Space Oddity - Dylan Young - Sharp - Dec2008

“There was this incredible period of human dreaming about opening the space frontier and an unspoken promise that we would all get a chance to go,” says Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize Foundation, which awards vanguards in commercial space technology. “None of that ever materialized.” Canadian astronaut Dave Williams has his own take. “One of the most challenging things we face as astronauts is conveying exactly what it is we do—the excitement of it. The early years of space exploration were filled with red-letter events. But as we went deeper into the work of space, it lost some of the obvious dynamism.” Advances in space were being measured in metre sticks, not milestones— In the five decades since Canada’s space effort first got off the ground, or so it seemed. In fact, a great deal was going on: Skylab was put in orbit; not once have we sent someone into space without hitching a ride. And Soviet Soyuz and American Apollo yet, for most of that time, we have ranked among the top five space- ships kissed in space; Voyager 2 jourto the edge of our galaxy with faring nations, producing more ground-breaking technology, pioneering neyed the famous golden record stowed at more research and logging more manned space hours than programs its heart. Unfortunately, most of what the with operating budgets hundreds of times larger than our own. public heard was bad news. The bloated Soviet and American space he Canadian Space Agency has done well as facilitator to the programs were plagued by setbacks: Mars probes that wouldn’t respond; interstellar interests of the larger agencies—NASA, ESA and space station malfunctions; orbital telescopes launched with poorly Roscosmos. But the global space initiative is entering an unfa- mounted lenses; and, of course the explosion of the shuttle Challenger miliar paradigm. New players have emerged. Commercial interests have just after take-off. This tragedy—televised live around the world—killed successfully put men into suborbital space and sent unmanned rockets seven crew members and grounded the shuttle program for two years. into geosynchronous orbit. And China, the sleeping giant, is advancing Ironically, just prior to this, Canada’s space mandate had attained its ambitions beyond the earth. grand new heights. At the invitation of NASA, Canada had initiated its But that’s just the prologue. own astronaut program. Turkey, Iran, Brazil and India all have designs on space. The comUntil then, Canada’s focus had been technological in nature, satellites mercial NewSpace industry is eager for the opportunities of space tour- for telecommunications, remote viewing and scientific research, as well ism and resource speculation, while terraforming becomes more feasible as the advanced robotics work that had produced the remote manipulaevery day. The space rush can only help to speed humanity’s ascent to tor system known as Canadarm. the stars. But where Canada fits into this new hierarchy is still anyone’s Still, Canadian ingenuity in these areas of specialization had given guess. Partner or sidekick? Tag-a-long buddy or odd man out? Will the country a lofty place in space history. Canada was already the bronze Canadarm be enough to maintain our status, or will our greatest con- medal-winner in the race for the stars—thanks to the 1962 launch of the tribution to cosmic exploration come to be seen as little more than an Alouette 1 research satellite—and its robotic systems had quickly become orbital reach-around? the international space effort’s MacGuyver-tool of choice. Canada seemed set to take fourth place in the ranks of space-faring nations. “TIME TO LEAVE THE CAPSULE, IF YOU DARE” Forty years ago, a man stepped onto soil no one had ever touched and, “COMMENCING COUNTDOWN, ENGINES ON” with a foot insulated by a boot four inches thick, kicked a pebble across When Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space—on October the surface of our planet’s only moon. Eight years before that, a different 5, 1984—there was no centralized Canadian space program. Instead it man rocketed skywards, away from all that was familiar, and became the was split over several smaller projects, distributed between the National first human to witness earth as the swirling ball of blue, white and green Research Council, Industry Canada and, to a lesser extent, Natural that is now one of our most ubiquitous symbols. Just four years before Resources Canada and the Defense Research Board. It wasn’t until 1987, that, a man-made moon circled the globe, chiming from high above the as part of Canada’s collaboration on the International Space Station clouds with the audible clarity of a truck backing down a driveway. (ISS) that the government set about forming a unique agency dedicated These were watershed events. Human imagination and ambition had to Canada’s endeavours in space. In 1989, the Canadian Space Agency been made concrete, and not just for Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong and (CSA) became the torchlight for Canada’s renewed vision for space. the men who succeeded in flicking Sputnik 1 into the sky. For every NASA began shuttle operations again in 1988. But four years would human being able to peruse a newspaper, huddle around a television, or pass before another Canadian would experience the stillness of space. The tune into a radio wave, in those instants, humanity’s place in the universe pitfalls of relying on NASA were not lost on Marc Garneau. A year after was forever resituated. We had entered a brave new world. the Challenger mishap, he contacted the Soviet space program, hoping Holding onto that sense of wonder hasn’t been easy. The public fascina- to explore opportunities for putting Canadians on Soyuz rockets. tion with the final frontier has suffered a steady decline since the Apollo In the meantime, the CSA was slowly coming into its own. The first missions ended. Through the 60s, ambition and ingenuity took us from five years had provided the by-the-books leadership needed for the the surface of the earth and put us on our nearest heavenly body. In public fledgling agency’s stability. But, in 1994, a more intrepid style of helmsrelations terms, nothing has come close in the forty years that followed. manship arrived in the form of Mac Evans.

