{"id":668811,"date":"2026-05-14T11:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/668811\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T11:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:39:10","slug":"jeremy-hansen-returns-home-with-the-artemis-ii-crew-to-talk-not-about-science-or-space-but-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/668811\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremy Hansen returns home with the Artemis II crew to talk not about science or space, but humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Astronauts of the Artemis II mission, left to right, Jenni Gibbons, Jeremy Hansen, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman take part in a question and answer event at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa on Wednesday.Sean Kilpatrick\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

About halfway through the audience questions for the astronauts at the National Arts Centre on Wednesday afternoon, there was a moment that seemed, by beautiful accident, to capture exactly what was going on.<\/p>\n

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen had come home to Canada for his first public event since returning to Earth a month ago. He brought the entire Artemis II crew with him to Ottawa for a chat about the historic mission they had just completed together. <\/p>\n

So there was the world\u2019s most feel-good family – Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Mr. Hansen, together with their Canadian capsule communicator, or capcom, Jenni Gibbons \u2013 sitting on stage together before a rapturous audience. The 700 free tickets released by the NAC disappeared in under two hours.<\/p>\n

Then a woman in the audience stepped up to one of the microphones with her small space suit-wearing son, who had already earned a wave from Mr. Glover. Her son was feeling shy, she explained, but he wanted to know what it takes to become an astronaut, and his sister, an aspiring engineer, had the same question.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do people become like you people?\u201d the woman asked, on behalf of her kids. <\/p>\n

In a literal sense, she was of course asking about education and training and career paths. But in the unique wording of her question was what it seemed everyone had really come to the NAC seeking, and what has mesmerized the world about the Artemis II crew: here is a powerful dose of human goodness in a world that needed reminding of the power of such a thing.<\/p>\n

The mission was an impossible triumph of human ingenuity and effort and ambition and friendship, and the people who undertook it couldn\u2019t wait to share it with all of us. <\/p>\n

Ms. Gibbons summed it up beautifully on Wednesday: \u201cA big part of it was the fact that this mission shared the human experience and we were all able to connect with it.\u201d She recalled an associate administrator who, near the end of the mission, said, \u201c\u2018We\u2019re talking about things like love on this mission. And if you\u2019re not going to go to the moon for love, then what are you doing this for?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Artemis II mission was a glorious distraction from more serious problems in space<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of the questions people asked were so nakedly human that it almost felt indecent to listen in, except that everyone in the room – including the astronauts on the stage – seemed to be there to connect with exactly that. The answers were as profound and personal as the questions. <\/p>\n

One woman asked, in a trembling voice, what advice they had for her as a parent on how to better support her son\u2019s passions and dreams. Ms. Koch joked that as the only non-parent on the crew, she\u2019d be happy to field that one. Then she reflected on her own parents \u2013 her dad, who would discuss black holes at the dinner table, and her mom, whom she thinks of as her \u201cmoral compass.\u201d Just showing up to be a parent as your authentic self matters more than anything else, she said. <\/p>\n

More than one person choked up as they thanked the crew for the inspiration they had provided. One man asked the astronauts how they reconciled the awe-inspiring experience of seeing Earth from space with the war and destruction down here on the ground, and what lessons they had for the rest of us.<\/p>\n

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

Patches on astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen’s uniform.Sean Kilpatrick\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Mr. Hansen said he had wrestled with a personal version of this: how he could have such an amazing life and not tackle all of the world\u2019s problems? A vision quest he undertook at an Indigenous cultural centre in Manitoba during his training supplied an answer: the weight of the world is not on your individual shoulders, he said, but what you do with your energy every day is. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll of us have a choice when we get up: we can use our energy for good, or we can use our energy for bad. And your job, your purpose in life, is joy. It just is,\u201d he said, with a verbal shrug of gentle certainty. \u201cThat\u2019s what you\u2019re here for. Your purpose is joy, but it\u2019s to also add joy to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going to the moon for love, and everyone\u2019s purpose to add joy. Surely the lessons the Artemis crew brought back to Earth are a perfect antidote to everything else that\u2019s been making it feel dark and heavy down here lately.<\/p>\n

When the space shuttle lifted off on April 1, the NAC broadcast the launch live on its five-story LED \u201clantern,\u201d a glowing beacon downtown where hundreds came to watch. On Wednesday, the final audience member to ask a question wanted to know how the crew felt about their mission drawing people together like that.<\/p>\n

Ms. Koch said that until her husband explained it on their last call before she returned, the crew had no idea that anyone but Mission Control was watching them. When you cry in space, the tears don\u2019t fall, but just pool in your eyes and cut off your vision, she said, and so that\u2019s what happened when he told her the whole world was paying attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll we ever wanted was to be able to move the needle, to hopefully tell people that our shared humanity is the most important thing we have, that we live on a precious lifeboat, that we are a crew,\u201d Ms. Koch said. \u201cAnd the fact that that was resonating down here was the gift that you all gave us.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the chat was over, the audience rose instantly to their feet and offered an ecstatic ovation. Onstage, the astronauts stood and applauded the crowd right back. <\/p>\n

Four human beings travelled further away from the rest of us than anyone in our tribe has ever gone. And then they came home to remind us \u2013 to prove to us \u2013 that our shared humanity is what can keep this precious lifeboat of ours afloat. <\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney met in his Parliament Hill office with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and his Artemis II crewmates, American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover. Carney, who spoke to the crew while they were on their mission to fly around the moon, joked that it was the first time he’d spoken to them ‘on Earth.’<\/p>\n

The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Astronauts of the Artemis II mission, left to right, Jenni Gibbons, Jeremy Hansen,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,5152,66,306],"class_list":["post-668811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dei","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668811","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=668811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}