Can you hear me Major Tom? Chris Hadfield's Impact on Space Exploration

Earlier this week, International Space Station resident Commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian citizen, came back to earth, but not without first creating a series of defining moments for modern space exploration. It was not because what he discovered while in his six month stay, but because he did what not many astronauts had done before: he made the ISS accessible to everyone, from the comfort of our earthly dwellings. He did a social media blitz of sorts. He would post daily pictures of fly-bys across the globe, short videos demoing how things we do on earth differ in space: how flame burns without gravity, how crying looks like in near-zero-G, how they sleep, how they use the bathroom, how they keep in shape and so forth. He did several social media live Q&A events, including a reddit AMA a few months ago.

With millions of followers across the major social media outlets, Chris Hadfield (and a small pre- and post-production team on earth), released his grand finalé, his Opus Major, if you will: a cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity, filmed and performed by Hadfield himself aboard the ISS.

To date, more than 13,500,000 unique viewers have watched the amazing video Hadfield and co. put together. And I sure hope, for the sake of awareness and education that the video continues to spread like a wildfire in a hay farm.

My description of the video, as I previously posted on Google+, goes as follows:

I don't think a music video has moved me so much as Commander +Chris Hadfield 's cover of +David Bowie 's Space Odddity. I've watched it no less than 6 or 7 times since it was first released. It really is perfect, insofar as transporting you there without actually being there. The conflict between sheer beauty of earthly backdrops with the desolate, sterile blackness of space. The human desire to reach and live in space, away from earth, in a parallel dimension unbound from gravity and other quotidian earth-bound forces. The conflicting feelings of enjoying the moment on the station while fully aware the clock is ticking and finally the bittersweet realization that time has come to re-join the human race.

Now, what really matters though, is Commander Hadfield's impact on public and political perception of space exploration. If his sharing his experience with millions on a daily basis persuaded the constituency and politicians that space exploration is a worthy expense, that it's not just for the multi-millionaire elite, or for the erudite, that tangible benefits can be drawn from the mere fact of being in space for extended periods of time, then Chris Hadfield's efforts will not be for naught. The U.S. space program is currently in a fairly poor shape, and I hope what Commander Hadfield has done is the right medicine needed to revivify it.