The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Hadfield on Shatner

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

It's a big week in space as Star Trek becomes real if only for a few minutes.  William Shatner goes into space and The Bridge has Canada's most famous astronaut to tell us what to think about that.Also an update on hand sanitizers -- were they ever. even needed?

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Tuesday. After a long weekend, we're here to celebrate Canada's newest astronaut. Canada's eldest astronaut. Talked about by Canada's most famous astronaut. Roll Up to Win is back at Tim Hortons with more prizes than ever. This time you might roll a Tim card, a Samsung Galaxy smartwatch, a Hilton getaway, or even the all new 2022 Volkswagen Taos. You're allowed to push your luck a little because every roll wins. Just scan the Tim's app when making a purchase on select products and win every time. Rules apply. Open to registered Tim's reward members in Canada only.

No purchase necessary. Full context details on the Tim Hortons app. Copyright Tim Hortons 2021. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. I hope you had a great long weekend. I know I did. We went up to our Gatineau Hills, little place hidden in the woods, little old wall log cabin

I've had since the early 1980s. A great little spot, right in the middle of all those spectacular fall colors. They never cease to amaze me, year after year. And the display is, you know, it's like a canvas that some artist has taken the paints and kind of dipped on some trees a

beautiful red, others a kind of yellow, and everything in between. And it's great to look at. The water on our lake is cold. It's a spring-fed lake. It gets, you know, I wouldn't say, well, yeah, it gets quite warm in the summer. It gets into those kind of mid to high 70s on some days. But, boy, it gets cold fast.

And I've always been tempted. How late can I swim? And I think over time, the latest I'd ever been in the water was kind of late September. But I get tempted. You know, I go on Instagram every once in a while. I follow my buddy Scott Russell from CBC Sports, the anchor of all the Olympic shows. And Scott's a polar bear.

You know, he's part of the polar bear club. He goes swimming every January 1st at his lake. But on Saturday, I saw, okay, he jumps in. It's October 9th. I said, okay, I got to beat him. I got to wait for double-digit day. I'll wait for Sunday. October 10th.

That's when I'll jump in and I can outdo Scott Russell. There was only one problem. I forgot my bathing suit. I didn't take it with me. I didn't have one there. So I thought, well, what am I going to do? I got to find a pair of shorts. Didn't have a pair of shorts. So, you know, I had the Bob Ray, Rick Mercer option. And I thought, you know, they're such exhibitionists, those two guys. I'm not going to do that. I got to wear something.

Because there has to be, of course, photographic evidence. So my son and my granddaughter were there. And I decided, okay, you know what? I've got this old pair of flannel pajamas. I'll wear those. So that's what I did. Went down to the dock, my PJs, T-shirt, and I kept my socks on. I'm not sure quite why, but I figured I'll be warmer in the socks.

But I did it. I jumped out. I didn't think about it. I just, you know, the longer you stand at the edge of the dock thinking about it, the less likely you are to actually jump. So I just went in. And it was cold. I hadn't tested it. I hadn't put my little finger in the water to test it.

It was like ice. It was definitely cold. So I didn't hang around in the water to test it. It was like ice. It was definitely cold. So I didn't hang around in the water. But I got in, got out, got the double digit October day. But by the time I filed it on Instagram, Russell had already been in on that day. So I didn't beat Scott. But I felt pretty good about it. And you do feel invigorated. But it was so cold in the water. That it was actually warm when I got out of the water. I felt.

This is great. Anyway I did my swim. And. I now. My own personal record now is October 11th for that lake, and I'm pretty pleased about it. we're doing today's podcast today's broadcast today on series xm channel 167 canada talks and wherever you get your podcasts and it's not to talk about my book which has just completed its first week on the shelves of various stores, the big chains, you name it. It's out there on Indigo. It's available at Costco and Amazon and all that. But, you know, your little independent bookstore.

Just down the street. It's in there too. Off the record. Hope you get a chance to grab it. No, I'm not here to talk about any of those. I'm here to talk today about a big week for William Shatner, the Canadian actor.

Spent time in the Stratford Festival, just like all great Canadian actors have done at one time or another. You know, my wife, Cynthia Dale, has got a show this week at Kerner Hall in Toronto. And among the other stars in the show, Eric McCormick. Famous for his various American TV specials and TV series. But also, another guy who started in Stratford. So they're looking forward to that show. But William Shatner, what's he doing this week?

Guy's 90. He's actually closer to 91 than 90. But he's up there in years, right? But he's not up there in experience, at least the experiences he wants. Because he's scheduled this week, perhaps as early as tomorrow, to go into space, the man who brought us to the brink of excitement about space was Star Trek. The Enterprise.

