After several months of preparing to become an astronaut, Chatham-Kent native Dr. Erik Kroeker has reached the end of his journey.
This year 72 candidates competed for one of two spots to be astronauts through the Canadian Space Agency's months of rigorous physical and mental testing.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced during the Canada Day speeches on Saturday in Ottawa that engineer Jennifer Sidey and Royal Canadian Air Force officer Joshua Kutryk are the country's newest astronauts.
Kroeker, who is a scientist and professor at the University of Illinois, made it to the short list of 17 candidates before losing the competition.
Kroeker says he was eliminated early on in the competition due to failing physical and medical exams, though he could not reveal this information until after the announcement due to a confidentially agreement.
"The requirements for being an astronaut are really really high. For me, it doesn't even mean that something is wrong today. It's just that there's an elevated risk of there being something 10 to 15 years down the line, so really this just reinforces how difficult these processes can be," explains Kroeker.
Kroeker considers the end of the competition an opportunity to refocus on his career and what he's been doing already.
"None of us are living plan B. All of us are really engaged in careers and paths that we've really worked hard for and lived our whole lives for. Quite frankly, not being an astronaut is not really the end of the road [for] anything," he says.
The professor says he is beyond excited for Sidey and Kutryk. He adds that he could not think of any two people better to win the competition.
