Vlog 6: One tiny marble in space

Uploaded on February 1, 2024

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Vlog 6: One tiny marble in space

In his first vlog of 2024, CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen reflects on coming together to achieve big goals and how he thinks he will react when he sees our home planet from the perspective of the Moon. (Credits: Canadian Space Agency, NASA, Fulwell 73 UK Limited)

Jeremy Hansen: We are all living together on this one tiny marble in space. If we want to thrive and survive here in the future, we must learn to come together, to collaborate, to take on the biggest challenges that face humanity. 

I just wanted to share this incredible perspective behind me. I’m in the Canadian Embassy with the background of the Capitol building. And for me, it's inspirational because it reminds me of the collaboration that we have together as two countries, as part of a larger collaboration to take humanity back to the Moon with our international partners and eventually on to Mars.

We set big goals and we come together to work on them as a team to create innovative solutions for those problems.

I reflect on often the amazing opportunity our crew will have as we leave Earth in the Orion capsule and fly out towards the Moon.

We're going to see the Earth get small in the window, and eventually we’re going to get far enough away to see the entire blue marble of Earth hanging in the vacuum of space. 

That overview effect, as we often term it, will have an enormous impact on all of us.

And I know that will be a profound and beautiful experience for myself.

We'll fly out. We'll see the Moon get big in the window. But then, even as we are examining the Moon, as we come around the far side, the thing that will grab all of our attention is the Earthrise, the Earth rising up over the edge of the Moon.

It will be a reminder that we are all living together on this one tiny marble in space. If we want to thrive and survive here in the future, we must learn to come together, to collaborate, to take on the biggest  challenges that face humanity.

I'm often speaking with youth today, and I recognize more and more often that they are thinking about the challenges of their future and it worries them.

I have this great faith in humanity that we can overcome these challenges. The hardest part is not the technology or the innovation. The hardest part is getting everyone to work together. But we know it is possible. And we have examples like the International Space Station, an extraordinary visible example of how humanity can do hard things together.

As we go forth to the Moon and on to Mars, we will continue to set that example and to provide the inspiration for our youth to lean in to the big problems, to work together, and to know that everyone on this planet is of equal value and equal importance.

And those are the things that give me tremendous hope for our future.

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