Canadian astronaut aboard Artemis II has ties to Saskatchewan

Jeremy Hansen, who trained at 15 Wing Moose Jaw, is the first Canadian to ever travel to the moon. Jacob Carr reports.

Earlier this week on a NASA livestream aboard the Artemis II, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen spoke about his perspective that as humans, our purpose is to find joy in creating solutions together.

That could be somewhat of a metaphor for the cooperation between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency in reference to the Artemis II’s mission which features three American astronauts along with Hansen.

Hansen is also a Colonel with the Royal Canadian Air Force and has a connection with a few current members of the 15 Wing Moose Jaw Air Force Base.

That includes Lt.-Col Matt Fullerton, who, when he was a flight instructor in Portage Le Prairie, Man., designed an informal helicopter training course for Hansen.

“It definitely blows me away, the progress he has made. It was purely by accident that I had that opportunity to be able to do that. And he’s such an incredible, humble and professional individual, and he’s always looking to interact. And he’s still a great ambassador for the Canadian Armed Forces,” Fullerton said.

Captain Jason Leuschen, from Humboldt, wants to one day follow in the footsteps of Hansen and make his own mark in space.

“It’s like the engineer’s dream, right? I grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan, I had a technical background, I had an engineering degree from the University of Saskatchewan. And space is just the idea; it’s the final frontier.

Leuschen has also interacted with Hansen back in 2017 when he made it to the final part of the selection process for the Canadian Space Agency that year.

Leuschen made it to the final eight candidates before it was eventually whittled down to just two.

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“So, he was really there to represent the life to you and tell you, this is what you can expect if you are selected,” said Leuschen.

So, there was a lot of interactions. His wife was involved in it so that our spouses could kind of see what they potentially would be signing up for. And it was also very motivational to meet him as well because, the selection process did take upwards of eight months.

The exciting culmination of a historic 10 day mission to the moon and back happened on Friday night as the Orion capsule successfully did a splashdown landing just off the coast of California.