Astronaut Chris Hadfield reveals why his wife chose to participate in 'death simulations' of him for NASA
There are enough sci-fi disaster movies out there to show that being an astronaut isn't exactly the safest career you can have.
In real life, tragedies like 1986's Challenger and 2003's Columbia incidents have proved that this 'dream' occupation can also be a dangerous one.
As of January 2025, 15 astronauts and four cosmonauts have perished in five separate incidents, with three of those deaths occurring above the Kármán line (the defined edge of space) when the crew of the Russian Soyuz 11 were decompressed in space in 1971.
Even if being an astronaut isn't statistically as deadly as logging, being a fisherman, or working on power lines, they still have to train for every eventuality.
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That's why NASA puts its astronauts and their families through 'death simulators' that help them prepare for the (hopefully) unthinkable.
In his 2013 book An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, astronaut Chris Hadfield reveals what these 'death sims' involve and why they're subjected to them.
As reported by NLP Times, the death sim starts with the scenario of a deceased astronaut, with those around having to respond in real time.
Everyone from doctors to NASA administrators, fellow astronauts, and even family members are encouraged to take part.
Hadfield explains that a 'green card' is thrown into the mix ever 5-10 minutes, with this being a realistic complication that adds more pressure to the team.
Although it must be harrowing, Chris' wife, Helene, has apparently taken part in several of her own husband's death sims.
Saying that death sims force people to "encounter domino effects that simply never occurred to you before," Hadfield added went on to explain why Helene took part.
According to Hadfield, Helene witnessed her own husband's 'death' because "she discovered that taking the time to verbalize what you think you would do in the worst-case scenario quickly reveals whether you’re really prepared or not."
He added: "In fact, everyone who participated in the sim discovered weaknesses in their own planning and went back to the drawing board on a few items."
Even though Hadfield has repeatedly said he isn't afraid of death, that doesn't mean there are still parts of being an astronaut that creep him out.
In terms of his fears, Hadfield admitted: "If you sit quietly on the space station for a while and listen, you can hear meteorites ricochet off the hull of your ship.
"It’s a real reminder that you are in a dangerous place. You can get paralyzed by fear."
Still, he says there's a difference between fear and danger.
If you're scared of meteorites hitting the ship, you're supposed to ask questions like, 'How good is the armor on the ship?' and 'If one comes and actually punches us, what are we going to do about it?'
Attacking his fears has taught him these differences: "They don’t have to be the same thing. If you don’t want to be afraid, it’s really good to dig and in and understand the actual danger. So then you can take the appropriate actions."
Hadfield is something of a big deal in the space world, last reaching for the stars in 2012 and spending 144 days as commander of the International Space Station. After a career that included flying into Earth orbit three times, Hadfield retired from the Canadian Space Agency in 2013 and hopefully doesn't have to subject Helene to death simulations anymore.