William Shatner at 90 is going into space. But what's that going to be like? And how should we actually feel about it? Obviously, there's a bit of excitement there, but is it pushing things at 90? Well, who best to talk about that than I'd argue Canada's most famous astronaut. You know, we've got a number of them. You know, Mark Garneau was first into space, went up, I think.

So three times, four times. I saw a couple of them from launch and recovery. Mark Garneau, of course, now Canada's foreign affairs minister, ran for the leadership of the Liberal Party, lost to Justin Trudeau. And while Mark Garneau has a distinguished space career, I'd say the most famous Canadian astronaut, famous from not only Canada but around the world,

is Chris Hatfield. Commander Hatfield. He's done it all. Jet fighter, astronaut, commander of the shuttle, and an unbelievably successful author. Worldwide. And a downright nice guy.

So I thought, let's talk to Chris. Let's talk to him about this week for William Shatner. And what does it all mean? So, here's our conversation. So Commander, did you ever think you'd see a 90-year-old guy going up in space? Well, a 77-year-old flew on the space shuttle with John Glenn, and then very recently Wally Funk, an 82-year-old flew. There are a lot of 20-year-olds who aren't physically ready to fly in space. So it's really just a matter of how healthy you are,

how healthy you maintain your body. And in this case, this particular 90-year-old, I'm kind of pleased as to who it is. Did Star Trek have an impact on you as a kid? It still does, I think. Star Trek had a huge impact on so many people. Gene Roddenberry's vision of a different future, the integrated nature of the crew, which was so bizarre, you know,

in the mid and later 60s, or at least so avant-garde. And it was such a struggle for them. And yet for me, I was watching them, you know, week by week, what happens this week on this Western that is set in outer space, you know, competing with Gunsmoke or whatever was on the TV at the time. But no, I was very inspired by the vision of what they put together in Star Trek and, you know, obviously some identification with each of the characters. Well, you know, I can see on the one hand the kind of excitement surrounding him and being on this mission and bringing back the memories

that so many of us have had of the impact his show had on us. But at the same time, I mean, you spent years getting ready for your first flight. That's like, he spent a couple of days after he was invited to go on and boom, he's ready. He's got the outfit on, he's got the uniform on, he's ready to get in the rocket. Well, you know, I'm a professional pilot and a fighter pilot and a test pilot. I don't get at all worried when people go flying on Air Canada. You know, it doesn't bother me at all. He's not purporting to be anything beyond what it is. He's a lifetime journeyman, very successful actor who portrayed a space character who now actually will get to get a small taste of space flight.

And I think that it's such a superb testament to the improvement of the technology over the years. I mean, would the Wright brothers have been irritated when KLM, you know, started an airline in 1920? You know, even though Wilbur just about gave his life for it? I don't think so. I mean, it's the natural follow on to being one of the early people trying to develop and prove a technology so that then it becomes part of normal social fabric. And we're by no means there yet, but this is a big step in that direction. And so I'm delighted that Bill Shatner is flying, you know, Captain Kirk flying in space, that's all fun. But I'm more delighted by just how good the technology is getting. Well, give us a hint as to what you assume he will experience.

I mean, he's not up long. He's going to be in weightlessness for three or four minutes. But what will the, I mean, you compared it sort of to a passenger on an airline flight. It's a little more than that, obviously, a little more than that. But how much more is it? What will it be like for him? Well, I mean, he is going to fly in a rocket ship, and it's a rocket ship that's only flown, you know, a dozen and a half times.

So any airplane that you ever got into had flown thousands of times before passengers got on board just to wring out all of the problems. So there's definitely an elevated risk. But then again, Bill's 90. So it's like, hey, you know, what the heck, I've had a good life and this is a risk worth taking. But he's going to be lying on his back much as I was in the three ships that I flew. He's going to be crushed pretty heavily in his seat for a few minutes while the rocket gets him above the air and then right to the very edge of, you know, the various legal definitions of space. And then the engines are going to cut off instantaneously. And he will be magically suddenly weightless. And I think it's about four minutes of weightlessness

or so. So that's not all that long, but it's longer than he's ever had before. And that combined with the view out the window, the sky will have gone from the light blue of South Texas to the dark blue and then to complete black. At that altitude, they'll be well above any of the discernible air. So he will be in the blackness of space. And looking towards the horizon there, you know, looking down towards Mexico and across towards the Pacific, and down to the Gulf, he'll be able to see the curvature of the air. So it's still just a, you know, nibbling at the edge of the spaceflight experience, but he'll definitely have a spaceflight experience. And then they'll be falling into the atmosphere.

