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FIRST READING: Why a Canadian, of all people, is on Trump's moon rocket

NASA traded a seat on a moon mission for a robot arm (that they now don't need)

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FIRST READING: Why a Canadian, of all people, is on Trump's moon rocket Back to video

When a 33-year-old Jeremy Hansen was first selected as one of two Canadian astronauts in 2009, it couldn’t have come at a bleaker time for human space exploration.

The space shuttle — the only vehicle that had ever carried Canadians into space — was lurching towards retirement, and NASA had no clear plans for a replacement.

The International Space Station was approaching the end of a lifespan that had only been budgeted at 15 years.

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SpaceX was an obscure California startup that had launched precisely one rocket that hadn’t blown up. Teething issues with the company were so overwhelming that company founder Elon Musk would later describe this period as the “worst” of his life.

As Hansen himself would acknowledge in interviews at the time, he could very well become the first Canadian with an astronaut pin to never actually see space.

He’d train. He’d lead courses for other astronauts. And he’d serve as CAPCOM (capsule communicator) for other crewed missions. All the while, he’d patiently perform an endless series of ceremonial duties, school visits and public relations appearances for the Government of Canada.

But with most astronauts retiring by age 48, it seemed unlikely that Hansen’s 15 years as a flight-ready astronaut would coincide with any missions willing to take him. At best, he’d maybe get a quick trip to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz, which was the fate of David Saint-Jacques, who entered the astronaut corps at the same time as Hansen.

“I’m waiting for my ride,” was Hansen’s usual response when schoolchildren asked him if he had yet been to space.

What changed was U.S. President Donald Trump, and a Canadian eagerness to trade robot arms for a trip to the moon.

Artemis II has its ultimate origins in Space Policy Directive-1, a 2017 memorandum by the Trump administration ordering NASA to prioritize “the return of humans to the Moon.”

“President Donald Trump is sending astronauts back to the Moon,” read NASA’s own brief of the new directive.

No mention was made of Canada in the directive, or in a ceremonial announcement that included moon rocks and a delegation of surviving Apollo astronauts.

Rather, just like Trump’s current rhetoric on the mission, the emphasis was on establishing a permanent American presence on the moon, and furthering the cause of “American leadership.”

Canada – and Hansen – entered the plans much more quietly. In late 2020, the Canadian Space Agency first announced the terms of the Gateway Treaty.

We’re proud to have signed a historic space treaty with NASA that secures a strong role for Canada in the Lunar Gateway and confirms two flights to the Moon for our astronauts. We can definitely say that we are over the Moon (you knew that was coming!)! What about you, @NASA? pic.twitter.com/D2tP1hH4Un— Canadian Space Agency (@csa_asc) December 16, 2020

We’re proud to have signed a historic space treaty with NASA that secures a strong role for Canada in the Lunar Gateway and confirms two flights to the Moon for our astronauts. We can definitely say that we are over the Moon (you knew that was coming!)! What about you, @NASA? pic.twitter.com/D2tP1hH4Un

In exchange for a Canadian seat aboard the next “crewed mission to the Moon,” Canada promised to build the robot arm for the Lunar Gateway, a planned NASA space station to orbit the moon.

It was to be the third iteration of the “Canadarm,” the robot arm that Canada had built for both the space shuttle and the International Space Station.

And it wouldn’t be cheap. The preliminary design for the Canadarm3 cost $268.9 million. And the final build contract, announced in June 2024, was for $999.8 million.

Still, with the total cost of Artemis II working out to roughly US$4 billion, the Canadarm3 budget works out to roughly one quarter the cost of the four-person moon mission.

The agreement was formalized at a unique moment in U.S. politics. Trump had just lost the 2020 election, and was actively leading a campaign alleging that the vote had been rigged.

As such, the terms of the Gateway Treaty went almost entirely unnoticed by the U.S. press, and just at the beginning of a window where the Trump White House would lose direct influence over the program. The Canadian deal would be one of the last actions of Trump-appointed NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine. Just a month later, he’d resign in favour of Bill Nelson, the chosen appointee of the incoming administration of Joe Biden.

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But the seat on Artemis II had gone to Canada largely because Ottawa had first dibs.

The Canadian Space Agency has a track record of pledging allegiance to new NASA programs, even the ones that didn’t work out. A strategy once described in a policy framework as “ensuring that Canada is a sought-after partner in the international space exploration missions that serve Canada’s national interests.”

In 2014, for instance, Canada promised to build components for NASA’s Resource Prospector Mission, a plan to build a robotic moon rover.

And although the mission was ultimately cancelled, it was in these negotiations that the first press reports emerged of an eventual plan to ensure that a Canadian would be aboard the next NASA mission into deep space.

When the Gateway Treaty was announced in 2020, Bridenstine confirmed that Canada had been first to try to get in on the Artemis program. “Canada was the first international partner to commit to advancing the Gateway in early 2019, they signed the Artemis Accords in October, and now we’re excited to formalize this partnership for lunar exploration,” he said.

But with Hansen having already broken the record as the first non-American to leave Earth’s orbit, the little-known irony is that Canada secured his seat in exchange for a billion-dollar robot arm that no longer has a place to go.

Just last week, with Artemis II already on the launch pad, NASA announced that it was scrapping the Lunar Gateway station in favour of a ground-based moon base.

As gas prices reach dizzying highs as a result of war in Iran, Canada stands alone as the only country that is raising fuel taxes rather than lowering them.

More than a dozen European countries including Italy, Poland, Spain, Portugal and Norway have introduced tax holidays of up to 30 per cent to offset the spiking costs of gasoline and diesel. Last week in Australia, the government halved excise taxes by 50 per cent for the next three months.  

In Canada, by contrast, April 1 marked a 16 per cent increase to the industrial carbon tax, which is likely to raise fuel prices by about three cents per litre.

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