Lessons from an astronaut: Artemis II crew shares advice on risk, work and friendship

MONTREAL — Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and his Artemis II crewmates have shared some of the life lessons they learned preparing for and carrying out their record-breaking lunar flyby last month.

Their 10-day mission launched April 1 from Florida, taking Hansen and his three American crewmates — commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch — farther from Earth than any humans before them.

The crew attended an event Friday hosted by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal, where they were asked to share advice they learned that could help people on Earth. Here’s what they had to say:

On teamwork

Hansen told the crowd that the astronaut team committed to developing a close relationship and worked on it constantly, like building and exercising a new muscle. He said the crew leaned on behavioural health experts to help build their communication skills.

“We asked them to help us have some of the hard conversations,” he said. “It’s just that commitment. And what we learned was, we know (that) no matter what happens, whatever hurdle we run into, we know at the centre of that is the desire to be a strong team and truly, underneath all that, we do love each other.”

Koch said the team “chose each other day after day, even the days that we wanted to maybe be somewhere else.”

“The grind is real. We chose that. We chose the group hug, and put that choice first,” she added, as a picture of the crew embracing flashed on the screen behind her.

On pressure

Koch said the team prepared to handle the pressure of the mission by training for “low-probability, high-stakes situations” that were unlikely to occur. She said this preparation allowed the crew to feel a sense of calm while in space.

“We made a point to make sure that our plans, if we got to space and literally never heard a word from mission control again, we would know how to get ourselves safely back on Earth,” she said. “And that vigilance builds in resilience.”

Glover stressed the importance of repeating the same skills over and over again until basic tasks were automatic, in what he called “practice makes process.”

In space, “we didn’t have to think and actively process the basics so that we could focus our attention on the novel or unique parts, and I can’t overemphasize that,” he said.

On risk

Wiseman said the risk of the mission was a reminder for the team to spend time with loved ones and leave nothing unsaid.

“It was to call your old friends and just have a quick conversation, just to remind people to walk in nature and look at grass and watch a bird fly,” he said. “We all of a sudden had a driving force to just look at our lives and make sure everything was in order.”

Glover said he leaned on prayer as well as trust in the people working to ensure the mission’s success.

“I think that trust that was built on that team and their judgment and that data, combined with faith — we weren’t built to be in fear — gave us the opportunity to be clear-eyed,” he said.

On failure

Hansen says some people mistakenly believe that failure is not an option for astronauts, which is “just not true.”

“But the difference is, in our culture, we will not stop when we meet failure,” he said. “We will just keep creating a solution.” He told the business crowd gathered in Montreal that this attitude will be important in the coming years, as Canada is asked once again to help develop new technologies to guide future space exploration.

“If we want to stay at that leading edge, if we want to continue to be a valued partner on the international world stage with respect to space, we’re going to ask a lot of our industry like we always have, and they’re going meet with failure,” he said. “But the expectation is — and of course, it’s a Canadian core value — we’re not going to quit.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 15, 2026.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press