Astronaut Chris Hadfield launches space photo book

Canadas most famous astronaut invites readers to take a 92-minute journey with him through space, looking down at planet earth, in his new photo book You are Here: Around the World in 92 minutes.

Chris Hadfields new book is full of almost 200 never-before-seen photos of the Earth, all taken during a five-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

Its the follow-up to his bestselling memoir An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth.

Hadfield joined The Early Editions Rick Cluff to talk about his book and describe the meaning these photographs have for him.

Why this book?

I wanted [the book to be] as if I was with one other person. Were going to go around the world once, it takes 92 minutes, and I want to show you what the world looks like. This is our planetlets look at it together in its infinite variety.

You can tell that it was a fairly emotional experience for you, because its not just your photographs, youve written some of your thoughts and personal feelings in here.

When I go to an art gallery after about 20 beautiful paintings; Im numb. I didnt want this book to be like that.

And in those galleries, I look at a picture and then I always walk over and read every single thing thats written about that picture because I want to know why, and whats in it, and what the artist was thinking and what was going through their mind.

I really felt the same way about this book. I wanted it to be as if the two of us were floating weightless in the copula and I was pointing to something with you. I wanted it to feel that way, because to me, thats what really matters.

In the book's introduction you write a reminder to people to 'make the most of our moment on this beautiful, strange, durable, yet fragile planet'.

How do we 'make the most of our moment' on this planet?

It depends how you measure 'our moment'. The world has been here 4.5-billion years and of course there are immense natural processes that always happen and were learning more about those as time goes on.

But at the same time, the earth has never supported so much of one speciesseven billion of us all.

Thats a big inhaling, exhaling, excreting, food-consuming group, and every time we flush the toilet or drive in our car or heat our house or turn the lights on and off we have an impact.

The world constantly changes but what weve really threatened is our own health as a species. We need other energy sources, we need to be more responsible, we need to get out of the growth phase into the sustainability phase of things.

Now that youre back on earth wrestling with gravity, how do you look at your plan now?

A great sense of optimism. If you and I went a hundred times around the world together, youd come back with sort of a sense of peaceful optimism within you about the planet.

It is immense and patient, and imperturbable and lovely and constantly refreshing itself with each change of the season. Its very peace-giving to see the world that way.

Ive been around it 2,600 timesbut its also kind of weird because now everywhere I go on earth I know whats around the next corner.

Its the strangest sort of dj vu, but its delightful. The whole planet feels like home. Its lovely.

Since your return youve written not one but now two books, so whats next?

Theres a kids book in [the] works, the first book An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth is being made into a TV show on ABC, and lots of chances to meet and lecture around the country.

Im really delighting in the places Ive been allowed to go so far and now being back and having a chance to see how it all fits together.