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“I’ve been an astronaut for 20 years and I’ve been training specifically for this for the last five years, and the hard part is remembering what matters — some key detail that some instructor told me on a boat just off the Port of Sevastopol on the Black Sea three years ago about something critical about my life-support-equipment suit on the Soyuz. I have boiled things down to one-page notes on all sorts of different systems in an effort to be able to simplify in my mind so I can remember the important stuff at the right time.”

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Hadfield traveled to the space station on board a Russian Soyuz capsule for a five-month visit to the giant orbiting space lab.

During his stay, the 53-year-old space veteran, an avid guitar player, promised to do some strumming to help him deal with homesickness, which he obviously started to fulfil today.

He will also be involved with more than 130 experiments including Micro-flow, a Canadian blood-sampling experiment which he compared to a hospital in a box.

During the second half of his mission, Hadfield will become the first Canadian to command the space station.

This is Hadfield’s third space journey.

His first space trip was in November 1995 when he visited the Russian Space Station Mir. His second voyage was a visit to the International Space Station in April 2001, when he also performed two space walks.

Marc Garneau, who was the first Canadian to shuttle into outer space, said he’s proud of Hadfield’s accomplishments and wished him well.

“This is a first,” he said Tuesday. “The first [Canadian] commander of the International Space Station.”

“That’s an incredible accomplishment. He’s an incredible guy.”

Garneau admits he’d like to be in space again.

“I’d love it, it’s fun,” he told The Canadian Press.

Garneau has moved on to more earthly challenges. The Liberal member of Parliament is running to become the federal party’s next leader.