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Artemis 2 astronaut Jeremy Hansen felt like he was \u201cfalling out of the sky\u201d as his spacecraft followed its complex flight path to the Moon<\/a>, the Canadian said in a Saturday video call.<\/p>\n The four Artemis astronauts have passed the halfway point<\/a> between Earth and the Moon on Saturday morning \u2014 more than 150,000 miles (241,000 kilometres) from home \u2014 as they zipped toward the first crewed lunar flyby in more than half a century.<\/p>\n Hansen, a 50-year-old former fighter pilot on his maiden voyage into space, said he saw \u201csome extraordinary things\u201d during the first hours aboard the Orion.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the time we had a bit of a nap and got up, the Earth was just so far away,\u201d Hansen, flanked by American crewmates Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman, told a question-and-answer session hosted by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).<\/p>\n Hansen then described the translunar injection burn \u2014 a maneuver that brought Orion within 200 kilometres of Earth before swinging around onto a new course for the Moon.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just felt like we were falling out of the sky back to Earth, and I said to Reid, \u2018It feels like we\u2019re gonna hit it,\u2019\u201d Hansen said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s amazing that we\u2019re actually gonna go around and miss this thing. It was just so close and so to take all of that in was really phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n Hansen, who joined the CSA in 2009 following his career as a fighter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, will be the first non-American to fly around the Moon.<\/p>\n Orion\u2019s next milestone, set to take place on day five of the 10-day mission, is to enter the lunar sphere of influence, where the Moon\u2019s gravitational pull exceeds that of the Earth, according to NASA.<\/p>\n Hansen said he was looking forward to an up-close view of the far side of the Moon and seeing \u201can eclipse of the Sun behind the Moon, which will be pretty neat\u201d.<\/p>\n Hansen once cited a childhood encounter with a photograph of Neil Armstrong on the Moon as the seed of his passion for space exploration.<\/p>\n Asked about advice for children, the father of three urged youngsters to \u201cfollow your passions, but also share your passions with other people\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cTo get big things done like we\u2019re doing in this capsule, to travel to the moon, to fly around the moon, you need a big team behind you. And that\u2019s true for all of us in our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/a>\u2018Like falling out of the sky\u2019<\/h2>\n