Space travel voyage begins with staring at the stars on the farm’s front porch

From a cattle ranch in Alberta to the final frontier, Joshua Kutryk is making national history.

Spending his childhood staring at the stars from a remote cow-calf operation east of Vegreville, Alta., Kutryk will now be part of them as the first Canadian Space Agency astronaut to be part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Scheduled tentatively for a mid-September blast off, Kutryk has been assigned to NASA’s SpaceX Crew to the International Space Station for a six-month mission. He will be launching aboard a SpaceX Falcon Nine two-stage medium lift rocket, inside a Dragon spaceship capsule.

WHY IT MATTERS: Kutryk’s rural upbringing comes full circle as the astronaut’s mission will have agricultural implications in its research, along with being a springboard for future longer missions in the rigors of living in space.

And it all started with a childhood curiousity of the skies.

“I do have distinct memories, even as a kid, of of looking at the night sky in Alberta, especially in the winter, and dreaming about that stuff,” he recalls.

“I always wanted to be an astronaut, ever since I was six. I never thought it was possible … but here I am.”