The Current - Jeremy Hansen on his trip around the moon

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

After making history as the first Canadian travelling beyond Earth's orbit, Jeremy Hansen reflects on the experience, and what he's learned pushing the boundaries of human exploration.

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podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Splashdown confirmed. Copy Splashdown, waiting on VLDR. Splashdown confirmed at 707 p.m. Central Time, 5.7 p.m. Pacific time. From the pages of Jules Verne to a modern day mission to the moon, a new chapter of the exploration of our celestial neighbor is complete. Integrities astronauts, back on Earth. That's the sound of Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Cook, and Canada's own Jeremy Hanson returning to Earth after the Artemis II mission around the moon. Jeremy Hanson made history as the first non-American to go beyond Earth's orbit, and this morning, he is in Houston, Texas, mission specialist. Jeremy Hanson, welcome home. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's good to be back on planet Earth.

This is not a question that I get to ask a lot of people, but what is it like to be back on planet Earth? It feels remarkably normal, actually. After this short trip around the moon, I'm back, and it kind of feels very normal to me, feeling good, and it's nice to be back with family and to have some of the wrists of the mission behind us. So it just feels fun and light. Chris Hadfield has talked about the tyranny of gravity, that that's one of the things that he experienced when he returned home. Did you notice it immediately? I did. You know, as the capsule hit the water, it's only a few minutes later that I unstrapped and then went to sit up and I was just taken aback by what that felt like. I had really gotten used to floating around and how easy that was and fun that was. And all of a sudden, it was not fun to be picking my body up in the bobbing capsule on the ocean.

You were what they call a first-time flyer. What were those final few seconds of the countdown like? Yeah, remarkably peaceful for me. And it wasn't a bravado thing or courage thing. I think it was just a mental preparation. And I slept really well the night before. I was excited to go, but sort of guarded because there's just so many things that could stop a launch. And I didn't necessarily believe we would launch on that first try. And so I was pretty relaxed.

And then all of a sudden, about eight seconds ago, I started to feel the rocket rumble, which was a bit earlier than I thought it would. And I think it must have been like the auxiliary power units or maybe testing the gimbals on the engines. But then I felt the engines light at about that five second mark. And then, of course, when the solid's lit, we just jumped off the pad and away we went. What is that like? It's fun. It puts a smile on your face.

At one point, you don't want to talk too much. You're pretty focused on the operational things. But at one point, I just couldn't hold it in anymore. And I just said, this is so cool. It was just nuts. The amount of G forces, although they're not huge numbers. I mean, we're only pulling three Gs on the way up.

I mean, compared to a fighter jet, it's very different. But the fact that it just keeps going and going and going, and you're just accelerating the whole time, and it's pretty amazing feat to watch. At what point, this seems like an obvious question, but at what point does it hit you that you are in outer space? It really hit me. I started to get that sense when the engines cut off,

and then I had a camera that was tethered to my kneeboard, and I just kind of pulled it out and let it float so that I could just see something floating and sort of get my brain wired into what was happening. And then I only had a few minutes in the seats before I unstrapped and started to go to do my first task. But I snuck a peek out the window, and I saw the earth, and it was just the Pacific Ocean, just huge ocean.

and I guess it wasn't in the Pacific. It was probably the Indian Ocean at that point. And it was just all ocean, and it was amazing to see. We were still pretty low at that point. And then not long after I saw Australia, it was so red, and I turned to read. I said, that's Australia, question mark. And he's like, yeah, that's Australia. And that's when I started to slowly comprehend while I'm actually flying around our planet right now.

Describe what weightlessness is like. You talked about the return to gravity. But when you are weightless, most people don't get to experience this. What does that feel like? It's so freeing and never wore off the whole 10-day mission. All of us, even though my crewmates have spent months in space before, they were happy to be back in microgravity. And we would comment it all the time, just how much fun it is,

just to fly around and play with your food and make water bubbles. And there's just, you know, you just throw your friends a tree. treat during the day and you know you try to throw it and they catch in their mouth i mean it just never gets old all these fun things the one thing i noted though is you know our brain is wired for gravity so when i would throw something initially they would always land too high um because you're you're trying to compensate for gravity is not there so you kind of have to just adjust your aim point uh so that it hits the mark it just sounds like you were smiling the whole time and you heard a little bit of that even just as as we were listening in and watching what was going on it was this kind of like giddy

I can't believe this is really what's happening kind of moment. There was a lot of that. There's definitely a mix. It's a very serious mission too. For sure. And we had moments where, you know, alarms went off. And we never had anything actually bad, but we had some pretty bad indications for a few moments until we, you know, had a look and decided that everything was actually okay.

