Jeremy Hansen, the first Canadian to fly around the Moon, told Canada’s space industry Monday night that his Artemis II crew became a real team only after agreeing to “launch as friends” and “land as friends,” and he asked the sector to find a common goal of its own.
Hansen, who left the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) in September, spoke at the opening reception of Space Canada‘s SpaceBound conference in Ottawa, after an introduction by Brian Gallant, Space Canada’s chief executive. His full remarks follow.
SpaceQ recorded the remarks, and the transcript has been edited for clarity. Words in square brackets were added by SpaceQ or could not be made out with certainty. A short passage near the end was lost between recordings and is marked.
Transcript: Jeremy Hansen and Brian Gallant at the SpaceBound opening reception
Brian Gallant: …They [Gallant’s brother-in-law and sister-in-law] were celebrating their wedding anniversary. They went to Toronto, they watched the Blue Jays. And on their way back, as a good brother-in-law does, I gave them some passes to the Air Canada lounge. I tell you this story because I want you all to know how generous I am, a good person.
But I offered these lounge tickets and we’re texting and we’re asking them if they got in. So they didn’t get in yet, but my brother-in-law kept going to the lounge because it was full. He kept trying to get in.
Upon their return, they tell me a story. They said, yeah, you know, while I was going up and down the elevator at the Toronto airport trying to get into the lounge, this guy started talking to me in the elevator. And he said, what are you doing? I was trying to get in the lounge, but I guess it’s full. So, you know, we only have a guest pass. So this guy, a stranger, was like, well, why don’t you come as my guest? You can just come as my plus one.
So my brother-in-law, you know, thinks for a second, and remembers that it’s his wedding anniversary, wife waiting. So he makes the right call, says, no, I probably shouldn’t.
So anyways, they go back, they finally get in, they enjoy the lounge, and on their way out they see this very kind person who offered my brother-in-law to be his plus one. And my brother-in-law tells my sister-in-law, oh, that’s the guy, that’s the guy that offered me a plus one. Nice guy, yeah, that’s really nice.
So my sister-in-law looks at him and says, are you kidding me? That’s Jeremy Hansen.
And then my brother-in-law, when we’re back together with them and he’s telling me this story, he’s like, I don’t know, he’s just nice. I’m not good with faces, he just looks like an ordinary guy. My sister-in-law says, no, he looks like a guy that just went to the moon. Like, he definitely looks like a guy that just went to the moon.
So I tell you this story — obviously it’s a little funny, a nice little [chuckle?] — but I also think it shows you something that we could all feel during the Artemis II mission: how sincere a human being this person is, how amazing an ambassador for Canada he is, an amazing ambassador for humanity he is, alongside his [crew as well?].
Please, ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, join me in welcoming this Canadian hero, Jeremy Hansen.
[Applause]
Jeremy Hansen: This is a mission patch that I flew around the moon with Christina, Victor, Reid and I. So this travelled a little over a million kilometres. And, you know, in good Canadian fashion, Space Canada is pretty grassroots. So this is going to go in some fancy building somewhere — it’s probably going to go in Brian’s office for now. So if you’d like to see it, you can find it in Brian’s office.
But I hope you have the sense tonight that I truly love all of you in this room, what you represent for Canada. And this is a tiny token on behalf of the Canadian Space Agency and myself, back to all of you. Thank you.
Brian Gallant: On behalf of the over a hundred members that we have, I graciously accept. It’ll probably spend a little bit of time in my daughter’s room, but other than that, it’ll go to Space Canada. Thank you very much.
Jeremy Hansen: So, you folks — why do I love you folks? You know, a lot of you have heard this from me before, but it always bears repeating. In April we became the second country in the world to send a human into deep space. And that says a lot.
That was hard fought by a lot of people over truly decades, thousands of people. Some of you have been those people, and some of you are picking up that torch. And that’s an extraordinary thing.
And a few weeks ago, I watched my friend launch to the International Space Station, amongst other friends. And I gotta tell you, it is so much better riding the rocket than watching somebody launch on a rocket. Man, that scares me to death. But I’m happy to fly on it for some reason. Definitely a screw loose.
