Let’s not hide our pleasure: humanity is returning to the Moon for the first time in half a century and Canada is on the trip. We have the right to be enthusiastic.
We learned Monday that Ontario astronaut Jeremy Hansen will leave with a maple leaf on his suit for a journey that will take him further into space than any human has ever been.
Accompanied by three American astronauts, Mr. Hansen will circle the Earth twice, then the Moon, covering a (literally) astronomical distance of 2 million kilometers.
There are some to say that there is nothing glorious in returning to the Moon 50 years after the Apollo missions. That the $1.43 billion for lunar exploration announced in the last federal budget should be used for other purposes.
This is not our opinion.
First, there is absolutely nothing trivial about such a trip. Space remains dangerous and highly difficult to access and requires the best of human beings.
It must then be understood that the Artemis II mission in which Jeremy Hansen will take part in 2024 is much more than a hook to the Moon. It is part of a return to major manned space exploration missions.
This return will involve the construction of a new space station, called Gateway, which will orbit the Moon. And it ultimately aims to bring human beings to the planet Mars.
That Canada is part of such an adventure is exciting. For a country the size of ours, that does not come naturally.
The place that Jeremy Hansen will occupy in this return to the Moon, we have not stolen it. It stems from the fact that Canada will install the third generation of its famous Canadian arm, the Canadarm3, on the space station Gateway. The country will also build a rover that will roll on the Moon from 2026.
These contributions demonstrate the excellence of the Canadian space sector. Jeremy Hansen is therefore the visible part of an entire ecosystem based on cutting-edge local expertise.
One can argue that it is possible to send probes and robots to explore the stars without risking human lives. That unmanned missions are less expensive and generate more scientific knowledge per dollar invested.
It’s true. It is also true that these unmanned missions can sometimes give us real emotions. In 1990, when leaving the solar system, the probe Travel 1 turned around and took one last picture of Earth. Entitled “Pale Blue Dot”, the picture is to give chills.
We also saw the enthusiasm generated by the flight of the helicopter Ingenuity on the planet Mars in 2021 – a feat all the more followed here that the Quebec engineer Farah Alibay took part.
But these pleas to keep human beings on Earth negate the fundamental human desire to explore and push back our boundaries. They also ignore the fact that there is nothing like an adventure lived by a human to make another dream.
The phrase uttered by Neil Armstrong in 1969 when he set foot on the Moon will forever be imprinted in our collective imagination. And we have seen recently how Chris Hadfield and David Saint-Jacques have captured the imagination of Canadians, especially young people.
Beyond the technical and scientific aspects of Artemis II, it is therefore perhaps this ability to make people dream and to project themselves into something greater than themselves that promises to be the greatest legacy of the return to Moon.
Since his appointment on Monday, Jeremy Hansen has become an ambassador. An ambassador for science, first, a field where models are much rarer than in sectors such as the arts, sports, politics or business.
An ambassador of excellence, then, because if there is one area that leaves no room for error, it is that of space exploration.
Mr. Hansen, you have landed the moon. Your trip will also be ours. We wish you a good one.