Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who’s scheduled to lift off as part of NASA’s historic Artemis 2 mission next year — the first crewed mission to the Moon since the 1970s — has an unusual plan for what to do on the launch pad.
Hansen, who has yet to fly to space, told Ars Technica senior space reporter Eric Berger that he’s hoping to “take a very short nap on the pad.”
The crew will climb into the Orion spacecraft roughly three hours before liftoff, giving him ample time for some shuteye.
“There’s enough time built in there to have a nap,” he said. “I’ve been practicing falling asleep. So if the loops are quiet enough, and I get a minute, I’ll try for a nap.”
It’s an unusual way to spend your last moments on Earth before traveling to the Moon and back over a ten-day mission. If all goes according to plan, NASA is hoping to launch its Artemis 2 mission as soon as February 5, two months earlier than originally planned, setting the stage for the first planned lunar landing in over half a century sometime in 2027.
But staying asleep well into the launch window likely will be anything but easy.
“About seven seconds prior to liftoff, the four main engines light, and they come up to full power,” mission commander Reid Wiseman told Berger. “And then the solids light, and that’s when you’re going.”
Apart from his napping plans, Hansen admitted he was “definitely worried” about experiencing “space adaptation syndrome,” the sickness accompanying weightlessness experienced by many astronauts.
While the crew of four won’t be touching down on the Moon itself, they’re aiming to travel farther than any human has ever done, reaching around 250,000 miles from Earth, and 6,400 miles beyond the far side of the Moon.
They will be collecting valuable data in anticipation of Artemis 3, which will involve SpaceX’s still-in-development Starship spacecraft, to walk on the lunar South Pole.
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