Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen has been where few have gone before — the dark side of the moon. On Sunday, he took one small step (OK, several of them) down the red carpet for the Indy 500.
Last month, Hansen and three fellow astronauts — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch — took a voyage into outer space as part of the Artemis II mission.
They slipped past Earth’s orbit, traveling further than any humans before them in reaching a distance of more than 250,000 miles beyond our planet. It broke the previous record set by Apollo 13 in 1970.
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen in Indianapolis for Indy 500
On Sunday, Hansen joined several other celebrities who smiled and waved to throngs of excited Indy 500 fans gathered at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to watch the greatest spectacle in racing.
Hansen had been on hand for many of the Indy 500 festivities.
Clad in his blue flight suit, the astronaut was spotted earlier on Carb Day, May 22, walking with Arrow McLaren driver Nolan Siegel and others. He shook hands and posed for photos at the Wienie 500 and waved to the crowd Saturday, May 23, during the Lucas Oil 500 Festival Parade.
He’s been touched, Hansen said, not only about the positive response he’s received in Indianapolis, but in the parallels he found among Indycar’s racing teams.
“People keep coming up to me and talking about the joy they witnessed in the (Artemis II) mission, the joy of people sharing their gifts and accomplishing hard tasks. I really felt that in these teams here,” Hansen told reporters Friday.
“There’s a joy in people having meaningful purpose, working together to get it done,” he said.
Hansen was asked about these classic Indiana foods. His response…
Hansen’s mission to the moon required serious grit, but as he strolled down the red carpet Sunday, he stopped to answer a fun question reporters posed about traditional Hoosier dishes.
IndyStar asked the mission specialist what foods he would “binge, savor or trash” among these choices: a pork tenderloin sandwich, Indiana sweet corn and sugar cream pie.
Hansen had these responses.
“I guess I’d have to trash the corn, but that just seems like a poor choice, to be honest. But you’re making me do it,” he said.
He hasn’t yet had a tenderloin sandwich or sugar cream pie in Indiana but said he would try to rectify that shortly.
“Now that I know this is a thing, I guess tonight I’ve got to try and track some down,” Hansen said.
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John Tufts covers trending news for IndyStar and Midwest Connect. Send him a news tip at John.Tufts@IndyStar.com. Find him on BlueSky at JohnWritesStuff.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Astronaut Jeremy Hansen has seen the moon, but not this Indiana food?
Reporting by John Tufts and Domenica Bongiovanni, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
