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NASA, CSA name Jeremy Hansen to be first Canadian to circle the moon

NASA: astronauts will be B次元官网网址榝orerunners as humanity looks to find its place among the starsB次元官网网址
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President Joe Biden speaks during a gala dinner at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum, on Friday, March 24, 2023, in Ottawa. NASA and the Canadian Space Agency will introduce the four astronauts who will steer the next stage of an ambitious plan to establish a long-term presence on the moon. One of them will be Canadian B次元官网网址 the first ever to venture beyond EarthB次元官网网址檚 orbit and around the dark side of the lunar surface. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Andrew Harnik

Jeremy Hansen, a colonel and CF-18 pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, has been selected to become the first Canadian to venture further into space and orbit the moon.

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency made the long-awaited announcement Monday, introducing the four astronauts who will steer the next stage of an ambitious plan to establish a long-term presence on the moon.

B次元官网网址淚 am left in awe of being reminded what strong leadership, setting big goals, with a passion to collaborate and a can-do attitude can achieve, and we are going to the moon together,B次元官网网址 Hansen said after the announcement. B次元官网网址淟etB次元官网网址檚 go!B次元官网网址

The other three astronauts on the Artemis II mission are all American: Christina Hammock Koch, Victor Glover and G. Reid Wiseman.

B次元官网网址淚tB次元官网网址檚 difficult to pick just four from a group that by its very definition attracts the best and the brightest that humanity has to offer,B次元官网网址 said Norm Knight, chief of NASAB次元官网网址檚 flight director office.

Knight said the astronauts will be the B次元官网网址渇orerunners as humanity looks to find its place among the stars.B次元官网网址

Artemis II, as itB次元官网网址檚 known, is currently slated to launch as early as November 2024 and will be the first crewed mission to the moon since the final Apollo mission took flight in 1972.

The crew will first orbit Earth, and then rocket hundreds of thousands of kilometres for a figure-8 manoeuvre around the moon before their momentum brings them home.

Vanessa E. Wyche, director of NASAB次元官网网址檚 Johnson Space Center, home base for AmericaB次元官网网址檚 astronaut corps, said this mission represents the culmination of years of hard work and dedication by NASA and its partners.

B次元官网网址淯nder Artemis, we will explore the frontiers of space and push the boundaries of what is possible,B次元官网网址 she said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Hansen will write a page of history as the first Canadian, and first non-American, to step on the moon.

B次元官网网址淚B次元官网网址檓 very, very excited to see that a Canadian has been chosen to actually go to the moon. ItB次元官网网址檚 a major event for us,B次元官网网址 he said, giving credit to Hansen and calling him an B次元官网网址渆xceptional individualB次元官网网址 who B次元官网网址渨ill do all Canadians proud.B次元官网网址

The plan is to put a man and woman on the moon in 2025 in service of the ultimate goal: eventually dispatching astronauts to Mars.

President Joe Biden articulated the vision last month in his speech to Parliament, seizing on the Artemis mission as a towering symbol of limitless potential for Canada, elbow-to-elbow with the U.S.

B次元官网网址淲e choose to return to the moon, together,B次元官网网址 Biden enthused, invoking the famous words of John F. Kennedy in 1962.

B次元官网网址淗ere on Earth, our children who watch that flight are going to learn the names of those new pioneers. TheyB次元官网网址檒l be the ones who carry us into the future we hope to build: the Artemis generation.B次元官网网址

CanadaB次元官网网址檚 Industry Minister Fran莽ois-Philippe Champagne echoed a spirit of co-operation Monday, telling the Houston audience the two countries can accomplish B次元官网网址渂ig thingsB次元官网网址 together.

B次元官网网址淚 know Canadians could not be more proud,B次元官网网址 he said.

Canada is designing, building and operating a lunar utility vehicle to support operations on the mission.

B次元官网网址淭his is more than just about going back to the moon, this is about investing in the future,B次元官网网址 Champagne said. B次元官网网址淭his is about possibilities, this is about seizing the opportunities of the space economy from health and food security, to climate change, and much more.B次元官网网址

Hansen, 47, from London, Ont. is one of four in CanadaB次元官网网址檚 current astronaut corps.