So fairly swiftly, he needs to get his 90 year old body back into his couch again, so that he doesn't break anything as they're crushed by the deceleration caused by the air. And then the impact with the ground hopefully will be reasonably gentle, no more so than a slight bump of your car into a curve or something. So assuming everything works properly, it should be a fairly rigorous and a very exhilarating day for him.

You know, of the interviews he's given already before the flight, I mean, he talks about the experience of what he'll see looking out the window as one of the things that he's most excited about. And we know from your flights, and especially the one that resulted in the book of so many wonderful pictures and the fact that you were tweeting pictures and giving us a sense of what it's like from there, in the book of so many wonderful pictures and the fact that you were tweeting pictures and giving us a sense of what it's like from there, that of all the things was one of the areas that

had the most impact on you, just what you were able to see. Here's a funny flip side to that, Peter. When I came back from my first space flight, my wife Helena and I, I think we were watching one of the Star Trek movies, and they flipped around to that classic view where I think it's Sulu on the left and Chekhov on the right. And that great big screen in front of them, which shows some sort of vision of where the Enterprise is going. And they were in orbit around some planet and i was like i was uh compelled to to sort of burst out and go that's exactly what it looks like to go around the world they got it right it looks just like that so i i think after all of those simulations so long ago in the tv series and then the subsequent movies that Bill made. Hopefully he'll get sort of this bizarre inverted sense of deja vu that hopefully their Hollywood guesses as to

what this experience might be like will be borne out to some degree and in some of the rich visual detail that the actual flight will give. Is this good for space technology, for space exploration, for space tourism? Is something like this good for those? Well, I think people get all caught with the trees and are losing sight of the entire forest here. And our technology has advanced now. I mean, when you and I were born, there was no such thing as an astronaut. No one had flown in space yet.

And now we're to the point where a 90-year-old actor can get into a spaceship and with virtually no training, have a very high probability of safely getting to space and back. That is a tremendous advance and proof of technology. And this isn't an end game. The vehicle that he's flying in is part of an intended line of vehicles that will not only take, you know, a few lucky people to the lower edge of space, but a slightly bigger version, start taking all sorts of hardware to space that enables global awareness, you know, like the planet constellation that's up there, or communication like the Starling constellation that's up there, or, you know, measuring changes to the surface of the world, and going beyond that.

You know, this isn't just a ride. This is a demonstration of the advances in technology that are opening up space to us in a cheaper and more accessible way than we've ever seen before. And it's not just Blue Origin, but it's also Virgin Galactic to some degree, but very much SpaceX. So that's the part I focus on. It's delightful that Captain Kirk's flying in space. But what I think is really significant is the step change demonstration of technology that radically drops the cost of transportation. And if you do that with cars or trucks or boats or airplanes, it changes the whole economic business model. And that's what's going on in space right now. And this is just sort of a little sidebar evidence of that. How do you feel about the fact that it's sort of a billionaire space race in a way that's taking place? I mean, we've seen-

Well, it used to be a trillionaires space race in that only nations could afford to fly. Well, only the biggest nation, like Canada couldn't afford to, you had to be the Soviet Union or the United States, they were it. But then they spent a huge amount in developing technology. So they got to the point where we sort of took spaceflight for granted. And the cost kept coming down. And then they got low enough and the technology got good enough and our understanding got good enough that private individuals and private companies could really start taking this on. And SpaceX has gone from a laughingstock a dozen years ago, like, no way, you know, they're just trying to do something that nobody can do, to now being the prime launch capability of the world, where businesses all around the world use SpaceX, because it is a superb safety record and significantly lower cost than everybody else.

And so that's where we have gotten to. And so, you know, and it's now gone from, you know, trillionaires to billionaires to millionaires to even less than that to start having access to space. So you don't have to be a rocket scientist to draw a point between those curves and recognize that this is not that different than any other mode of transportation that started out dangerous and only for the wealthy and over time became more and more common. And spaceflight, sure, it's way hard still, and it's right on the edge of our capability. But I'm very excited about how we are going to be able to open up commerce of an Earth-Moon system, of using all of the orbits around the world, getting our regulatory system caught up with the technology. There's tremendous potential here. And I think it's easy to get a little fascinated with, you know, individual personalities.

It's like confusing Howard Hughes with Hughes Aerospace and all of the various things they've done over the decades. The individual people are always kind of quirky and fascinating. But, you know, the bathwater and the baby are different, and we need to pay attention to the big picture here. You've reminded us how far we've come in a very short space of time. What's the natural extension of this, like within our lifetimes? Well, let's say within your lifetime, you've got more to go. But where could this be? When you're 90, what do you think we'll be looking at?

