Alberta-based author John Larsen joins Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins to discuss his new book, Earthrise, documenting the historic lunar mission of Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Michael Higgins: What brings you and Jeremy Hansen together to share the perspective of the first Canadian to venture to the moon? John Larsen: That’s what the book is all about. This is going to be an amazing story for Canadians. It already is. The enthusiasm we’ve seen over the past 10 days since they launched is absolutely phenomenal. It has inspired Canadian pride, it has created a new level of understanding amongst Canadians around what we’re able to do from a technology perspective. When people see Jeremy they just realize what an amazing human being he is, along with the rest of his Artemis II colleagues. MH: You’ve undoubtedly been tracking the intricacies of this mission. What have you been watching for, and how will it factor into the book? JL: Every part of the mission. In fact, the book talks about the mission obviously, but also talks about Jeremy. How does a farm kid from Ontario who built a tree house in his backyard with his dad when he was six or seven years- old – and turned it into a spaceship – actually end up going around the moon? It’s such a thrilling and engaging story to tell people. What I’m looking for over the next few hours here, specifically, is this splash down. It’s going to be very exciting. It’s a high -risk endeavor. There have been other high- risk elements of the mission, so we’re going to talk a bit about that as well. But really it’s a story about what we can do when we put our mind to it as individuals and as a country. MH: How do you view the significance of the Artemis II mission? Why is it important to go back to the moon and potentially beyond? JL: I would answer that on two levels. One is the technology level. It’s about exploration. We’re not just going back to the moon the way we did over 50 years ago when the moon was the destination and that was it. We’re going back to the moon as a stepping stone. This is about getting back to the moon, living on the moon, using the resources on the moon, and using it as a launch pad to Mars and beyond. The moon is only part one of this very exciting story that’s going to roll out. The second reason is about humanity. What people have seen over the last week, as we live in a somewhat divided world, is that people can come together. People can create a big vision and get the world to gravitate around that. That’s a really important societal message for all of us to take home as well. MH: We’ve heard Col. (Jeremy) Hansen refer to the two flags, saying we’re “better together.” What’s your read on the geopolitical dynamic here where Canada is concerned? JL: The Canadian Space Agency has been working very, very closely with NASA for decades. Part of what the book tracks is how we did that. How we went down there back in the late 1950s and started working intimately with NASA. Canada has been a core part of every space mission success. For decades, we were part of Gemini. We were a big part of Apollo. We were part of the space shuttle. People know the Canadarm. They’ve seen the Canadarm2 on the International Space Station. We still are working on Canadarm3, which was supposed to be part of Gateway, and it may now be part of a loop station. So Canada is very deeply wedded to the space effort in the U.S. and to our international community. MH: You come at this with experience in the world of politics, most recently as transitional chief of staff to new Calgary Jeromy Farkas. How do those experiences shape your perspective about Canada’s place in the world of space exploration? JL: That’s an interesting question. The other part I would add is that I spent over three decades in the military and the Canadian Forces. That was one of the things that gave me an appreciation for Jeremy’s journey. I’ve spent time with the fighter community in the military. But whether it’s politics, whether it’s military, whether it’s space, it’s all about people. It’s about what people bring to the game and the authenticity that they can bring to it. That’s really what I’m looking to explore. That’s the story that I’m trying to tell so it can resonate with anybody who picks it up. MH: How do you think this experience might change Jeremy Hansen? JL: I’m going to have the great honor of speaking to Jeremy next week when he’s back, and I spoke to him just a couple days before he left. I can’t speak to how it’s going to change him directly. I’ll leave that to him. I can reiterate what he said in very recent interviews, which is that it has been a life-affirming experience for him. It has underscored everything he thought the mission would be in terms of cooperation, in terms of possibility. Certainly for me having worked with him fairly intimately for over two years now, he’s the real deal. It is a very empowering project to be working on where you sit down every day with somebody who is that dedicated, that talented, and that kind of a human being, that cares so deeply about humanity and the people around them. MH: The title of the book is Earthrise. What’s the significance of that? JL: “Earthrise” was the (name given to the) photo that was taken on Apollo 8. The first three men to go around the moon back in 1968 came around the far side and unexpectedly saw Earth rising above the lunar surface. It was not something they were prepared for and they took a photo of it that has become the iconic photo that we’re all used to of the lunar surface with the Earth in behind it. MH: When will we see it on shelves? JL: In the fall is the idea. I’ll leave it to other people to figure out the logistics of that. But that is the intention, to get this up as quickly as we can, and a lot of people are working really hard to make that happen.
