Canadian PM Carney Chats with Artemis II Crew on Hansen Milestone

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke live with the Artemis II crew on Wednesday, praising astronaut Jeremy Hansen as the first Canadian to venture into deep space during NASA's historic lunar flyby mission. The conversation, hosted by the Canadian Space Agency from the John H. Chapman Space Centre in Longueuil, Quebec, highlighted international collaboration and national pride as the 10-day mission nears its conclusion with a planned splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego on Friday.

Hansen, a 50-year-old colonel from the Royal Canadian Air Force based in London, Ontario, joined commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch for the final space-to-Earth connection organized by the agency. The crew completed a seven-hour flyby of the moon's far side on Monday, capturing images and geological data while traveling farther from Earth than any humans before, surpassing the Apollo 13 distance record set in 1970. As mission specialist, Hansen became the first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit, marking Canada as the second nation to send an astronaut on a lunar mission.

Carney, speaking from Ottawa, began in French to commend...