That stuff gets your attention. And you're always kind of living with that knowledge in the back of your head. You're in a little capsule with pressure. air in it, and it's the only thing keeping you alive and you're many, many days from home. So there is that serious aspect, but you can still enjoy it at the same time. If you just sort of accept where you are, you've accepted those risks, you believe in the team, then you can just sort of let yourself go. And it's hard not to smile up there. It's just so fun to be there. And the sights, they just, they blow you away. One of the amazing things was we were here down on earth,

and you would look up at the sky in the morning, and you would see the moon. And you would think, they're on their way there or they're there or they're on their way back. And you can't really look at the moon in the same way when you know that some of your people are out there. When you were looking back, what was that like? Yeah, did you find, you found that you're looking at the moon differently? Yeah. Yeah, that's really neat. I mean, I've been looking at the moon differently for three years now since I got assigned to the mission, but I think that's just a small gift of sending humans out there

that we look up at the moon. We stare just a little long. longer. And I, you know, when I was up there and I was seeing the moon, I was, I was thinking similar thoughts. My family is back on Earth and they're looking at the moon a little differently right now. And we're in that shot. They can't quite make out the capsule, but we're in their field of view, hurtling towards the moon. It's a special thing. Our cultures around the world have shared this since the very beginning. We all share the same moon. And as a special neighbor that we all hold dear. But sometimes, you know, through my life, I started to take it for granted and just only give it the casual glance. So I don't do that anymore. Now I look up, I identify features.

Yesterday, I was doing an interview in Space Center, Houston, where they have this huge and platable moon hanging from the ceiling. And I couldn't know myself. I wanted to go see all the things I had just seen again. I was walking around it and identifying where I had seen, where I had not seen. It will never be the same for me. Chambers Plan is benefits with benefits. You and your team can get all the basics, like comprehensive health and dental coverage, disability insurance, and more.

Chambers Plan also stacks your business with built-in supports to help it grow, like on-call HR, legal, and financial guidance, personalized leadership coaching, and a digital business library full of on-demand resources. Benefit together with Chambers Plan. Learn more at hellochambers.ca. I'm Lisa Yuso, a digital producer at Ideas, the podcast that likes to feed your curiosity.

I ask my colleagues why they think you should listen. Ideas can make you the smartest, most interesting guest at your next dinner party in less than 60 minutes. It's got the best of a storytelling podcast with the best of a great lecture. You can pretty much never predict where an episode will take you, but you can count on every episode to shift your perspective. even just a little. Find and follow ideas wherever you get your podcasts. What about looking back at all of us here on Earth? We had just such amazing views of Earth right from the beginning of the mission.

I feel like I just kept seeing like it all over and over again. The first thing I described my first views, but then we got further away and I could see the entire globe at the window. And that's actually where I saw the vastness of the Pacific. I found that startling, even though I've looked at globes before, obviously. But to see with my own eyes, just how vast the Pacific Ocean is is kind of mind-bending. And then the whole Earth was lit up at that point, but then it was a crescent earth. And then we got on the dark side of the earth. It was all dark.

And there's a great photo of that and of some of the things we saw in the northern lights. but it is pretty special to look back on that planet in the darkness of space and start to see it for what it truly is, like this little marble in space. As we got further and further away, long before we got to 400,000 kilometers, you start to really get that sense that you are out in deep space. There's home back there. You have to get there if you want to survive. And it is literally just hanging in this vastness of space that you start to get this depth.

I've been talking, trying to explain it to people. to see the depth of our galaxy with your own eyes. I was shocked to see that. I didn't think I would see that. I thought I would just see kind of like stars on a tapestry in the background, sort of like we view from Earth. But when you're in space, you see a depth to it. Even though it's playing tricks on your eyes a little bit because of some stars are brighter

and dimmer, even though that's happening, it gives you a sense of that depth. And I never expected to experience that. Can I ask you about just one little bit of your preparation? for this. And that's, in 23, you spent time in Manitoba with an indigenous elder who led you on what's called a vision quest. And you explore

things like humility and honesty, and courage and love. And you talked a little bit about this when you were in space. What did that give you? Why did you do that and what did it give you? I've had numerous experience with indigenous elders just, you know, sharing their thoughts

and their teachings with me. And I've always found that to be very special. a very special gift. In that case, Wasabé from the Turtle Lodge, inviting me to go on a Vision Quest was a very generous invitation. And then they lead you through that.

