Artemis II’s tight-knit crew live from space: One Canadian, three Americans — and plenty of banter

It took about 10 seconds before the laughter came through.

Asked during a live question-and-answer session with Canadian media what the camaraderie was like aboard Artemis II — and whether the Americans had been teasing Canada’s lone astronaut, Jeremy Hansen — there came the lag of deep space.

The delay separated those on Earth, gathered at the Canadian Space Agency in Longueuil, from a crew that had, minutes earlier, moved closer to the moon than to Earth. They are set to travel farther than humans have ever gone before, surpassing the record distance by Apollo 13.

Smiles came up on the screen as the message went through.

Commander Reid Wiseman, who is American, first appeared to joke, gesturing perhaps he should leave the room.

Then he leaned into the microphone: “There is no way that we are ever teasing this man right here,” he said, pointing toward Hansen.

“It’s impossible not to be good friends with this guy.”

Wiseman and Hansen, he said, go back to 2009, when they were selected by NASA and the Canadian Space Agency at the same time.

“We’ve been great friends ever since,” he said. “We might joke around together, but we’re not teasing him.”

On board there is Wiseman, the mission commander; Victor Glover, an American pilot; Christina Koch, an American mission specialist; and Hansen, a Canadian mission specialist and the first Canadian astronaut to travel beyond low Earth orbit.

Behind Wiseman, Glover drifted sideways in the cabin, smiling, while Koch worked just out of frame. A microphone floated between them when it was not being held.

The call — the first question-and-answer session with Canadian media — took place Friday via Microsoft Teams. (The astronauts, according to space station staff, had an internet connection). They were only able to hear, but not see, those on Earth asking questions.

“Similar to our countries, physically, this crew is very close,” Glover said.

“It’s been tough to make fun of him,” Glover added of Hansen. “He got up here and even though he’s Canadian and a first-time flyer, he’s making it look easy.”

For Hansen, the voyage is the culmination of a decades-long path that began in an Air Cadet squadron in London, Ont., where he first learned to fly as a teenager.

He went on to earn his pilot’s licence before adulthood, train as a CF-18 fighter pilot and becoming one of two recruits selected in Canada’s 2009 astronaut campaign.

In 2017, he became the first Canadian to lead a NASA astronaut class.

The emphasis on teamwork carried through his remarks during the call.

“To get big things done, you need a big team behind you,” Hansen said. “And that’s true for all of us.”

Inside Orion, that team is compressed into a small, shared space no larger than a minivan. They sleep in suspended bags, eat together, work through checklists and watch the Earth shrink behind them.

Back on the ground in Longueuil, more than 100 Canadian Space Agency employees, family members and guests gathered in the early hours of the morning alongside media to watch and support the crew.

Earlier Friday, NASA also released the first images from inside the spacecraft. In one, commander Wiseman captured a view of Earth through Orion’s window, the planet veiled in sweeping cloud formations as it appeared to rise beyond the capsule.

The three American astronauts and one Canadian will fly around the moon before looping back toward Earth without landing, following a critical engine burn Thursday night that set the spacecraft on its course.

In his closing remarks Friday, Hansen said: “Thank you, Canada, for this experience, an extraordinary experience for me to leave our planet and ride that incredible rocket with my three American colleagues.

“It is such an extraordinary example of collaboration and what we can do when we set big goals and reach out to achieve them together.”

Do you have a story tip? Write to me at hnorth@postmedia.com

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