A square-jawed fighter pilot from southwestern Ontario donned the mantle of Canada’s newest space hero Monday as his country joined the United States in a bid to usher in a new era of daring global adventures beyond the moon and the stars.
Col. Jeremy Hansen, a CF-18 pilot from London, Ont., emerged from a crowd of cheering fellow astronauts, a Maple Leaf patch on the shoulder of his flight suit, to officially join the crew of four that will helm Artemis II, the first trip to lunar space in 52 years.
“It’s not lost on any of us that the United States could choose to go back to the moon by themselves,” Hansen, 47, told the gathering inside a sweltering hangar at Ellington Field, a joint military facility and flight operations base in Houston.
Instead, the U.S. made a “deliberate choice” decades ago to build a team of experts, engineers, adventurers and dreamers from all over the world — a display of true leadership, he said, and a global mindset that no one can do it all by themselves.
“At the end of it all, I am left in awe of being reminded what strong leadership — setting big goals with a passion to collaborate and a can-do attitude — can achieve,” Hansen said.
“We’re going to the moon together. Let’s go.”
Monday’s spectacle was a long way from the smoky rooms, slide-rules and short white shirt sleeves of past moon missions, an orchestrated rock-show effort to rekindle the excitement that space exploration engendered in the 1960s.
To a soaring, cinematic soundtrack, slickly produced “sizzle reels” offered a Hollywood vision of NASA’s history of space exploration and what Artemis II might look like when it finally takes off, which is currently scheduled to happen in November 2024.
A group of science-minded schoolchildren, American flags in hand, whooped and hollered and waved from the side of the stage, a living embodiment of the mission’s target audience — as well as a handy reference point for some of the soaring rhetoric.
“Our friends in Canada, thank you for being allies for life, thank you for being friends that have stood with us in bad times and in good times,” said Texas congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
“The children of America,” she said, gesturing to the kids, “are symbols of what is great about America and Canada working together.”
The other three astronauts on the Artemis II mission are all American: mission commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Hammock Koch.
“It’s difficult to pick just four from a group that by its very definition attracts the best and the brightest that humanity has to offer,” said Norm Knight, chief of NASA’s flight director office.
Knight said the astronauts will be the “forerunners as humanity looks to find its place among the stars.”
Artemis II will be the first crewed mission to the moon since the final Apollo mission took flight in 1972. After orbiting Earth, the crew will rocket hundreds of thousands of kilometres for a figure-8 around the moon before their momentum brings them home.
It will make Canada and the U.S. the only two countries to ever venture into deep space — the region beyond the dark side of the moon.
“I’m very, very excited to see that a Canadian has been chosen to actually go to the moon. It’s a major event for us,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, giving credit to Hansen and calling him an “exceptional individual” who “will do all Canadians proud.”
The mission is a precursor test to ensure all systems are go for the next phase of Artemis: to put a man and woman on the moon as early as 2025, an effort in service of the ultimate goal of eventually dispatching astronauts to Mars.
In an interview, Hansen expressed gratitude for all of the Canadian space explorers who have gone before him and helped to blaze a trail — not only into space, but also into the often closed ranks of U.S. aeronautics.
“When I showed up, it was already clear we were standing on the shoulders of the people who came before,” he said, citing Marc Garneau and Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian man and woman to go to space, as inspiration.
“We are very much in the mindset of, ‘We need all hands on deck right now.’ We can’t afford to separate and divide the corps out. We need everyone to contribute.”
Federal Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, who was on stage for Monday’s announcement, could barely contain his excitement — especially as he donned a custom-made version of NASA’s trademark sky-blue flight jacket.
“We’re going to the moon, and this time Canada’s front and centre,” Champagne said. “I hope it helps Canadians to dream big. Go Canada — this is our moment to shine.”
Research back on the ground in Canada is helping to develop a new lunar utility vehicle for future missions on the surface of the moon, as well as to develop new ways to produce food with limited resources in the forbidding environment of deep space, he added.
“This is about possibilities, this is about seizing the opportunities of the space economy from health and food security, to climate change and much more.”
In the “Deep Space Food Challenge,” launched in 2021, participants must develop ways to produce food in harsh environments with few resources — think Matt Damon in “The Martian” — that will one day be necessary to sustain life.
Those challenges will only become more difficult as Artemis moves into its later stages, which include a long-term presence on the moon and ultimately voyaging to Mars.
“As one scientist only recently said, ‘The science of today is the economy of tomorrow,”‘ Champagne said. “By increasing the complexity, that’s why we push the boundaries of science and innovation.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 3, 2023.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
VICTORIA – British Columbia’s Environment Assessment Office has fined Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. $590,000 for “deficiencies” in the construction of its pipeline crossing the province.
The office says in a statement that 10 administrative penalties have been levied against the company for non-compliance with requirements of its environmental assessment certificate.
It says the fines come after problems with erosion and sediment control measures were identified by enforcement officers along the pipeline route across northern B.C. in April and May 2023.
The office says that the latest financial penalties reflect its escalation of enforcement due to repeated non-compliance of its requirements.
Four previous penalties have been issued for failing to control erosion and sediment valued at almost $800,000, while a fifth fine of $6,000 was handed out for providing false or misleading information.
The office says it prioritized its inspections along the 670-kilometre route by air and ground as a result of the continued concerns, leading to 59 warnings and 13 stop-work orders along the pipeline that has now been completed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
