CALGARY -- Two Albertans have added their names to NASA’s basic astronaut training graduate list.
Calgarian Jenni Sidey-Gibbons and Joshua Kutryk, from Fort Saskatchewan, celebrated the completion of basic training Friday at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Tex.
They are the Canadian Space Agency’s 13th and 14th astronauts.
Sidey-Gibbons and Kutryk were part of a 13-person team that went through an extensive program that makes them eligible to head up, up and away.
Those 13 astronauts were chosen in 2017 from more than 18,000 applicants.
“We owe a lot to our hometowns and our home province and to the entire Canadian Space Agency,” Sidey Gibbons told CTV News. “We have these exceptional role models who have been part of our astronaut core and some exceptional leadership back in Canada.”
The pair is now able to travel to space — and possibly to the moon — during a time when multiple countries are looking to ramp up trips past the International Space Station.
“NASA's next big pivot and move is to establish a permanent presence on the moon,” Kutryk said. “They're trying to land humans there by 2024.”
“The future has never been brighter.”
The training the new astronauts went through involved several skills that will help them in space, including language, robotics proficiency, flight and spacewalking.
Kutryk said he’s happy to be leaving the tough work in Houston behind, and ready to focus on the next step in his career.
“We're proud to be Canadian on this day because we get to take the opportunity to gaze forward at what things are going to look like and they're very, very exciting.”
And the duo aren’t the only ones making Canucks proud. Their supervisor, Ontario-born astronaut Jeremy Hansen, was the first-ever Canadian to oversee NASA’s program.
