Olympian Hans Henken Shooting For The Stars!
U.S. SailGP Team flight controller Hans Henken talks about his ambition to go into space…
Published 08/15/2025
With their helmets and vizors, the U.S. SailGP Team might already look like they belong in space rather than on a boat – but flight controller Hans Henken hopes to one day do it for real.
Hans, who has a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Stanford University, spoke to the New York Times this week, outlining his ambition to master another high-speed craft.
He said: “If you ask a five-year-old what they want to do when they grow up, everyone says they want to become an astronaut. I still have those aspirations.
“I was really drawn to it, obviously, because of my childhood dream, and the astronautical engineering is one of many prerequisites that NASA looks for in terms of their application process.
“Part of me just wants to work on really challenging projects that require the nth degree of precision. And I think there’s nothing more precise than trying to build a rocket that goes into space.”
Competition closes September 4 – don't miss out!
Enter Now
Hans has already conquered one ambition, winning bronze at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris in the 49er class. But having dedicated himself to campaigning for a decade to achieve that dream, turning his hand to SailGP has required a different kind of discipline.
He said: “We campaigned for multiple years, spending over 250 days per year on the water to go racing for five days at the Olympics.
“Here in SailGP, we don’t count days on the water, we count minutes on the water. It literally is ‘Minutes matter’, and if we’re getting an extra 20, or even just 10, minutes at the end of a day, it really goes a long way towards learning new things about performance.”
In order to help bridge the gap, Hans is a weekly visitor to the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center in Santa Monica, CA. As well as access to world-class facilities and industry-leading experts, Hans benefits from rubbing shoulders with other athletes from a wide range of sports.
“The coolest thing about Red Bull is the diversity of their athletes and the diversity of sports,” Hans explains. “I’ve been asking some of the extreme-sports athletes how they train for whatever crazy thing they do, and they’re like, ‘Oh, we don’t do a lot of training physically. We do a lot of visualization, because you only get one go at it.’
“In things like skydiving or base jumping, they only do it so often, so they have to use a lot of visualization techniques. I think there’s a lot to pull from that kind of mentality and put it towards SailGP because we have a similar challenge of minimal training time.”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL INTERVIEW
Support
Contact
Powered By
© FanCapital LLC