{"id":638438,"date":"2026-04-30T11:07:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T11:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/638438\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T11:07:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T11:07:23","slug":"jeremy-hansen-rest-of-artemis-ii-crew-meet-trump-at-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/638438\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremy Hansen, rest of Artemis II crew meet Trump at White House"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Artemis II astronauts, NASA Commander Reid Wiseman, NASA Pilot Victor Glover, NASA Mission Specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, flank U.S. President Donald Trump during an event in the Oval Office at the White House on Wednesday.Evelyn Hockstein\/Reuters<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump praised the courage of the astronauts on the historic Artemis II mission Wednesday, including Canadian Jeremy Hansen, saying their journey to the moon captured the attention of the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re very brave,\u201d Trump said at the White House. \u201cAnd that was a lot of rocket under them. I never saw anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hansen, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch stood beside the president, who was seated behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, nearly three weeks after they splashed down in the Pacific Ocean following a 10-day lunar fly-around.<\/p>\n

The four-person crew were the first human beings to go to the moon in more than 50 years. They travelled farther from the surface of the Earth than anyone before them.<\/p>\n

Canadian astronaut Kutryk to fly to space station this fall<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump invited the astronauts to the White House when he spoke with them hours after their spaceship had travelled around the far side of the moon, saying he wanted their autographs.<\/p>\n

Trump has long expressed a desire to expand American space capabilities. On Wednesday he said it takes \u201cunbelievable courage\u201d to be an astronaut. Trump said astronauts have to be smart and \u201cdo a lot of things physically good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump joked he would have had \u201cno trouble\u201d with the physical aspect of the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs a president allowed to go up on one of these missions?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

While Trump has praised the space mission, his administration is moving to cut NASA\u2019s budget. The Office of Management and Budget\u2019s proposed NASA allotment for the next fiscal year is $18.8-billion, roughly a 23 per cent cut.<\/p>\n

NASA formally launched the Artemis program during Trump\u2019s first term to prepare for a more permanent human lunar presence and lay the groundwork to some day send astronauts to Mars.<\/p>\n

NASA has three more Artemis missions planned before Trump\u2019s second term ends, with the ultimate goal of landing people on the moon again and beginning construction of a lunar base.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have we have good shot,\u201d Trump told reporters. \u201cWe\u2019ve authorized it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada was the first of dozens of nations to join the Artemis program. The famous Canadarm robotic manipulator system has been a key tool for space missions since the early 1980s and is used on the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

With the Artemis II mission, Hansen, 50, of London, Ont., became the first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit and the first person to speak French while en route to the moon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Artemis II astronauts, NASA Commander Reid Wiseman, NASA Pilot Victor Glover, NASA Mission…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,66,306,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-638438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-science","tag-space","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}