One recent Monday morning, astronaut trainer Gwen Sandoz waited there for Chris Hadfield, who will blast off from Kazakhstan aboard the Soyuz in December and soon after will become the first Canadian to take command of the ISS. Canada has invested heavily in the station, which has been inhabited by a rotating crew since 2000, but Canada only gets to send so many astronauts there. For 20 years. Hadfield has worked tirelessly to prove himself in an astronaut corps dominated by the US and Russia.