He said American leadership and CanadaB次元官网网址檚 B次元官网网址渃an-do attitudeB次元官网网址 are the reasons why he is going to the moon.

B次元官网网址淚t is not lost on any of us that the United States could choose to go back to the moon by themselves, but America has made a very deliberate choice over decades to curate a global team,B次元官网网址 he said.

He told the crowd gathered at the announcement thousands of Canadians have risen to the challenge of bringing value to space exploration.

B次元官网网址淎ll of those have added up to this moment where a Canadian is going to the moon with our international partnership, and it is glorious,B次元官网网址 he said.

Another member of CanadaB次元官网网址檚 astronaut corps is David Saint-Jacques, an astrophysicist and medical doctor from Montreal and the only member of the group whoB次元官网网址檚 already been to space.

Saint-Jacques, 53, flew to the International Space Station in 2018. He was selected for the corps in 2009 alongside Hansen.

Joining Hansen and Saint-Jacques in 2017 were test pilot and Air Force Lt.-Col. Joshua Kutryk, 41, from Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., and Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons, 34, a mechanical engineer and Cambridge University lecturer from Calgary.

B次元官网网址淭his is a big moment for humanity,B次元官网网址 Champagne said Sunday after touring the Johnson Space Center, where he had a chance to chat with astronauts and visit Mission Control.

B次元官网网址淭his time Canada is writing history with our American friends B次元官网网址 itB次元官网网址檚 not even a new chapter. For me, itB次元官网网址檚 almost like a new book in space exploration.B次元官网网址

On the ground, Canada is engaged in a variety of cutting-edge research endeavours that will be of mutual benefit to Artemis, Champagne said.

In the B次元官网网址淒eep Space Food Challenge,B次元官网网址 launched in 2021, participants must develop ways to produce food in the harsh environments of deep space with few resources B次元官网网址 think Matt Damon in B次元官网网址淭he MartianB次元官网网址 B次元官网网址 that will one day be necessary to sustain life.

Those challenges will only become more difficult as Artemis moves into its later stages, which include a long-term presence on the moon and ultimately voyaging to Mars.

B次元官网网址淎s one scientist only recently said, B次元官网网址楾he science of today is the economy of tomorrow,B次元官网网址橞次元官网网址 Champagne said. B次元官网网址淏y increasing the complexity, thatB次元官网网址檚 why we push the boundaries of science and innovation.B次元官网网址

Former astronaut and now-retired Quebec MP Marc Garneau, who back in 1984 became the first Canadian to ever go to space, said BidenB次元官网网址檚 speech left him with a B次元官网网址渇lashbackB次元官网网址 to another seminal moment in Canada-U.S. space relations.

GarneauB次元官网网址檚 maiden Space Shuttle flight was still three weeks away when he got an invitation to go to the White House along with two of his fellow crew members to meet the U.S. president.

As it turned out, he wasnB次元官网网址檛 the only Canadian meeting Ronald Reagan that day in the Oval Office. So too was CanadaB次元官网网址檚 newly elected prime minister, Brian Mulroney, whose friendship with Reagan has since become the stuff of bilateral lore.

B次元官网网址淲e were invited to the White House B次元官网网址 to the Oval Office, in fact B次元官网网址 and met with the president and the new prime minister as they met for the first time,B次元官网网址 Garneau recalled.

B次元官网网址淭hat was an example of space being one of those things that exemplifies how Canada and the United States have been really, really good partners B次元官网网址 and how close our two countries really are with respect to space, and in other ways as well.B次元官网网址

Canada and NASA have been working together since the early 1960s and the headiest days of the U.S. space program, when CanadaB次元官网网址檚 first satellite was launched on a U.S. rocket, Garneau said.

The Canadarm, that iconic, Maple Leaf-emblazoned fixture of the shuttle program, would later cement CanadaB次元官网网址檚 status as a country the U.S. could count on.

B次元官网网址淚tB次元官网网址檚 built on the fact that Canada has always been a reliable, dependable partner that has delivered what it said it would do,B次元官网网址 Garneau said.

B次元官网网址淲e have an incredibly good reputation from that point of view.B次元官网网址

B次元官网网址擩ames McCarten, The Canadian Press

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