Jeremy Hansen talks about the lifestyle of an astronaut

Uploaded on July 25, 2016

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Jeremy Hansen talks about the lifestyle of an astronaut

2016-07-25 – Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen describes the lifestyle of an astronaut, from basic training to preparation for a mission. Watch the video to learn more about the three main training periods leading up to a space mission and about how astronauts reconcile family, work and extensive travel. (Credit: Canadian Space Agency)

Jeremy Hansen: Some of our applicants for the Canadian Space Agency astronaut recruitment have been asking, what is the lifestyle of an astronaut. I'll really break it into three time frames. Initially, when you're training as an astronaut in Canada, that takes two years. You'll be living in Houston. Most of your training will be done in Houston, Texas, and you'll travel a little bit to some of our international partners around the world to train.

I would guess during those two years you'll maybe be on the road one to two months, a week at a time, during that time frame. After you're trained and you're waiting for a mission assignment, you're still going to be training and living in Houston, but you're going to be spending more time back in Canada, speaking to our Canadian youth and explaining the inspiration of space flight to our fellow Canadians.

I'd say you're probably going to be gone on average a week a month when you're not assigned. You'll either be in Canada or at our international partners around the world. Right now when you're assigned a mission, you may spend a lot of time away. Probably out of the two years leading up to a mission, you're probably gone away from home about half of that, usually in four- to six-week chunks.

But the future could change as we have commercial spacecraft. It's hard to say. Maybe more of our training will be done in Houston, but really that's kind of what you have to count on. When you're assigned, you'll be gone about half the time. 

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