Coming to a TV near you: ABC's Chris Hadfield-inspired astronaut comedy

(Image credit: (YouTube))

last updated 8 January 2015

Everything I learned about space — how you cry, eat, sleep, vomit, wash, exercise, and more — I learned from Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. During his missions aboard the International Space Station, Hadfield created a bevy of short Q&A-style videos that showed the topsy-turvey life of an astronaut millions of miles above Earth.

In 2013, Hadfield, who is now retired, published a memoir, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, which serves up equally charismatic lessons about being a good astronaut and Earth-bound human. Adam Savage, who reviewed the book in The Wall Street Journal writes:

Equally autobiographical and instructional, the book goes gleefully against the grain of most "success" books. His perspective is reflected in counterintuitive chapter titles like "Sweat the Small Stuff," where he argues that seemingly unimportant details may loom large in an emergency and thus require our consideration beforehand. In "The Power of Negative Thinking," he says that the normal day of astronauts in training involves having countless meetings about what they got wrong—an approach, he explains, that saves lives. [The Wall Street Journal]

Now, that delightfully unique perspective will be turned into a multi-camera comedy of the same name on ABC. Creators Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker, from Fox's recently canceled Surviving Jack, have been given a pilot production commitment by the network. The show, according to Deadline, is "a family comedy about an astronaut who is back from space and finds that re-entering domestic life might be the hardest mission he's ever faced."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Speed Reads

To continue reading this article...

Create a free account

Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.

Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.

Cancel or pause at any time.

Already a subscriber to The Week?

Unlimited website access is included with Digital and Print + Digital subscriptions.
with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.

Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us

Lauren Hansen produces The Weekâ€™s podcasts and videos and edits the photo blog, Captured. She also manages the production of the magazine's iPad app. A graduate of Kenyon College and Northwestern University, she previously worked at the BBC and Frontline. She knows a thing or two about pretty pictures and cute puppies, both of which she tweets about @mylaurenhansen.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox