Steve Hatch is introduced on the aircraft carrier in Chapter 18. He is distinct from “Steve the army guy” from Chapter 5.

He is described as a “short, somewhat disheveled man” (18.159). He introduces himself as from the University of British Columbia (18.161).

He’s a Canadian (although not one of the anti-American Canadians 18.167) and he believes in God (18.186). He has a tendency to keep talking when he’s nervous.

He lead the team that developed the “beetles” that will be used to send information back from Tau Ceti to Earth. They are named after the Beatles and Steve Hatch considers Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to be “the greatest musical accomplishment in the history of mankind.” (18.208)

Steve Hatch’s only appearance is in Section 69 in Chapter 18 but he is also mentioned in Chapter 23 (where Grace calls him “the crazy Canadian”) and chapter 26 (where Grace calls him “a weird little guy, but...a heck of a rocket scientist”.)

Steve Hatch’s direct speech consists of 37 quoted passages, 1,049 tokens, and 391 unique words.

He is the only character to say the words ‘schmancy’, ‘disagree’, ‘sgt’, ‘classics’, ‘hearts’, ‘grids’, ‘SpaceX’, ‘appreciation’, ‘Canada’, ‘succeeds’, ‘raid’, ‘hears’, ‘drummer’, ‘accomplishment’, ‘identifies’, ‘await’, ‘0.93’, ‘bulk’, ‘provincial’, ‘inviting’, ‘columbia’, ‘british’, ‘coolest’, ‘complaining’, ‘kinks’, ‘constellations’, ‘naaaah’, ‘DC’, ‘milligrams’, ‘pepper’, ‘steering’, ‘events’, ‘missile’, ‘stockpiling’, ‘exaggerate’, ‘squishy’, ‘household’, ‘puppy’, or ‘buying’ and the only person other than the narrator to use the words ‘cruising’, ‘mankind’, ‘electronics’, ‘fella’, ‘steve’, ‘inertial’, ‘tricky’, ‘wheels’, ‘spins’, ‘navigate’, ‘broadcast’, ‘puke’, ‘lonely’, ‘nicer’, ‘receiver’, ‘relativistic’, ‘nearly’, ‘explore’, ‘cameras’, ‘spacecraft’, ‘cruise’, ‘listening’, ‘future’, ‘ride’, ‘ordinary’, ‘instructions’, ‘naming’, ‘Saturn’, ‘universe’, or ‘musical’.