John Larsen2026Foreword by Chris Hadfield
A Canadian Astronaut's Journey Into Deep Space
The story of Jeremy Hansen and NASA's Artemis II, told by John Larsen.
A farm kid who wanted the Moon, a long wait in training, and a crew of four. The flight is short. The road to it is the story.
The core idea
John Larsen is an Alberta writer, a former navy diver and military public affairs officer, who spent three years in conversation with astronaut Jeremy Hansen to write this book. Earthrise follows Hansen from a childhood in a farming community near London, Ontario, where he dreamed of the Moon, through his years of training with the Canadian Space Agency, to his seat on NASA's Artemis II, the first crewed Artemis flight around the Moon. Much of it is told from Hansen's side of the experience: the long preparation, the crew of four, and the family waiting on the ground. Larsen presents the mission as a story about teamwork and about people staying human under pressure, and he wrote it for general readers rather than space specialists. The title points back to the Earthrise photograph taken on Apollo 8, and the book opens with a foreword by Chris Hadfield.
The book is not a technical history of the rocket. It stays close to one person: what it took for Hansen to get a seat, what he carried with him, and who was waiting at home. Larsen has said it is not only for space fans, and the human parts carry it.
Read for yourself, the lesson is about any long goal. The visible moment is short. Most of the work happens in the years before it, among the people who make it possible, and in the conversations you have before you go.
Strand one
Hansen grew up in a farming community near London, Ontario, and wanted to go to the Moon. The book treats that wish as the start of the trip.
Strand two
Years of preparation with the Canadian Space Agency and NASA, most of it unseen, before Artemis II became his first flight.
Strand three
Four people around the Moon and back, with families on the ground. Larsen tells it as a story of teamwork and plain human feeling.
Interactive · the long-road planner
Five waypoints, from naming the goal to the message you will send when it is done. Fill each one and your craft moves along the path. You leave with a one-page flight plan to copy.
Your flight plan
Start with waypoint 01. Your plan fills in here.
HourLife's planner. The waypoints and prompts are ours, drawn from the book's themes, not the author's. What you type stays in this browser.
Concept anatomy
The book covers the whole span, from childhood to the flight. On a timeline in years, the wait fills almost all of it, and the flight is a sliver at the end.
Dates come from NASA and the Canadian Space Agency. HourLife drew the bar; each tick is one year.
Artemis II flew three NASA astronauts and one from the Canadian Space Agency, around the Moon and home. The book follows the mission from the fourth seat.
NASA
Reid Wiseman CommanderNASA
Victor Glover PilotNASA
Christina Koch Mission specialistCSA
Jeremy Hansen Mission specialist · the book follows himCommunity insights
Nº 01HourLife takeaway
Larsen starts with a boy in a farming community near London, Ontario, who wanted to go to the Moon. The book follows how that wish became a career, one step of study, flying and training at a time. The dream mattered less than the work that kept it alive.
Nº 02HourLife takeaway
Hansen was picked as a Canadian Space Agency astronaut in 2009, and Artemis II was his first flight to space. The book gives real weight to the years of training in between. Those quiet years are what made the flight possible.
Nº 03HourLife takeaway
Hansen was selected in 2009 and named to the Artemis II crew in 2023. That gap was full of work, not idleness. HourLife reads it as a lesson in staying prepared without knowing when, or whether, your turn will come.
Nº 04HourLife takeaway
Artemis II flew four people, three NASA astronauts and Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency. Larsen tells the mission as a story of teamwork, and Hansen's crewmates sit at the centre of his experience, not in the background.
Nº 05HourLife takeaway
Larsen has described a call with Hansen on the evening before launch, when Hansen talked about saying goodbye to his family. A real risk made those conversations unavoidable. Most of us can have them without a rocket forcing the issue.
Nº 06HourLife takeaway
Larsen has said the part of the story that reached people most was how openly the crew showed love for their families and for each other. The book does not treat fear or tenderness as flaws in a trained astronaut. They sit beside the discipline, not against it.
