{"id":88425,"date":"2017-02-08T02:10:08","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T07:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=88425"},"modified":"2017-02-08T02:10:08","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T07:10:08","slug":"saskatchewan-raised-pilot-makes-space-agencys-short-list-for-astronauts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/02\/08\/saskatchewan-raised-pilot-makes-space-agencys-short-list-for-astronauts\/","title":{"rendered":"Saskatchewan raised pilot makes space agency’s short list for astronauts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Saskatchewan<\/a>
Saskatchewan raised pilot makes space agency’s short list for astronauts (Photo: Jason Leuschen\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BRUNO, Sask.\u2014A Royal Canadian Air Force pilot with Saskatchewan roots could be headed to the stars.<\/p>\n

Jason Leuschen was born in B.C., but his family moved to a farm near Bruno, east of Saskatoon, when he was three years old.<\/p>\n

He eventually earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Saskatchewan before joining the RCAF to train as a helicopter pilot.<\/p>\n

Now Leuschen is one of 72 candidates remaining in the Canadian Space Agency’s search to fill two positions for astronauts.<\/p>\n

The competition began with 3,700 applicants.<\/p>\n

Leuschen’s father, David, said Bruno is already buzzing at the prospect of being home to an astronaut.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of his classmates already sent me a thing saying: ‘I’m proud enough to say that I went to school with him, and I’m telling everybody that,\u201d’ he said.<\/p>\n

David added he’s not surprised to see his son chasing a dream to go to space.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was always into science fairs, building robots and laser beams and so on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The CSA will announce its final selections this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRUNO, Sask.\u2014A Royal Canadian Air Force pilot with Saskatchewan roots could be headed to the stars. Jason Leuschen was born …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":88426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,16,5742],"tags":[12660,14846],"class_list":["post-88425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-news","category-science-2","tag-astronauts","tag-royal-canadian-air-force","mauthors-ckom","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}