Jeremy Hansen astronaut story starts on a farm outside London, Ontario. He found circuit breakers in the barn and used them as switches in his treehouse. He called it a spaceship. He explored space in his imagination until he was old enough to do it for real. He is currently in orbit and NASA put his story on the record this week alongside the rest of the Artemis 2 crew.

What does it feel like to hear an astronaut sound nothing like the clipped alpha mission leader you assumed astronauts sounded like? Jeremy Hansen talks about doubt, about other people lifting him up, about the realization that you do not go to the moon alone any more than you could do it in a treehouse as a kid. Christina Koch loved being outside, loved feeling small, loved the vastness of mountains and oceans and the night sky through pine branches. These are giant nerds and they sat there and dreamed it into being.

Throwback Thursday is 1969 and Apollo 11 tonight. The connection between a farm kid with a treehouse and the moment 56 years ago when humanity first went to the moon is direct and it is real.

Topics: Jeremy Hansen astronaut story, Artemis 2 crew NASA, 1969 Apollo 11 throwback, Christina Koch mission specialist, Canadian Space Agency

RUNDOWN: NASA's Artemis 2 crew stories land for Throwback Thursday with Jeremy Hansen on a treehouse spaceship in rural Ontario and Christina Koch on mountains and oceans and feeling small, before the show turns back to 1969 and what connects Apollo 11 to the crew currently orbiting Earth.

Originally aired on 2026-04-02