Chris Hadfield
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50 free Chris Hadfield trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Chris Hadfield decided to become an astronaut at nine, watching Apollo 11 from a corn farm in Ontario, and got there by way of air cadets, CF-18 intercepts of Soviet bombers and the US Air Force Test Pilot School. He flew to Mir in 1995, installed Canadarm2 in 2001 as the first Canadian to walk in space, and in 2013 commanded the International Space Station while turning life in orbit into a social-media phenomenon. These 50 questions cover the pilot, the astronaut and the performer. The Tu-95 intercept, the anti-fog solution that blinded him mid-spacewalk, the five months of Expedition 34 and 35, the first music video made in space and the licence fight that took it offline, the $5 note unveiled from orbit, the Maple Leafs jersey under his Sokol suit and the bestselling memoir and Cold War thrillers that followed. Easy questions stick to the Bowie cover and the Moon landing that inspired him; the expert tier asks about NEEMO 14, Emm Gryner and the commander he relieved. Every answer is cited to a page we checked.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Ontario city was Chris Hadfield born?
Sarnia
Sarnia was only his birthplace: he grew up on a farm in Milton, near Toronto, yet it is Sarnia's airport that now carries his name.
Q 02Which televised event at age nine made Chris Hadfield decide to become an astronaut?
The Apollo 11 Moon landing
The Apollo 11 Moon landing gave the nine-year-old farm boy an ambition that looked impossible: Canada had no astronaut programme and did not choose its first astronauts until 1983.
Q 03Through which organisation did Chris Hadfield earn his glider pilot's licence at 15?
Royal Canadian Air Cadets
The Royal Canadian Air Cadets, which he joined at 13, taught him to fly: a glider licence at 15 and powered flight at 16, years before the air force put him in a cockpit.
Q 04In which branch of engineering did Chris Hadfield take his honours degree at the Royal Military College?
Mechanical
Mechanical engineering: the armed forces he joined out of high school put him through military college, two years at Royal Roads and two at Kingston, before he trained as a fighter pilot.
Q 05Which fighter jet did Chris Hadfield fly on NORAD intercept missions?
CF-18 Hornet
The CF-18 Hornet was his aircraft with 425 Squadron in Quebec; in 1985 he flew the type's first intercept of a Soviet bomber nearing Canadian airspace.
Q 06Which Soviet bomber, code-named 'Bear', did Chris Hadfield intercept in 1985, a first for a pilot of his fighter type?
Tupolev Tu-95
The Tupolev Tu-95 is a huge propeller-driven bomber built to reach North America; meeting such aircraft as they neared the continent was exactly the job NORAD's fighters were kept for.
Q 07Where did Chris Hadfield attend the US Air Force Test Pilot School?
Edwards AFB, California
Edwards AFB, California: the Canadian visitor finished as the top graduate of the US Air Force's own class of 1988, after flying 32 different aircraft there.
Q 08Where did Chris Hadfield earn his master's degree in aviation systems in 1992?
University of Tennessee Space Institute
The University of Tennessee Space Institute awarded it while he was working as an exchange test pilot in Maryland; his thesis analysed how a fighter jet behaves at extreme angles of attack.
Q 09Which US service named Chris Hadfield its 1991 Test Pilot of the Year?
Navy
The US Navy honoured him for risky work at Patuxent River, deliberately pushing jets out of control to find ways of recovering them; in all he has flown more than 70 types of aircraft.
Q 10Which astronaut was chosen alongside Chris Hadfield when Canada picked four from 5,330 applicants in 1992?
Julie Payette
Julie Payette, later Canada's Governor General, was in the same intake, with Dafydd Williams and Michael McKay; three of the four went on to fly in space.
Q 11As NASA's chief CAPCOM, Chris Hadfield did which job?
Radioed the crew
Radioed the crew: for 25 Space Shuttle flights he was the voice of Mission Control, in a job whose name, capsule communicator, survives from the days when spacecraft were called capsules.
Q 12Which space station did Chris Hadfield visit on his first flight, STS-74, in 1995?
Mir
Mir. His crew attached a Russian-built docking tunnel and delivered water and supplies; no other Canadian ever went aboard.
Q 13Which Space Shuttle carried Chris Hadfield on his first flight, STS-74, in 1995?
Atlantis
Atlantis carried a Russian-built docking module in its payload bay; once fitted, it formed the tunnel through which the crew crossed to the station they had come to visit.
