Last week, NASA officially unveiled the crew of the Artemis II mission, which would fly around the Moon in 2024. Among the crew members of the Orion spacecraft will be three astronauts from the United States and one Canadian citizen. As it turned out, such a selection was not made by chance; and there is a kind of “cunning plan”.
In an interview with the American TV show The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — along with his American colleagues Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman — answered his question why he was chosen for a space mission.
In pare Canadian style, Hansen remarked: “There are probably a couple of reasons, you can pick whichever one you like. If something goes wrong on this mission, then NASA can blame Canada”. TV host Colbert jokingly replied to Hansen: “In that case, Canada will just say “sorry” using the long “o” pronunciation.
“So we’re all covered. That’s a great insurance policy”. Hansen commented.
No kidding, according to Jeremy Hansen, the real reason why NASA has decided to cooperate with the Canadian Space Agency during the Artemis II mission is the old-fashioned “American leadership”.
“It was a deliberate decision because they’re thinking big, they want to curate a global partnership, and I think that’s tremendous leadership on the part of America. Canada really appreciates it. It lifts us up and allows us to bring our genius — and we have lots of genius in Canada to bring to the collaboration,” the astronaut explained.
Earlier, we reported on how the Canadian Space Agency showed an updated logo.
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