Interview with Colonel Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency
This interview was originally posted on careersinlanguage.com.au — an old side project to promote foreign language subjects for high school students.
With the establishment of the Australian Space Agency as of July 1st, 2018, Careers in Language not only wanted to celebrate a new career path for Australian students, but also to acknowledge that language does play a role in becoming an astronaut!
The International Space Station (ISS) has two official languages; English and Russian. All astronauts are expected to have a working proficiency in both languages, and there are currently five space agencies working on the ISS; NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA, and CSA.
We spoke to Colonel Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, one of two Canadians set to head up to the ISS.
Jeremy joined a program called Air Cadets, which lead to him joining the Royal Canadian Air Force, getting a Bachelor of Science in Space Science and a Masters of Science in Physics (his research focus was Wide Field of View Satellite Tracking) from the Royal Military College in Kingston, and becoming a CF-18 fighter jet pilot, achieving the rank of Captain.
In 2009, Jeremy applied for the space program, got it, and has since been promoted to Colonel. While working on…