During that time, you fast without food and water for four days. There's some ceremony in the beginning. But the bulk of the time, you go out into nature by yourself. You're just alone. And you don't do anything. You basically just sleep and sit,

observe nature, meditate, if you will. and you're just alone with your thoughts and alone with nature. One of the things, because you're fasting, one of the descriptions that really resonated with me is it helps you connect with spirit because you meet them halfway, the fact that you're not nourishing your body anymore. And that was a very special experience. It would be, it's, you know, I guarantee it would be a special experience for anyone because it just, you take time from this busy life. And for me, I think that was very important to just take some time with my thoughts and some of the, the struggles that, you know, I have as a human. We all have things that we, we sort of have to

deal with as we go through life. And it just helped me with my life journey. I'm very grateful for that experience and the leadership that they showed to guide me through it. Let me just ask you a couple of quick things before I let you go. I know we don't have a lot of time, but how aware were you that so much of the world was caught up in this as an antidote to everything that's happening down here right now? Yeah, not very. We had two opportunities to speak with our families. I mean, you basically heard that Earth basically heard most of our communication, almost all of it,

save some private conferences with our flight surgeons and the flight director. But other than that, you pretty much heard everything we knew, except for what our families told us. And on my first private family conference, my kids were saying, were explaining and they were happy and they liked some of the things they were seeing. But I just kind of thought it sounded normal. And then on the second one on our way home from the moon, they really dug into it. They're like, you don't understand how much this is getting picked up on Earth and how much

people are paying attention and really enjoying it. And it's giving them hope. And they gave me a couple examples. And I was like, wow, that's really something. And our crew was hearing the same from all the families. and that's when we started to realize, but it didn't really sink in until I got home. I think it's still sinking in.

I continue to see some of the media attention and some of the social media posts. I think it's really neat that people are using this to just be together on something. I like the way you put it, Matt. It is time for us to focus on creating together and celebrating positive things together and to make that our norm versus always talking about

the bad things and normalizing that. So I know this, you know, we have a lot of work to do as a human race and this doesn't fix it all. But it does give me a little bit more hope that we actually can do it. It reminds me that people want this. That's enough. Just knowing that we all want it should be enough for us to lean into it. As you were preparing to return, I had a conversation with your friend and fellow astronaut

Davies Sienzac about how this experience would change you. He said that you would be different when you came back. How are you different? It's not knowledge that has changed me, but certainly there's an emotional experience to it. And sort of like, I guess I haven't found the words yet. You have to ask me later when I've had more time to really figure this out bad.

It's too early. But I saw so many things. But I feel like I saw proof for the things I already knew when I watched. You know, it's simple. things like those seven sacred laws that are that are built into the mission patch that was given to us by the Anishinawbi artist Henry Gimal, things that tie all humanity together. But I saw them with my own eyes and repeatedly from different aspects. I saw it in the stars. I saw it in the planet. I saw it in the moon. I saw it in the solar eclipse. It's just such a unique human

existence that we have here and to do anything other than to celebrate it and to enjoy it is a failure on our part. What an incredible experience that you have had. You and you were part of this thing that brought people together down here on earth as well, which is incredibly powerful and it was awesome. Lucky you and congratulations on everything. I don't know what you do after this. How does one follow a trip like this? Yeah, I have no idea. We still have work to do, Since I got back, we're collecting lots of science data, trying to inform our future missions. We're debriefing the operations of our vehicle and the make-betters for the next crew who will take this vehicle into space again, hopefully in about a year.

And so there's a lot to do right now. I haven't had a lot of time to think about what's next. But when you ask that question, what I would love to reflect to the listeners is this is just another step for Canada. We go further than this. This is not our peak. We're just on a journey right now, but this is a really great indication of what we're capable of. And I will tell you, I have a front row seat to the opportunity that is in front of Canada right now. And it's extraordinary. What the goals we're setting for the country, there are ways to do more of this space exploration, not just for the sake of exploring, which you know, you could argue is enough on its own, but actually to solve the

problems we have on the planet in ways that help us in space and doing both at the same time. We've done that in the past, and I think there's never been more opportunity than there is now to meet the needs of the country, and then to go and be part of a global push to go do something creative and amazing that sends humanity back to the moon to stay, but onto Mars eventually one day. It's kind of exciting to think about, and no matter what I end up doing next, I want to be contributing to that in some way. That's a great way to end. It's neat to see people do big things and really powerful to be witness to that. We're glad you're home safe. Jeremy Hansen, thank you very much. Thank you, Matt. And people need to be reminded. Canada did this. This was

an intentional decision by a country to go do this. It didn't just fall in our laps. We created it. It wasn't me. It was the country. And it's an important example. Let's go do some more big things. me, Matt, appreciate it. Really great to talk to you. Thanks again. Take care. Jeremy Hanson is the first Canadian to travel beyond Earth's orbit and around the moon. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway.

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