Mar. 31, 10:34 a.m. EDT
Who is Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian tapped by NASA for the Artemis II mission?
One of the most famous origin stories about Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen is that when he was a kid growing up on a farm near Ailsa Craig, Ont., he flipped open the first volume of an encyclopedia and, under the letter A, happened on a picture of the astronaut Neil Armstrong standing on the moon. Armstrong was part of NASA’s Apollo era, which ended before Hansen, who turned 50 in January, was born. But the image ignited a lifelong passion in Hansen, who shortly thereafter turned his treehouse into a spaceship.
Still, how do you get from an imaginary spaceship in rural Ontario to the moon? Hansen, still sitting calmly in front of the camera, is quick to credit others. “One day, I told my family. I told teachers, and people started to use that inspiration to push me,” he says.
Even when he occasionally lost faith, these supporters kept him going. “I don’t think being able to set the goal and believe in it initially is unique, but to have the people around you who will enable you to hold the vision long enough to attain it, maybe that is, unfortunately, somewhat rare.”