Well, within the last couple of years, we've discovered enormous reserves of water on the moon, on the order of 400 billion liters of water on the moon. And it's at the South Poles where the sun always shines. So if you have eternal solar power and deep reserves of water then you just need a good habitat and you can live there it's like you know it's like anywhere on earth that that you couldn't just live as a naked homo sapiens but with reasonable enough technology then we've managed to settle almost everywhere on Earth. And so that's an interesting capability, a continent bigger than Africa, just barely explored at all. That is now it's always been too hard to get there.

But with the technology that's being sort of demonstrated this week and developed in detail over the next couple of years, I think the Earth-Moon system, Earth-Moon commerce, settlement of the moon, that's going on between now and when I turn 90, I think, probably sooner than everybody thinks. And eventually we'll invent enough. You don't have to go very far back for what we're doing now to seem absolutely inconceivable. You know, two long lifetimes ago, the transportation ease that we have and the communication ease and how we generate power in our health care and our standard of living, you know, they are light years ahead of where we were just two long lifetimes ago. And it's easy to become very myopically focused on the problems of today. But I think the technologies that are being demonstrated here, they're not

the only ones by any means, but I think they're really interesting and enabling and motivational and getting all our eggs out of one basket, but maybe more importantly, really, truly using the high ground to understand the egg basket that we live in and giving us the information we need, hopefully, collectively to make better decisions. So, you know, Bill Shatner flying in space, that's not the start or the end of anything. It's kind of a very entertaining way to mark what's going on. And helps keep the general interest level up too at the same time. Well, sure. By Apollo 12, you know, people landed on the moon, Apollo 11.

By the time Apollo 13 launched, everybody was changing the channel because they confused space exploration with space entertainment as if maybe they were synonymous. But to try and explore and understand is always sort of a laborious step-by-step and often very unentertaining sequence. You know, the Raiders of the Lost Ark, that character that Harrison Ford portrayed, you know, it is not always swashbuckling romance and great big tumbling granite rocks chasing you down tunnels. Mostly, it's sitting somewhere in a very uncomfortable circumstance with bugs biting you, brushing little bits of sand off little tiny old rocks for years at a time. And that's, you know, that's just the reality of exploration.

Once in a while, it's quite entertaining. And so it's fun when it is. But that shouldn't distract us from what we're doing, you know, in trying to figure out what is dark matter and what is dark energy and what are actual subatomic particles and where does gravity come from and how do we generate power in a much more sustainable way? And how do we inspire our kids to tackle the big problems and to pursue a lifetime of education that's needed to do that? You know, they're all part and parcel of the same question. And it's nice when exploration and discovery itself can also be entertaining for people.

Last question, Commander. All the listeners to this program and everybody who knows you know that your life is one that has dealt with fact all the time. You're the fact guy. When you tell us something, we know it's real. Well, you're delving in fiction starting this week with the release was something different for you you're a well-known author already you've got lots of books out there already all sold around the world but today this week you're starting something new it's a novel

by chris hatfield it's about space but it's, well, you tell us. Tell us. Bizarre, huh? A thriller fiction book. However, in my defense, Peter, I would say that 95% of what happens in the Apollo murders really happened. And over half of the characters in this thriller alternative history fiction, over half the characters are real people, some of them still alive. And so for me, it was just a great, joyous romp of an adventure to do all the research. I love doing research and understanding things better and then finding these amazing actual events that were going on in 1973, a lot of them secret at the time that provided the framework for what just might have happened and to build upon that. But it also, I think,

will give people a real visceral feel for what spaceflight is actually like, because my characters in this book, you know, go through the entire experience of launch in orbit and getting to the moon and events on the moon and coming home and returning to the atmosphere and splash down, but told from inside the cockpit with the freedom of writing a thriller fiction book, you know, how do people actually react to great things happening and bad things happening? And what sort of personas are in the spaceships and, you know, how do people talk and how do they see things? Writing this fiction book has given me a real wondrous opportunity to kind of reveal what it's truly like. And the reaction so far, I'm just amazed, you know, James Cameron loves it. And Frederick Forsyth loves this. I mean,

he wrote The Day of the Jackal. To me, he's like this exalted figure, he should know better. But he really liked this book and wrote a very complimentary thing on it for me. So I'm really, really pleased at the initial take up of the book. But I think when you read it, not only hopefully, will you find a pretty good rollicking whodunit and thriller fiction. But also, you really get sort of an intuitive, visceral feel of what it was like to be an astronaut in the 70s, which is obviously then, you know, to some degree, what it's going to be just from a human point of view, what it's going to be like to be an astronaut here at this time and place. When I read it, I was left saying, is there anything this guy can't do? Because you seem to do it all. And you're one of the busiest people I've ever met. You're always up to something. But Peter, you have a new book out just very recently as well. And I have not had a chance

