Three locals a step closer to becoming astronauts
Canadian Space Agency narrows field to just 17
WATERLOO REGION — Petersburg’s Francis Frenzel says it’s “inherently human to want to explore and discover the unknown.” It doesn’t get much more unknown than outer space.
The Royal Canadian Air Force pilot-in-training is one of three people with local connections who are finalists to be one of Canada’s next astronauts.
The others are Jesse Zroback, a family physician in Marathon, Ont., who studied chemical engineering at the University of Waterloo, and Matthew Bamsey, an engineer at an aerospace centre in Germany who studied environmental biology at the University of Guelph.
After starting with 3,772 applicants, the Canadian Space Agency trimmed its list of potential astronauts down to 72, then 32 and now 17. The final two candidates chosen will have to relocate to Houston, Texas, this summer, and take part in NASA’s basic training at the Johnson Space Center.
Zroback, a Virginia-born doctor, said his passion for space exploration started as a teenager when he watched space shuttles launch and studied the rings of Saturn through his telescope.
“As a kid, I looked at the night sky in admiration of the moon and of humankind’s accomplishment for having explored its surface,” he said.
Bamsey, meanwhile, is working on a project to develop a greenhouse that will be sent to researchers in Antarctica.
“Humans need to explore. We need to be doing something outside of our day to day to push boundaries, to come up with new ideas, to understand what is possible,” he told the space agency.
Frenzel, born in Newmarket and based out of Canadian Forces Base Trenton, helps co-ordinate the flights of Canada’s largest squadron. He studied space robotics at the University of Toronto.