The best part of astronaut training? For Jeremy Hansen of Canada, these are all fake deaths
If all go on according to the plan, at the beginning of the next year, four astronauts will explode on a mission that is a long time: return to the moon.
The last time someone visited the Moon, was in December 1972, when American astronauts Jean Sernan and Harrison Schmid went to the lunar surface, while Ronald Evans revolved up.
The last time a Canadian visited the moon? Never.
But this will change at the beginning of the next year when Astronaut Jeremy Hansen, with its three American crew, will circle the moon as part of the Artemis II mission, which will give them a view of the moon and a view of the earth, which is contrary to any astronaut.
Depending on the launch date, astronauts will travel somewhere between the moon’s orbit between 7,400 and 11,000 kilometers.
NASA’s Artemis program is the return of the moon. Artemis I was an unheard test of the latest heavy rockets, space launch system (SLS) and its uncredited Orion spacecraft, which revolved around the moon in 2022.
It is now time to test the Orion spacecraft with astronauts on the board. The flight, the Artemis II, is planned in the beginning of 2026, with American astronaut Reid Vicman, Victor Glover and Christian coaches and Hansen.
And Hansen is prepared and pumped to go.
‘right stuff’
Hansen has been undergoing training ever since he was selected in 2009. But since then, things have changed a bit.
He knows a lot about the mission, he says, and training from 8 am to 5 pm all week, at the point that he also sleeps at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
But Hansen is in his element.
“I like this stuff a lot. And this is what you dream of doing as an astronaut,” he said. “Developing a new vehicle, testing things and finding things that do not work, and then detect solutions with their team. It is like solving a puzzle all the time …
“I’m going to be excited to launch and is going to see the Moon and Earth from the perspective of the Moon, but I am going to remember this step when it is behind me.”
One of his favorite parts of training, he says, he is a simulator where his “wicked teachers” are coming with landscapes to try and try to travel and kill us. “
“And we are working with the team through those situations. It’s really fun items. And when you solve it it is even more fun and you survive. It looks really good.”
Asked what is “right items” – a word used to describe NASA’s early astronauts – Hansen said: “Team Work. You can’t go to space by yourself. If you can, I would have gone with my treehouse a long time ago. And it takes an incredible team of people to do something like this.”
Astronaut subject and scientist
While in the past, Apollo astronauts were mainly focused on testing their spacecraft system, this time it is about testing both hardware and itself.
As NASA said, both of them will be subjects and scientists.
The human body was not to be in space. And since the return to the moon is not completely about beating another country on its surface because it was during the 1950s and 60s space races, scientists want to find out what happens to a human body in those circumstances.
Canadian astronaut and physician David St.-Jaax said, “Being in space, it is clearly fun and is beautiful and it is moving forward and it is very bad, but it is very bad for you, stubbornly,” Canadian astronauts and physician David St.-Jac, who were in the same space passenger class similar to Henson, and 204 days in the space in 2018-19.
“They have all these experiments to do on themselves. They will be a guilty boar of many medical experiments.”
But their spacecraft also requires testing. And now, they say, whatever they are doing, it is testing its boundaries – “corner of the envelope,” they say – “so that we can do it safely when our life does not depend on it.”
He said, “All our days are filled with many days: ‘Okay, let’s try it with the vehicle. Let’s try with the vehicle,” he said.
All of this is paving the route to the Artemis III prescribed for 2027, which will return astronauts to the lunar surface.
‘Best of us’
Hansen has left a major impression on the people around him.
“Just a pleasure to work with Jeremy,” Jeff Redigan led the flight director of Artemis II at Johnson Space Center on Tuesday. “He is a magnificent astronaut. Each time, you get a little part of a Canadian accent. And, you know, we make a little fun about it.”
For the first time in more than half a century, astronauts are going back to the moon soon. CBC’s Nicole Mortilaro broke the preparation of Mission, Artemis II, which would send astronauts to a historical loop around the moon.
Hansen “is one of the most curious people I have ever met in my time,” he said. “Always wants to know what is going on, and demands the level of rigidity. It’s not that we are not harsh here anyway, but he just adds the little that I think I think is really really useful for our flight.”
Hansen has not been only a tough training. Jenny Side-Gibbon of Canada, which is Hansen’s backup for the mission, has also been difficult in work. And she also says that she is the right candidate for this.
“Jeremy only incarnates, I would say, best of us. He is such a wonderful person. He is an unprecedented Canadian. He is an excellent leader and I am really happy that he will be on this mission,” he said. “I think he will feel really proud to many people.”
His old astronaut classmate echoes that feeling.
“He is a good follower as a leader when needed. And I just have to say, that is, he is just a good boy,” St.-Jaax said.
“The man with whom you want to go on a camp. The man with whom you want to go on a campaign. He is a kind of man with whom you want to climb a mountain, and that man with whom you want to hang out with the moon.”