But, you know, Josh [Kutryk] is an example that I’ll point to, and this should resonate with all of you. He’s an extraordinary astronaut. And what makes him extraordinary is his ability to just look at what needs doing. And of course, you know, I’ve mentored Josh along the way, Josh has mentored me along the way — of course, we learn from one another. But he is somebody who is able to identify what is needed and just get after it. And that is a very Canadian thing that we do, and that all of you do in this room. And that makes us capable of punching above our weight in space.
And I’m super pumped that — you know, you never know what happens, there’s the operational aspects of everything, it’s not done until it’s done — but if Josh goes to do a couple of spacewalks in the next couple of weeks, that is awesome. That would be crazy, to watch a Canadian out in the vacuum of space again, and a testament to his extraordinary capability.
So that view. That was something. When Christina, Victor and I were out in deep space and looking back at [the Earth, we] feel tiny and insignificant as an individual, but extremely powerful as a human race, and what we are capable to do when we set big goals and we come together to achieve them.
And this isn’t my strength. My strength is not in celebrating. I’m always able to sort of identify what is the next challenge, what’s the next mountain, what’s missing, what do we need to do better. But this is a time that is worth celebrating. We have done extraordinary things. You have done extraordinary things that have put us in this amazing position to do more extraordinary things.
And I know the sentiment of people in this room is one of confidence, but also one of: we need to do more. The work is not done yet.
It’s kind of how I felt looking back at our planet from deep space. It’s beautiful, and you get this sense looking at it and you’re like, gosh, that is such a privilege to live on this planet. How can we do anything other than lift one another up and help one another live better lives? But then I know the experience on Earth is not — we’re not showing up that way as a human race yet. We’re not collaborating globally. We’re not constantly lifting one another up. And so there is work to do. And I feel like that is what our moment is right now.
And so as another comparison of that, this is what people witnessed when we flew around the Moon as a crew. They witnessed four people who were completely bought in to lifting one another up, who had mutual respect, love for one another. But I have to tell you, that was hard fought to get there.
We were not a great team from the get-go. We were not these magic four people that you just put together in a room and you get that. We got that because probably a few months into our training flow, we came to this realization that we were a good team — maybe an OK team. We were going to get the job done. We didn’t have any concerns that we would be able to do it operationally, professionally. But we weren’t firing on all cylinders. We weren’t having the best time. We had this extraordinary opportunity in front of us — how could it be anything other than awesome all the time? And it just wasn’t.
And we stated a new goal for our team. And I remember the day: we were sitting in our office and we decided we were going to launch as friends and we were going to land as friends. We meant it. And we had no idea how we were going to do it. And this is what I would propose to us, where we are in this room right now. We have an extraordinary opportunity ahead of us. What we need to remember is we need a common goal all the time.
The one thing that I have been blessed with in this job as a Canadian astronaut for 17 years is travelling across this country — usually with the purpose of visiting young Canadians. But when I’m there, I always have the opportunity to visit the industry, the academia. I have seen the extraordinary capacity and capability in this country.
And I was listening to this gentleman speak just a couple weeks ago, and he was making the argument — it’s a bit of a simplified argument — that GDP is the best indicator of human well-being on the planet. When you compare it to all of the other benchmarks for quality of life across the planet, GDP is very strongly correlated with that.
And so I’m going to suggest to you that one of the things that we need to do with respect to our common goal is to lean into putting it through the filter of GDP: delivering real value, services to Canadians on the planet, or contributing to their basic needs.
And what that means is you’ve got to do what we did as a crew. You have to really ask each other and understand each other’s perspectives. Whether you are on the political side, whether you’re on the bureaucratic side, whether you’re in industry or academia, we have to get real curious about… with each other.
Because what worked for us as a crew — ultimately what created that — was me knowing exactly how I was pushing Victor’s buttons, and what was important to him, and how I helped him, and when I would lean in and help him, and when I could ask him for help. I had to really get to know my crewmates.
