris here is a, is, he brings also some super, super special talents to the table, and I'm not gonna go through them all 'cause you know what they are. He's really, he's really a people person, he's out there, he shares things with everybody, he has, he has a way to make time for all that stuff, he's, he's a uniquely talented person on the planet, and now a uniquely talented person off the planet.

One of the things Chris loves is music, and I decided to play just a short song tonight, he doesn't know what it is, and he didn't approve it so. I'm solely responsible, so I should get the credit and the blame if it doesn't go well. But, Tom if you roll the music, and then I'll tell you why, why I wanted to play this song.

(Ô Canada playing)

Ok, and that's of course because, we are very proud. We're very proud of Chris. We're very proud of Canada as our partner in this International Space Station. Chris will be the second international commander of the Space Station, and he's well deserving of the honour of course, and it's gonna be just really fantastic for the whole program, as a community to have him as the commander of the International Space Station.
So with that, I'm gonna hand, hand the microphone over to Chris a minute, I hope he doesn't have to talk as long as I do. But he always has good things to say, so it'll be a pleasure if he does.

Chris Hadfield: Kevin, thank you. You do me tremendous honour by playing that song for me and my country. Thank you very much.

Evgeni and Olich and Kevin, you were just everything that could possibly be what we showed up at the Space Station here. You showed us how to live in space and how to live on the Space Station. We learned so much technically from you. You've been great just friends, the whole time up here. Really good people to be in space with. And, and even most importantly, learning about leadership from you Kevin. How to run this place. The incredible luck and richness of time to watch how you make this place works so well. In our time here we set a record for the amount of science done in the given lenght of time. The Space Station is humming with hundreds of experiments, it's a very healthy space ship because of the work that you all put in. And so it's a tremendous gift to give, that's a huge honour and a privilege for me, but also for all the people at the Canadian Space Agency, all of my hard working co-workers at the Canadian Space Agency, and for my entire country. So for the International Space Station Program, all the international partners, thank you very much for, for giving me the keys to the family car. We gonna put some miles on it, but we'll bring it back in good shape. And I would really like to wish your crew, thank your crew, but wish you soft landings.

Kevin Ford: Thank you very much. With that Chris, it's time for me to offer you command of the International Space Station.

Chris Hadfield: Thank you Kevin. With great humility and pleasure I accept command of the International Space Station. Thank you Sir.

Kevin Ford: There you go. Good boy. Thanks

(Applauses)

Unidentified person: Congratulations

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