to read it yet. I'm very much looking forward to reading it. You have led a life that I have met and talked with people that I just dream about talking to. So I'm very much looking forward to reading it. You have led a life that I have met and talked with people that I just dream about talking to. So I'm very much looking forward to reading yours, sir. Well, you're one of them, the interesting people that I've talked to. But I can tell you my book, which I'm proud of, but it has no Apollo murders in it. Yeah, murders, plural. That really was a plot driver for me. I got to kill at least two people. So a lot of fun and a huge learning experience for me as to how do you craft thriller fiction in a way that really brings in the reader. And hopefully right from the outset, people will find it a very engrossing book, you know, just by the nature of how it's written.

And I'm, you know, working on the next in the series of the books right now. So my head is very deeply involved with all the characters still. Listen, thanks so much for taking the time to do this today. We really appreciate it. My pleasure. And I very much wish Captain Kirk to boldly go and have a great experience. Commander Chris Hatfield, Canadian astronaut, Canadian author, and now Canadian novelist as well.

The Apollo murders on your bookstore shelves starting today. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, an update on hand sanitizers. This is The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge. okay are you still carrying around a uh you know one of those kind of mini bottles of hand sanitizer do you still use those? I know I do. I use them all the time. Yesterday, driving back from the Gatineau Hills north of Ottawa back to Toronto, a drive that took forever. I mean, you know, you'd think I'd know by now that Thanksgiving Day is not the day to drive people are closing up cottages the highways are packed and yesterday was absolutely crazy on the 401 it took a long long time

but you know between stops for gas stops for this that whatever. I had the old hand sanitizer out more than a few times. And, you know, I used to use hand sanitizer before the pandemic, but of course, nothing like now. But here's the update. Early in the pandemic, and I'm reading from Bloomberg, early in the pandemic, there was much concern about contracting COVID-19 from surface spots found in everyday life. The pole on a subway car, a doorknob, a package from Amazon,

or a pen used to sign a receipt. Packages I can remember in those first weekends of the pandemic, when we'd go grocery shopping, we'd sit on the front porch and wipe down every single item that we got from the grocery store. You know, we'd wear gloves and the whole bit. Since then, though, science has shown that the virus that causes COVID spreads largely through airborne particles emitted by infected people in close proximity. That's why measures like mask wearing and social distancing, in addition to vaccines, are key to getting the pandemic under control.

So here's Emmanuel Goldman. He's a microbiologist at Rutgers University. So this guy's no flash in the pan. The risk of contracting COVID-19 from high-touch community services is essentially negligible, writes Goldman. He says that while studies have shown that some viral genetic material can be found on surfaces, it is typically in a degraded state that can't cause an infection.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the chance of contracting COVID-19 from a surface to be less than 1 in 10,000. And that, says Goldman, is a very conservative estimate. In my view, he says, the chances are a lot lower than even that. You know what? I appreciate that research. I appreciate hearing that. But I keep using hand sanitizer

like it's ingrained in me now. I use it all the time. I especially use it when I've been outside doing any number of things. And I carry one of those little bottles around with me. And I know that when I travel on an airplane, they give you a little package, at least Air Canada does, and inside that package, same with WestJet. Sorry, not WestJet. Yes, WestJet. They often, on their flights, give these little packages, you know, tiny little containers.

They're only good for sort of, I don't know, a dozen squirts. But that's what we get. That's what they give us. And that's what I use. And you know what? I'm going to keep using it. But it's nice to know from that research what the chances are of getting anything. All right, that's your special Thursday. I'm already at Thursday.

I'm so excited to get through this week. I'm off overseas next week, but not this week. So that's your Tuesday show with a special interview with Chris Hatfield. And we appreciate Chris's time, especially on a week that's so busy for him, launching a book. And let me tell you, after launching a book last week, the constant pressures of doing interviews and book promotion,

all of which you need as an author and you are extremely grateful for, but it takes up, obviously, a lot of your time. So that's Chris's time this week. Tomorrow, Wednesday, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. I'm not sure where we are on tomorrow's Smoke Mirrors and the Truth, I'm not sure where we are on tomorrow's Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. Bruce is flying overseas tonight. So I'm not sure. It all depends on airline schedules

and what have you, but we'll have something tomorrow. And one way or another, we'll try to call it Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. No matter who's there with me. So for Tuesday, launch day for this week, and launch week for William Shatner.

Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.