Nº 07HourLife takeaway
The title points back to Earthrise, the photograph of Earth over the lunar horizon taken on Apollo 8 in 1968. Seeing the whole planet at once changed how many people thought about home. Step far enough back and many of the week's quarrels look small.
Nº 08HourLife takeaway
Hansen was the one Canadian on a NASA crew, chosen to be the first non-American to travel beyond low Earth orbit. The subtitle frames him as a Canadian astronaut, with a country following from the ground. When you are the first from your group to do something, you stand for more than yourself.
Nº 09HourLife takeaway
Larsen wrote to the Canadian Space Agency with the idea in 2023, then spent about three years and some 300 hours in texts, calls and visits with Hansen. The result stays close to one person's experience. Long, unglamorous listening is how a writer earns that closeness.
Action steps
Write one goal you have wanted for a long time in a single sentence. Put it where you will see it each morning.
List the skills the goal needs and a rough number of years to build them. Split the first year into four quarters with one focus each.
Choose one person who keeps you honest, one who knows more than you, and one who looks after home. Tell each of them what you are attempting.
Before your next big step, such as a move, a new job or a hard exam, sit down with the people who will feel it most. Tell them what you are doing, why, and what you need from them.
Set NASA's Earthrise photograph from Apollo 8 as your phone or desktop background. Let it remind you to zoom out once a day.
Book one session a week for the skill your goal needs most. Keep it on the calendar in the quiet months, when no deadline is pushing you.
Once a month, send each of your three people a short note: what you did, what is stuck, and what is next.
Each Sunday, write down the week's biggest worry, then ask how it will look a year from now. Cross out what will not matter.
When you finish something hard, tell the people who waited for you, in a line or two. They carried part of it too.
The long wait and the short flight are one story, and the people at home are in it too.HourLife note after John Larsen
Pick setup actions and daily habits from Earthrise: A Canadian Astronaut's Journey Into Deep Space, choose a start date, and download a printable checklist with real calendar pages.
John Larsen is an Alberta writer, a former navy diver and military public affairs officer, who spent three years in conversation with astronaut Jeremy Hansen to write this book. Earthrise follows Hansen from a childhood in a farming community near London, Ontario, where he dreamed of the Moon, through his years of training with the Canadian Space Agency, to his seat on NASA's Artemis II, the first crewed Artemis...
HourLife’s key takeaways include: A childhood dream is worth keeping if you are willing to feed it with years of work. Being ready is mostly invisible work, done long before anyone is watching. You may wait far longer than you planned, so build a life that keeps you ready while you wait.
It's a strong pick for readers exploring High Performance, History Worth Knowing, and The Courage Curriculum. HourLife distills its core idea into key insights and practical actions worth trying.
Name your Moon — Write one goal you have wanted for a long time in a single sentence. Put it where you will see it each morning.
About five minutes. The HourLife summary distills Earthrise: A Canadian Astronaut's Journey Into Deep Space into its core idea, 9 community insights, and 9 practical actions you can apply right away.
One idea from one book and one small habit from another, every week or once a month, on the day and around the hour you pick, where you are. Nothing else, and one link stops it.
Print it, pin it, post it. Ways to take Earthrise: A Canadian Astronaut's Journey Into Deep Space off the screen and into the world.
The core idea, key takeaways, and how to apply Earthrise: A Canadian Astronaut's Journey Into Deep Space, as one clean, readable page.
Read summaryEvery action from this page as a printable to-do list, with a 7-day tracker.
Download PDFA shareable card with the book and its top-voted insight, for saving or posting.
The summary card and every quote card in six sizes: Instagram feed, Story, Pinterest, YouTube thumbnail, phone wallpaper, and link preview.
Save the insights that land, build the habits that stick, and keep what you learn from Earthrise: A Canadian Astronaut's Journey Into Deep Space working long after you close the page — inside HourLife.
