The feeling is still somewhere behind them.
Somewhere between the moon and the California coast, four astronauts were lining up their capsule for one of the most precise and unforgiving maneuvers in human spaceflight. On Friday evening, the Orion spacecraft carrying the Artemis II crew — including Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — was set to hit the Pacific Ocean off San Diego at roughly 38,000 kilometres an hour, capping a mission that had already rewritten the record books.
Chris Hadfield, who knows something about the weight of a homecoming, had been in email contact with Hansen in the hours before re-entry. The exchange, Hadfield told Global News, was both mundane and extraordinary — the kind of correspondence that only becomes remarkable when you remember the sender is coasting back from the far side of the moon. Hansen's message was simple: he was going to miss it. The ship, the experience, the view. But he and his crewmates had already shifted their attention to the work ahead.
The re-entry sequence is not forgiving. Hadfield laid it out with the precision of someone who has thought hard about orbital mechanics and harder about what goes wrong. The capsule has to enter the atmosphere at exactly the right angle — too shallow and it skips off like a stone on water, creating serious problems for the trajectory that follows; too steep and the heat becomes unsurvivable. The crew must jettison the service module, expose the capsule's heat shield — kept pristine against micrometeorite damage throughout the journey — and then trust the onboard computer to steer them through the fireball phase, bleeding off speed until they're slow enough to deploy the drogue chutes and then the three main parachutes. Hadfield called it an amazing half-hour ride. He did not mean that lightly.
The mission itself had already secured its place in history before the splashdown. The Artemis II crew completed a six-hour loop around the moon this week, traveling farther from Earth than any human beings ever have. Hansen, in doing so, became the first person from a country other than the United States to leave Earth's orbit. No Soviet cosmonaut, no Russian, no Chinese taikonaut had ever done it. Canada got there first, and Hadfield was direct about what that means: everyone in the country should take pride in it.
Hadfield himself was the first Canadian to conduct a spacewalk, so he understands the particular weight of being a national first. But he framed Hansen's achievement in broader terms — not just a Canadian milestone, but a marker in the longer arc of human expansion. The Apollo program explored the moon. Artemis, in his telling, is about something more permanent: the beginning of a sustained human presence there, analogous to the way Antarctic research stations were established a century ago. Hansen and his three crewmates are, whether they've fully processed it yet or not, the opening chapter of that story.
Processing it, Hadfield noted, takes time. The emotional reality of what the crew has experienced tends to lag behind the experience itself — there is simply too much incoming sensation, too much that is new and strange and beautiful, for the mind to absorb in real time. Hansen has said as much himself, admitting that he and the others have been reaching for vocabulary that doesn't quite exist yet. They've taken tens of thousands of photographs. They'll spend the rest of their lives sorting out what it meant.
For now, though, the task is simpler and more immediate: get the angle right, ride the fireball down, and land in the Pacific. The rest can wait.
Notable Quotes
They're focusing on getting it all done right — lining up the vehicle at exactly the right angle, jettisoning the service module, and flying it down through the atmosphere.— Chris Hadfield, paraphrased, speaking to Global News
Nobody has ever left Earth orbit except Americans — no Soviet, Russian, or Chinese astronaut. The very first country after the United States to have someone leave Earth is Canada.— Chris Hadfield, speaking to Global News
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What's the thing about this re-entry that most people probably don't appreciate?
The margin for error. A few degrees too shallow and the capsule skips off the atmosphere entirely. A few degrees too steep and the heat kills everyone aboard. There's no middle ground to negotiate.
Hadfield was emailing with Hansen while he was on the way back from the moon. What does that detail tell us?
That even at the edge of human experience, people reach for the ordinary. An email. A note to a friend. It's the most human thing imaginable.
Hansen being the first non-American to leave Earth's orbit — how significant is that really?
Enormously. Sixty-plus years of human spaceflight, and every single person who left Earth's orbit was American. That's not a small club to finally open.
Hadfield compared this to Antarctica a hundred years ago. What's he getting at?
That exploration eventually becomes habitation. The first people to overwinter in Antarctica weren't tourists — they were the beginning of something permanent. He thinks Artemis is the same inflection point for the moon.
Hansen said he's going to miss it. What does that tell you about the experience?
That even in the middle of the most demanding and dangerous phase of the mission, part of him is already grieving the end of it. That's not distraction — that's someone who was fully present for something rare.
What happens to the crew emotionally after they land?
Hadfield's point is that the emotions haven't caught up yet. They've been running so fast through so much that the feeling is still somewhere behind them. The real reckoning comes later, quietly, over years.
Is there a version of this mission that goes wrong tonight?
Yes, and everyone involved knows it. That's what the focus is for. Not celebration — not yet. Getting the angle right. Getting it all done right.