Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on failure, the trade war and 'getting off the joy train'

OTTAWA — Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen has one message for the youth of this country: you will run into obstacles.

“No matter where you’re trying to go, you are going to be stopped, and you are going to think you have failed,” Hansen told an audience at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa on Wednesday.

“And that’s when the people you’ve told (about your goals) are going to help pick you up and remind you that there is a path through that you can create a solution,” the astronaut said, adding that his one word coming out of his experience in space is “persistence.”

On April 10, the Artemis II crew concluded its mission and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, marking a major success for NASA and its international partners.

In the first crewed flight beyond earth’s orbit in over 50 years, Hansen along with crewmates commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch, spent nine days in space and set a record for the farthest human space flight — travelling nearly 406,771 kilometres away from Earth around the far side of the moon.

Hansen, who is currently on a tour to celebrate that success, says what is often misunderstood in space culture is that failure never happens.

He said the famous saying “failure is not an option” — popularized by the 1995 film Apollo 13 starring Tom Hanks, is far from the reality of working with a crew in space.

“That’s just not the truth, that doesn’t exist anywhere,” he told hundreds of attendees, many with their children in tow.

“We have a lot of failures,” he added. “We have a lot of challenges that we bump up against, but we have a culture that we won’t rest in that failure.”

During a question-and-answer period following the panel discussion, many children jumped up to get their chance to ask a question to the space travellers.

A young boy named Daniel asked how many months it takes to become an astronaut, Gibbons answered about three years. Another young boy name Edward was too shy to ask his question, so his mother asked instead how people become astronauts.

Wiseman replied that it’s important to find things you love to do.

“You do not have to follow a recipe book to become an astronaut,” he said. “In fact, I think oftentimes that is the wrong thing to go trying to do.”

The crew’s visit to Ottawa began at the prime minister’s office early Wednesday morning. Also present was Canadian astronaut Jenni Gibbons, who worked at the NASA Mission Control Center during the Artemis mission.

“This mission, which involved some risk, it hadn’t been done,” said Prime Minister Mark Carney, alongside the crew.

“This is as far as any people had gone into space, but it was risk for a reason and risk to set up even bigger opportunities.”

Carney gave the astronauts a commemorative coin that shows a picture of a Canadian astronaut wearing an orange space suit, with a picture of King Charles III on the back. The prime minister also gave Hansen the Canadian flag that flew on the Peace Tower on the day the Artemis crew splashed down to earth.

In return, Hansen gave Carney a framed Canadian flag patch along with a photo of Earth taken from the far side of the moon.

The crew and Carney then visited the Canadian Museum of Nature to meet with a group of students.

During the panel discussion, Wiseman spoke about the profound experience of seeing earth from space. The crew dubbed the planet we live on “tiny Earth” when they were from the vantage point of thousands of kilometres away.

The crew also mentioned on the reality of living in such proximity for 10 days, with Hansen saying sometimes a crew member gets off “the joy train” and joked sometimes all the crew get off at once.

Hansen also touched on the current state of Canada’s relationship with the U.S. and how the Artemis crew represents a level of good intentions between the two countries, despite being in the midst of a trade war.

“And the one we talk a lot about the right now in the news is Canada-U.S., but we know overall, the intentions are good, that love, that interdependence is real, and that’s what we have in this crew,” said Hansen. “We’re just demonstrating that for you.”

Koch was asked by a member of an audience whether she had reflected on how the mission brought people together.

She recounted the call she had with her husband during the mission, who relayed to her the impact the crew’s undertaking was having on people back on Earth.

“And I just stared back at him on the screen and started crying,” she said.

“And all I could say was, that’s all we ever wanted.”

National Post

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