(These are initial unfiltered thoughts, but I wanted to get them down here anyway.)

When I was a little kid in Ottawa, as soon as I knew what space was and who astronauts were, I was hooked. Our local science and technology museum had a long-standing exhibit that was a full-size mock-up of a Space Shuttle, complete with a Canadarm you could control from the cockpit. It was the coolest damn thing ever, and I always begged my parents to take me there. If anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'd say "astronaut", without any hesitation.

Without getting into the harder details, it never felt like a real possibility for my life and career. Among many other reasons, a pediatrician told me I'd grow to be 6'5", which by that point I already knew was too tall for the Space Shuttle height restrictions. I reached that height as a teenager, so the doctor was right.

I let the dream fade, but I've always found the concept exciting.

Folks who know me well know that I'm quick to point out when something or someone is Canadian. I make sure everyone know where the best poutine is, and find Tim Hortons to be one of the most comforting things in the world. When I moved to the US, this became a more obvious part of how I interact with people.

It took me for-damn-ever to realize that what really brought this out in me was homesickness. I'm mostly over that now, with a family of my own in Michigan, but the affinity to Canada is something I'll never lose.

I recent years, I haven't followed much of human spaceflight. Admittedly, part of it is because of partisan politics. It's annoying to think of how both Trump administrations have ruined NASA.

But tonight, I watched. I watched the Artemis II launch with my family at dinner time, and I've been welling up this whole time. This mission is full of firsts. The first black person on a lunar mission, the first woman on a lunar mission, and the first non-American on a lunar mission. For all of those, it's also the first time any of them have been outside of low Earth orbit. That last one though, the non-American... that's Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen! There's even Canadian maple syrup on board the spacecraft! This hit me right in the Canadian-pride bone.

The politics in the US are crap (heck, the politics in Canada are crap too), the space program is taking weird directions, and really, borders shouldn't matter when it comes to space exploration (or anything else really). None of that is enough for me to not be ridiculously excited about the mission, and proud of Canada for being involved with it.

I think what really got me emotional about it was the messaging from the crew. In spite of the current leadership of NASA, and indeed the US, the crew decided to lean in to the concept of "Artemis II" -> "A II" -> "all". They make the point with that patch, despite messaging from NASA and the White House, that this mission isn't about America getting back to the moon, it's about humanity getting back to the moon.

When the countdown clock was stopped at 10 minutes for final checks, and the crew gave their go-aheads, this is what they said:

"This is Victor. We are going for our families."

"This is Christina. We are going for our teammates."

"This is Jeremy. We are going for all humanity."

For all humanity. This was all scripted, of course, but the message rung true anyway. And Jeremy, the Canadian mission specialist, was the one who got to say it.

Hell yeah. Go Canada. Go Artemis II. Space is fucking cool.