56 | New Scientist | 21 September 2019
The back pages The Q&A
Cartoonist and former NASA roboticist
Randall Munroe wanted to know how to
land a space shuttle in a drainage ditch, and
went to astronaut Chris Hadfield to find outAs a child, what did you want
to do when you grew up?
When I was very little, I had a book that showed
some people building a house, so the first thing I
can remember wanting to be is a housebuilder. A
little later, I started reading comics, and I actually
remember thinking that it would be really neat to
be a cartoonist. But then I realised that I only
knew how to draw stick figures, so I abandoned
that idea – only to stumble on it by accident a
decade or two later.Explain what you do in one easy paragraph.
I draw comics and post them on the internet,
where people look at them when they’re
supposed to be working on something. I also
write books about cool maths and science.What do you love most about what you do?
I love learning about weird cool stuff and getting
to tell people about it, but my very favourite thing
is that I occasionally hear from people who got to
know their future partner by sending my
comics back and forth to each other.How has your field of study changed in
the time you have been working in it?
I was never a great student overall, and after a
few years of feeling frustrated in science class,
I remember thinking that I didn’t want to do
science after all. But then I came across a
physics textbook and realised that was
the kind of science I was excited about.If you could send a message back to
yourself as a kid, what would you say?
I’d feel a lot of pressure to figure out the most
important world event to warn people about. But
I’d probably panic and just write: “Sorry about the
paradox I’m creating right now :(”What’s the best piece of advice
anyone ever gave you?
My mom once told me she tries never to make
fun of someone for admitting they don’t know
something. I think that’s a really helpful lesson.
If you make fun of people for that, you’re just
teaching them to avoid revealing to you when
they’re learning something and you miss
out on getting to show them cool stuff.What’s your favourite ‘How to’
from your latest book?
For the chapter “How to Make an Emergency
Landing”, I interviewed Chris Hadfield, test pilot
and commander of the International Space
Station. My plan was to throw increasingly bizarre
scenarios at him until he got annoyed, but to my
surprise, he answered every question without
hesitation. Even better, his answers were all
delivered in a very businesslike astronaut
voice. It was so much fun listening to him calmly
describe how to crawl around on the outside of
a plane or land a space shuttle in a drainage ditch
as if he had done it a thousand times.Do you have an unexpected hobby, and
if so, please will you tell us about it?
Every fall, I spend a few days hiking up to
mountain lookouts to help count migrating
hawks. I was very into the Animorphs series
of books as a kid. K. A. Applegate spent a lot
of time describing hawks riding thermals.
It sounded so nice!What’s the best thing you’ve read or
seen in the past 12 months?
Gretchen McCulloch’s book on how the
internet shapes language, Because Internet,
sheds light on so many things that I’ve noticed
but never really understood about how people
use text to communicate.How useful will your skills be after
the apocalypse?
I guess it depends whether there are surviving
people who have free time and want to hear cool
facts about the apocalypse that just happened.OK, one last thing: tell us something that
will blow our minds...
The first nuclear weapon was created closer to
the invention of barbed wire than to today. ❚Randall Munroe is an engineer, author and creator
of the web comic xkcd. His latest book, How to:
Absurd scientific advice for common real-world
problems, is out now“My mom told
me she tries
never to make
fun of people
for not knowing
something”
TOP: RANDELL MUNROW; BOTTOM: PHOTO RESEARCHERS/FLPA