And that is our next challenge in this room, because I have so many conversations and I am so fired up, because every single level of government and industry and academia, we all want the same thing. We all want excellence in space, because we know it contributes directly to our country and a better future for our young generation. We all want… every single person. We have no enemies. That’s a great place to be. We have all the pieces we need. We just need to stay curious, and we need to start to ask one another about it.
I just want to tell you a little bit about this picture to help make the point. This is a very cool picture. This was taken right after TLI, so we’re heading out to the Moon. We started to get further away from Earth after our trans-lunar injection burn. And this is actually the dark side of the Earth, so it’s a pretty extraordinary photo.
So you know it’s the dark side of the Earth because you can see the southern lights are at the top and the northern lights are at the bottom. I know it’s upside down, but this is how it was framed in the window, so I’d like to keep it that way. And that’s the Sahara Desert, and then that’s the Strait of Gibraltar, Europe, at the bottom left of the image. And then that thin line on the right side is the sun shining through the atmosphere.
And the reason you can see it at all is because the almost-full moon, that was awaiting us, was behind us. And the moon was lighting the dark side of the planet Earth and allowing us to take this image.
But it’s one of my favourite images from the mission, because it reminds me of what I saw in deep space: this idea that how can we do anything other than work together in a way that lifts one another up. It makes life better for you…
[A short passage was not recorded here.]
…It has a purpose. It gets up every single day. It does something that contributes directly to the win column for humanity. But you do. All of you in this room, just by being here tonight — I know you’re part of this in some way, shape or form. I know your heart is in that fight, just like mine is. And that’s an extraordinary thing. And it makes me so grateful for all of you, and gives me hope for the future, because there’s a lot of things right now that we can’t be satisfied with, looking around the world. But one thing that we can offer the world is more of us — more of the Canadian way. We have good intentions and we want great things for everyone on the planet. We buy into that as a nation, and you buy into that.
And so I just want to remind you of the gratitude that I have for all of you, and to tell you about proximity. One of the things we noticed as a crew was people were always asking us for our perspective, or what we should do with this or what we should do with that on the mission. And one of the cultures that grew in our crew was that we would always stop that and say, well, what do you recommend? Because there can be this assumption that others know better. But the people who know best typically are the ones who have proximity to the problem.
And you all have proximity to certain aspects of the problem. When you try to understand the space file and you try to think about what could a strategy look like, or how should we lead this — the reality is it’s super complex. It involves so many different players. The key is in figuring out how to let us each run. And we can let you run if we all have the same agenda: we all put it through that filter of GDP, to deliver services, to provide for the basic needs of Canadians. If we put it through that filter, we’ll be pretty close to the mark.
And for those of you that have proximity, I want to remind you to make sure your voice is heard. You probably see things that others don’t. And that is a common thread of high-performing teams: you get the best solutions when you listen and you’re curious with one another.
For me personally, what I have proximity to is what I’ve talked about before: understanding the capacity and capability of our space industry across the spectrum. I just have a real sense for it. And that is how I want to serve going forward.
I’ve been talking to everyone who will listen. I have the areas that I will filter things through, that I have proximity to: things that are helpful from a GDP point of view, from an economic point of view; things that are helpful from a NATO defence spending point of view, because we have committed as a country to spending 5 per cent of GDP on security, and I know that space plays an important role in that. And if it meets those two filters, and we can create it as an export with our international partners that will contribute to human space exploration, and we will see Canadians walk on the moon one day — that is the hat trick.
[unclear] [Dimitri?] told me I need to change it from “triple play” to “hat trick.” So it’s now the hat trick. And that is the hat trick. And I’m going to work on the hat trick for the country.
And that is not the only thing that needs to be done. That is just what you are going to see me working on and talking about — these things that are what I view as low-hanging fruit. Huge opportunities for us as a country going forward.
And for all of you, one last final word of gratitude. Really appreciate what you have done in the past to put us in this extraordinary position. And really, truly excited to work with all of you to see what you do next.
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