Elise Hu

I'm your host, Elise Hu.

We're in the midst of an extraordinary space age, and yet very few people have actually been to space and can speak from a place of personal experience about what might be the future of humankind there.

In this conversation, former astronaut Chris Hadfield, who's been dubbed a space exploring James Bond, sat down with TED curator Whitney Pennington Rogers to discuss his remarkable experiences on the International Space Station and how it turned into writing high stakes fiction, including his latest book, Final Orbit.

The two of them explore the boundaries between what is science fiction and what is truly possible and help paint a picture of the great unknown of the cosmos into something we can all understand.

That was Chris Hadfield in conversation with Whitney Pennington Rogers for a TED membership event in 2025.

If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines.

And that's it for today.

TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective.

This talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tansika Sangmarnivong.

This episode was mixed by Christopher Fasey-Bogan.

Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo.

I'm Elise Hugh.

I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed.

Thanks for listening.

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hu.

When Sharon Price John, the CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop, first took over the organization, it was nearing bankruptcy.

In her talk, she shares how rediscovering the company's true purpose, not for products or profits, but adding a little more heart to life,

became the unlikely engine for a major global turnaround.

She asks, in our own organizations and lives, are we willing to quote, look past the stuffing and find the purpose that makes everything come alive?