“Don’t repeat the science that has already been done in somebody else’s laboratory,” Hadfield said while commenting on the prospect of potential collaboration between the ISS and China’s Tiangong space station.

Collaboration between the world’s major space powers has stalled since US space agency Nasa was barred from collaborating with China under the Wolf Amendment passed by the US Congress in 2011.

Russia has also been odds with the US on several issues while moving closer to China. After agreeing to work with China to develop a moon base last year, the Russian space authority said it would not join Nasa’s moon plans because they were “too US-centric”.

“We need different ways to cooperate. It’s crazy to repeat each other’s efforts. It’s wasteful. When [working on] something as complex and dangerous, and therefore as expensive, as space flight it’s really good to be able to cooperate,” Hadfield said.

“The way that we can be most efficient as a human species is to keep track of what everybody else is doing and try [to] understand the problems … I think there’s tremendous potential there for individual national action or individual commercial action, and then for shared human action. And to me, that’s where we really need to start focusing our efforts.”

World’s space powers ‘should explore ways to work with China’

Despite the boycott by the US, China has made major progress in its space programme in recent years. It is only the third country after the US and Russia to have flown people in orbit.

In the latest milestone in Beijing’s space ambitions, three Chinese astronauts, including one woman, arrived at the Tiangong in October after the previous crew successfully returned to Earth in a re-entry capsule in September following a three-month stay on the space station.

In a mission that is expected to last six months, the crew has so far conducted two spacewalks and presented a science lecture from the station to students in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.

Hadfield said the science lecture from Tiangong was “a terrific example” for Chinese youth, allowing them to see possible opportunities. He also wished the Chinese crew “a hugely successful time up there”, adding that he was “really proud of what they’re doing, in the spacewalks that they’ve done, and in science, and I wish them a soft and happy landing”.

Hadfield was optimistic that the ISS would continue to function 10 more years, despite some of its troubles.

Describing the ISS as “the most powerful and capable laboratory that humans have ever built off of the Earth”, Hadfield said he believed the space station would be up there for at least another decade because it was a “precious resource” for the world.

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China’s Shenzhou 13 to send crew to Tiangong space station for longest space mission yet

China’s Shenzhou 13 to send crew to Tiangong space station for longest space mission yet

“We all have our better angels and our worst devils in each of us. And that’s why we have laws, legal systems, police forces and militaries just to try and smooth out our behaviours and allow civilisation to flourish. And that’s not going to suddenly stop when we leave the Earth,” Hadfield said.

“It’s very rare in human history that we get to start over clean. The International Space Station allowed us to do that. And the crew living up there … live by the international crew code of conduct.

“And so it’s not that big a leap to think, well, maybe we could extrapolate that and improve on it and allow that to set up the laws and the structure of society that’s going to exist on the moon.”

How astronaut Chris Hadfield changed the life of a Hong Kong entrepreneur

Admitting the inspiration might be “childlike”, he nevertheless favoured trying to inspire people to behave differently to take on the endless task of exploring the rest of the universe.

“There’s a lot of things to research, and there’s a lot of universe up there,” he said.

When asked about the likelihood of any alien life forms, Chris Hadfield said he had never seen evidence of life beyond Earth.

“Are we alone or not? Because if we are part of a huge number of other species, then we should maybe redouble our efforts to try and communicate with them,” he said.

“But if we’re not, if the best we can tell is we’re the only intelligent life that we can find, then I think that makes it even more important for us to act like an intelligent species, and to really take responsibility for our own actions and recognise how rare this opportunity is.”