I think my career will end too early for me to go to Mars, though I might be involved in preparing the next generation to go. I'd love to explore Mars, but, ultimately, it's kind of a crappy planet. The thing is, Mars One people would never go outside without a spacesuit ever again. You're going to live in a tin can. Space stations are noisy; it's like living inside a computer with the fan on all the time. You're never going to smell grass or trees. It's just never going to be anything like Earth. You're never going to swim. You're giving up so much.

I really love sharing with young Canadians the changes we're seeing in the space program right now with what we call "commercial space." We have commercial cargo delivery to the space station, and now we have what we call "commercial crew," where we're going to be delivering people to low orbit on new vehicles that are being designed by Boeing and SpaceX.

I think my career will end too early for me to go to Mars, though I might be involved in preparing the next generation to go. I'd love to explore Mars, but, ultimately, it's kind of a crappy planet. The thing is, Mars One people would never go outside without a spacesuit ever again. You're going to live in a tin can. Space stations are noisy; it's like living inside a computer with the fan on all the time. You're never going to smell grass or trees. It's just never going to be anything like Earth. You're never going to swim. You're giving up so much.

Actually, that's one of the things I like most about my job: There isn't much of a day-to-day. For example, last week, I was flying with the RCAF, flying CF-18s. Today, I was going through my annual physical. I take language classes, I learn robotics and spacewalking, so every week is different.

I realize that the 2020s are going to be completely different than this decade has been. There's going to be rapid progress. One of the most important aspects is going to be cheaper access to space. It changes everything. We have the ideas and the technology to do a lot of things, but we're limited financially, so, by reducing the cost of access to space, the whole problem is changed. Ultimately, the pieces that are coming together are going to allow us to send humans to Mars - and bring them back.

I'd like to reiterate that the opportunities in space are going to be vastly different than they've been before, so, for young Canadians preparing for their futures, it's important to understand that there are going to be many opportunities to work in either new space industries that are being developed or to actually go to space, to be one of the people to join our team of explorers who are going to leave lower-Earth orbit. That, ultimately, is amazing, the opportunities we'll have.

Having serious consequences to your decision-making process is something you have to be very comfortable with. It's something you learn and you practise over time, so I encourage people to find some way to challenge themselves. The other thing I share with people, which I've learned over time, is self-confidence. You have to get very comfortable with saying, "Well, every day, I'm just going to give my best. I have skill sets I've learned, I'm going to employ them, and my best is going to be good enough".