Chris Hadfield went blind during a spacewalk while moving at 17,000 miles per hour, and his response was to work the problem. This episode traces how a kid from a corn farm in southern Ontario, inspired by the 1969 Apollo 11 broadcast at age nine, systematically built himself into someone a space agency could not ignore: air cadet glider scholarships, a mechanical engineering degree from the Royal Military College, CF-18 Hornet flights for NORAD including the first intercept of a Soviet bomber in the Canadian Arctic, and graduating top of his class at the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School with more than 70 aircraft types under his belt.

Selected as one of four Canadian astronauts from over 5,300 applicants in 1992, Hadfield served as CAPCOM for 25 shuttle missions, flew STS-74 to Mir in 1995 as the first Canadian to operate the Canadarm, and ...