(Washington) Marc Garneau, a former astronaut, says he is eager to find out the name of the next Canadian space explorer who will participate in the lunar mission.
NASA and the Canadian Space Agency will introduce the four astronauts — three Americans and one Canadian — who will form the first crew to go to the moon in more than 50 years.
The Artemis II mission is scheduled for November 2024. Canada will become the second country, after the United States, to place one of its astronauts in orbit around the Moon.
Marc Garneau participated in three missions on the space shuttle. He says he would happily return to space, but is happy to pass the torch to another Canadian astronaut to make history.
Gordon Osinski, director of the Institute for Earth and Space Exploration at Western University in London, says this is a tremendous opportunity for Canada’s space program.
The long-term plans are to send a man and a woman to the Moon in 2025. The ultimate goal is to prepare a base to allow the transit of astronauts to the planet Mars.
