This week every St. Albert child who has ever dreamed of shuttling into space may have extra inspiration to follow his or her dreams.
Military pilot and doctor Nathalie Sleno, who was born and raised in St. Albert, has been chosen among 17 people for the shortlist to become Canada’s next astronaut. In the end only two candidates will be selected.
Although she is not there yet, Sleno has already passed almost insurmountable odds. She has earned a spot as one of the final five women and 12 men from a field of more than 3,700 applicants.
The final two astronauts, to be chosen later this summer, will be in a pretty exclusive club. The Canadian Space Agency has only hired 12 astronauts in more than 30 years. The two candidates who make the final cut will join the likes of astronauts like Chris Hadfield and face several years of training before ever making it to space.
Sleno said from the time she was a child she found herself looking up into the sky. “My father was a pilot. That was my lifelong dream was to get above everything.”
Sleno has risen to the top despite a rigorous year-long process that tested her physical skills, academic and mental aptitude and physical health. The Canadian Space Agency website says candidates are screened for judgment, integrity, reasoning, teamwork, resourcefulness, motivation, public speaking, ability to synthesize and communicate using plain language – important characteristics needed to become an astronaut and an advocate for the space program.
Sleno now leads a Field Ambulance Detachment in Yellowknife, where she is an aviation medical officer. She is a doctor, a mother of seven, a teacher. Each role and experience has no doubt prepared her for this challenge.
Although she now works in the north, her roots are deep in the St. Albert area. She graduated from St. Albert Catholic High School in 1994, and she is an alumna of the 533 St. Albert Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron. She joined the Namao Flying Club to get her pilot’s license.
While taking basic military training and flying lessons she was enrolled in the University of Alberta where she earned a Bachelor of Science with distinction, specializing in physiology. She went on to get her medical degree from the University of Manitoba. Along the way she became a bioscience officer in human factors and ergonomics and later aerospace physiology working to prevent and eliminate health threats to the Canadian Armed Forces.
In making the announcement Monday, federal innovation minister Navdeep Bains said of the 17 finalists: “They are doctors, engineers, pilots and scientists. They have the power to fire up the imaginations of our young people and influence the next generation of space scientists and innovators.”
St. Albertans can be justifiably proud that one of their own has the right stuff to make one of the finalists for the space program.
Every time one of our own rises to great achievement it reminds us about how we can push the outer limits to reach the stars in our own galaxy.
Perhaps there is a boy or girl who is looking skyward right now; setting their sights on following their dreams and looking to Sleno as a mentor who can show them the way.