Q 21Which Russian spacesuit was Chris Hadfield qualified to spacewalk in?
Orlan
Orlan, Russian for 'sea eagle', is the suit built for work outside; the better-known Sokol that crews wear for launch is only a rescue suit and cannot be used on a spacewalk.
Q 22At what rank did Chris Hadfield retire from the Canadian Armed Forces in 2003?
Colonel
Colonel: he left the air force after 25 years but not spaceflight, staying on as a civilian astronaut for another decade and making his longest flight of all.
Q 23In 2010 Chris Hadfield led NASA's NEEMO 14 mission in a laboratory located where?
The seabed
The seabed: his crew spent two weeks in an undersea laboratory off Florida, rehearsing exploration missions on the ocean floor, where divers can be weighted to mimic the gravity of other worlds.
Q 14Which milestone for his country did Chris Hadfield reach on STS-74 in 1995?
Operating the Canadarm in orbit
Operating the Canadarm in orbit: Canada's robotic arm had flown on Shuttles since 1981, yet no Canadian had worked it in space until he used it to lift a docking module into place.
Q 15What did Chris Hadfield help install on the International Space Station during STS-100 in 2001?
Canadarm2
Canadarm2 is the station's own Canadian-built robotic arm, successor to the Shuttle's; on his third flight, twelve years later, he was back aboard operating the very arm he had helped to fit.
Q 16In 2010 Chris Hadfield studied rare rock formations in a Canadian lake to help future astronauts recognise what?
Signs of life on Mars
Signs of life on Mars: Pavilion Lake in British Columbia holds microbialites, rock structures built up by microbes, so learning how they form shows explorers what traces of life to look for.
Q 17Which actor asked Chris Hadfield on Twitter in January 2013 whether he was tweeting from space?
William Shatner
William Shatner got his answer in character, 'Yes, Standard Orbit, Captain', and other Star Trek actors soon joined the conversation between Earth and the station.
Q 18What temporarily blinded Chris Hadfield during his first spacewalk?
Anti-fog solution in his visor
Anti-fog solution in his visor got into his eyes and left him blind outside the station; reasoning that he could still talk, think and hold on, he vented oxygen to clear them and carried on.
Q 19Chris Hadfield's photo book 'You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes' is named for what?
One orbit of the station
One orbit of the station takes 92 minutes, so its crew see 16 sunrises a day; the book is laid out as a single lap of the planet, continent by continent.
Q 20In which Russian town was Chris Hadfield NASA's director of operations from 2001 to 2003?
Star City
Star City is home to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre; while directing NASA's crew activities there, the Russian-speaking Canadian completed cosmonaut training himself.
Q 24Which spacecraft carried Chris Hadfield to the International Space Station in December 2012?
A Russian Soyuz
A Russian Soyuz, flight TMA-07M, launched him on 19 December: the Space Shuttles he had flown twice had been retired the year before, so it was the way crews reached the station.
Q 25In 2013 Chris Hadfield became the first Canadian in which space station job?
Commander
Commander: he took charge on 13 March 2013, which his agency counts as the first time a Canadian commanded a spaceship, and the Queen sent her personal best wishes from Earth.
Q 26Days before Chris Hadfield left the ISS in 2013, his crewmates made an unplanned spacewalk to stop a leak of what?
Ammonia coolant
Ammonia coolant: Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn went outside on 11 May to replace the pump box thought to be to blame, a hastily arranged repair that Hadfield co-ordinated from inside.
Q 27In which country did Chris Hadfield land in May 2013 at the end of his five months in orbit?
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan: he came down with two crewmates after 146 days in space, a day after releasing his farewell music video from the station.
Q 28Which David Bowie song did Chris Hadfield famously perform in a video recorded on the ISS?
Space Oddity
Space Oddity became the first music video made in space, with the words changed so that Major Tom gets his orders to land and comes home safely; Bowie called it possibly the most poignant version ever.
Q 29Which Canadian musician, once in David Bowie's touring band, arranged the piano for Chris Hadfield's music video from orbit?
Emm Gryner
Emm Gryner recorded her piano arrangement on Earth, where a producer built the backing track around the singing and guitar that Hadfield had sent down from the station.
Q 30Why was Chris Hadfield's Bowie cover video taken offline in May 2014?
A one-year music licence expired
A one-year music licence expired: Bowie backed the cover but his publisher owned the song, so the video vanished until a new two-year deal restored it that November.