Thirsk gave a talk at the University of Calgary's Found in Space event Saturday afternoon, with the hopes of inspiring those in attendance — particularly children — "to dream audacious dreams of what they might be able to do."

Astronaut and University of Calgary alumnus Robert Thirsk returned to his alma mater this weekend to talk about what life as an astronaut is really like.

“I think people have a fuzzy idea of what astronauts do in space,” he said. The amount of training that’s involved, he said, is what tends to surprise people the most.

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“Some people are taken by surprise that astronauts spend more time on the ground preparing for flight than in flight,” he said.

“When we’re in orbit, we need to be near perfect. The space flight environment is risky, the living

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