Kirsty Young's castaway is Chris Hadfield.
He was the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station and took part in three space missions spending a total of 166 days orbiting the Earth. He has spent over 14 hours doing two space walks.
He flew his first eight day mission into space in 1995 during which he visited the Russian space station Mir. In 2001 he paid his first visit to the International Space Station to help install Canadarm2, a robot arm helping to build the station which was launched three years previously. In 2012 he began his final five month stay in space on board the ISS. It was on this mission that his videos of life in space - including a film of him singing David Bowie's Space Oddity and accompanying himself on guitar - led to him enjoying a huge following on social media.
Chris was born in 1959 in Ontario, the second of five children: his father was a pilot and the family lived on a farm. He mapped out his future career aged nine when he watched Neil Armstrong become the first person to walk on the moon in 1969. In pursuit of his dream Chris first become an Air Cadet, then attended military college, becoming a fighter pilot and then a test pilot, as well as an aeronautical engineer. He finally achieved his ambition of becoming an astronaut in 1992.
He went onto become the Chief of Robotics at the NASA Astronaut Office and Chief of International Space Station Operations at the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas. Following his final space mission, Chris retired from the Canadian Space Agency in July 2013. Amongst the awards he's received are the military Meritorious Service Cross, NASA's Exceptional Service Medal and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
13 Dec 2015
Kylie Minogue
Kirsty Young's castaway is Kylie Minogue.
With seven number ones and ten million singles sold in the UK, she is the third-biggest selling female artist in Britain and has sold around 70 million records worldwide.
Born in Melbourne in 1968, Kylie and her sister Dannii began their careers as child actors on Australian television. At 17, Kylie landed the role of Charlene Mitchell in the soap opera Neighbours and her on-screen wedding to Jason Donovan's character Scott Robinson was watched by twenty million people in the UK alone.
Her recording career began after she was spotted singing at a charity event in 1987. Within months she had released a cover version of "Locomotion" which became the biggest-selling Australian single of the decade. Following the single's success, her first hit with record producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman was "I Should Be So Lucky": her debut album sold seven million copies.
At the age of 21, a romance with INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence led to a change in her image. In 2000, inspired by 1970s disco and assisted by gold hot pants, her single "Spinning Around" became her first British number one for a decade. She also sang to an estimated global audience of 3.7 billion at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics.
In May 2005 she was diagnosed with breast cancer: following treatment she resumed the tour 18 months later.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
6 Dec 2015
Atul Gawande
Kirsty Young's castaway is the surgeon, author and former Reith lecturer, Atul Gawande.
A general and endocrine surgeon in Boston, he is professor in both the Department of Health Policy & Management at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Department of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.
Born in Brooklyn, he is the son of two doctors who came to the US to study medicine. After graduating from Stanford and studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford, he embarked on a brief political career, working for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign and on his health and social policy in the White House following his election. When Clinton's health policy reform floundered, Atul returned to Harvard to finish the medical degree he'd started after Oxford.
During his surgical residency he began writing for the online magazine Slate and he's been writing for the New Yorker since 1998. His 2009 article "The Cost Conundrum" was cited by President Barack Obama during his attempt to get the healthcare reform legislation through Congress. Atul has published four books to date about the achievements, but also the limitations, of medicine.
In 2014 he presented the BBC's Reith Lectures, delivering a series of four talks titled The Future of Medicine.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
4.6 / 5
50 ratings
Spotify
4.9 / 5
35 ratings
Contact Desert Island Discs: Archive 2011-2015
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Host of Desert Island Discs: Archive 2011-2015?
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