Artemis 2 astronaut Jeremy Hansen felt like he was “falling out of the sky” as his spacecraft followed its complex flight path to the Moon, the Canadian said in a Saturday video call.<\/p>\n
The four Artemis astronauts have passed the halfway point between Earth and the Moon on Saturday morning — more than 150,000 miles (241,000 kilometers) from home — as they zipped toward the first crewed lunar flyby in more than half a century.<\/p>\n
Hansen, a 50-year-old former fighter pilot on his maiden voyage into space, said he saw “some extraordinary things” during the first hours aboard the Orion.<\/p>\n
“By the time we had a bit of a nap and got up, the Earth was just so far away,” Hansen, flanked by American crewmates Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman, told a question-and-answer session hosted by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).<\/p>\n
– ‘Like falling out of the sky’ –<\/p>\n
Hansen then described the translunar injection burn — a maneuver that brought Orion within 200 kilometers of Earth before swinging around onto a new course for the Moon.<\/p>\n
“It just felt like we were falling out of the sky back to Earth, and I said to Reid, ‘It feels like we’re gonna hit it,'” Hansen said.<\/p>\n
“It’s amazing that we’re actually gonna go around and miss this thing. It was just so close and so to take all of that in was really phenomenal.”<\/p>\n
Hansen, who joined the CSA in 2009 following his career as a fighter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, will be the first non-American to fly around the Moon.<\/p>\n
Orion’s next milestone, set to take place on day five of the 10-day mission, is to enter the lunar sphere of influence, where the Moon’s gravitational pull exceeds that of the Earth, according to NASA.<\/p>\n
Hansen said he was looking forward to an up-close view of the far side of the Moon and seeing “an eclipse of the Sun behind the Moon, which will be pretty neat.”<\/p>\n
Hansen once cited a childhood encounter with a photograph of Neil Armstrong on the Moon as the seed of his passion for space exploration.<\/p>\n
Asked about advice for children, the father of three urged youngsters to “follow your passions, but also share your passions with other people.”<\/p>\n
“To get big things done like we’re doing in this capsule, to travel to the moon, to fly around the moon, you need a big team behind you. And that’s true for all of us in our lives.”<\/p>\n
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