A man who has marveled at Earth from 205 miles up was impressed Tuesday by some books he saw in Kansas City.

Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut who commanded the International Space Station, was in town on a book tour and stopped by the Linda Hall Library. There he got to lay hands on some of the most important works that laid the foundation for modern astronomy and space travel.

Such as Copernicus’ “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres” from 1543, in which the astronomer placed Earth in orbit around the sun.

“It’s wonderful that they’ve been preserved and survived all this time,” Hadfield said as librarian Bruce Bradley showed him the precious pages.

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