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SPACE t ODDI T Y

C a n a d a ’s U n c o n v e n t i o n a l S p a c e R a c e

PHOTO: NASA

b y D y l a n Yo u n g a dd it ional research by Nelly Au ste r

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Evans helped establish stronger partnerships between the federal government and the Canadian space industry and opened up foreign markets. He also expanded the Agency’s position internationally, ensuring Canada’s contribution to the ISS, alongside NASA, Roscosmos and the Japanese agency, JAXA. Separately, he secured the CSA’s “Associate Member” status with the European Space Agency (ESA)—an arrangement which supplies Canada with tens of millions in aerospace contracts. In the seven years that Evans held sway at the CSA, eight Canadians flew in space and Radarsat 1 was launched—the most advanced radar imaging satellite of the day. Garneau made his third and final space flight in 2000—aboard the shuttle Endeavour. A year later, he was appointed to the CSA presidency. Garneau quickly assessed the qualities that the Agency would need to take into the next stage. And for the next four years, visiting China, India, Brazil and several other emerging space nations, he laid the groundwork for the CSA to follow—opening doors to future collaboration. Now a federal MP, Garneau believes Canada’s most important work lies ahead. “It’s not simply about taking off into the sky,” he explains. “You can’t underestimate the diplomatic and foreign relations aspects. The greatest contribution we can make is to bring our expertise to the global space effort, to help nations who have the will to realize their ambitions for space.” “Necessity is the mother of invention. As Canadians—trying to stay connected in remote areas—we needed communication satellites. So, we became experts in that field and developed the first satellite of its kind. We also needed remote viewing satellites to look at this huge resourcerich country that is dark and cloudy much of the year. So, we built the Radarsat line, to see without seeing. That kind of technology can be very 62 Sharp Dec/Jan 2009 SHARPFORMEN.COM

helpful, for example, in a country like India, where being able to accurately predict the yield at harvest time can avert widespread famine.” If it sounds like Garneau has an enlightened world view, he does. But there’s also pragmatism at work. “Things are changing rapidly,” he says. “I see a bright future for Canada if we make the necessary investments in space. If we have the tools, we have the responsibility. If we don’t use them, we’ll fall behind. There are a lot of new players and part of our government’s budget, as well as the CSA’s, should be dedicated to being that important cooperative force.” “THE STARS LOOK VERY DIFFERENT TODAY” There’s no doubt that we have transitioned into a new stage of our global space ambitions. The age of back-and-forth jockeying between two superpowers is a distant memory. For some time now, Russia has been propping up its space program by hawking its services on the open market. However, what initially looked like desperation has proved to be shrewd strategy—if a less glamorous one. The work of space has turned out to be a long lumbering march, not the great leap. And NASA is starting to find that it’s on the wrong side of that hike. The shuttle program is scheduled for retirement in 2010, with NASA recalibrating its orbital initiative into the Orion rocket program. But Orion won’t be completed until 2015, leaving a five-year window when the Americans could be without a means to reach orbit or maintain their investment in the International Space Station. The only solution is for NASA to buy seats on Russian Soyuz rockets, a plan that requires Congress to issue a waiver allowing a short-term skirting of the IranNorth Korea-Syria Nonproliferation Agreement. The act, which seeks to stem foreign transfers of advanced weapon-ready technology to these PHOTO: NASA

Space applications are just the beginning, says David Williams, who is also a medical doctor and the recently appointed Director of the McMaster Centre for Medical Robotics at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton. “We’re in the process of miniaturizing the Canadarm technology for surgical applications,” he explains. “Medical robotics is a multi-billion dollar business and this is the most advanced technology out there. Imagine a remote surgical tool that would let a surgeon in Toronto or Hamilton perform complicated operations on patients in Northern Ontario or on a vessel orbiting the moon. And that’s just the initial application. The same technology will allow geologists or students in Canada to do remote experiments on the surface of Mars.” As to the CSA’s missing orbital solutions, these could wind up coming from the increasingly vibrant commercial NewSpace industry. “I definitely think the national space programs will be the biggest beneficiaries of commercial efforts like SpaceX’s Falcon and Dragon systems,” Diamandis says. “Space travel is enormously expensive. The nations aren’t in the rocket-building business because they want to be. They’re in it because they have no other choice. If they have a cheaper way to get their astronauts into orbit, then that’s going to free up money to put into the real work of research and exploration, of figuring out how to mine on Titan or harvest the wind of Saturn.” There may be something to Diamandis’ argument. It’s an engine not dissimilar to the one that drove the naval exploration of our planet hundreds of years ago. But it may not suit the Canadian model. “These are just some of the issues that the Canadian Space Agency will have to address in the coming years,” Garneau says. “And it’s why I’m glad Steve MacLean has been made president of the CSA.” Like Garneau, MacLean is a former astronaut and there’s a hope that he will bring back some of the vision that was lost in the three years since his colleague left the Agency’s top post. He’s already committed to introducing two new astronauts in the spring of 2009. And he’s hinted at expanding the program well beyond Canadarm. But MacLean isn’t ready to get more specific than that yet. “We’re going to be a space-faring nation that’s innovation-driven.” They’re comforting words but, in a vacuum, it’s impossible to tell if they have any real weight. At the moment, nothing seems clearer than

countries, bans payments by the US to the Russian space agency as an incentive to nonproliferation compliance. Had it not been renewed, American astronauts would have been left landlocked. Now, increased tensions with Russia over their invasion of Georgia makes this avenue seem increasingly uncertain—and NASA’s ambition to return to the moon by 2020 even less likely. Canada’s short-term prospects have been equally rocky. In September 2008, MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates—Canada’s largest space contractor—announced it was selling its space operations, including its Canadarm and Radarsat divisions, to the US-based military contractor Alliant Techsystems Inc. Ottawa blocked the sale in the final hour, citing that it offered no net advantage to Canada. But, having narrowly averted the loss of its most iconic assets in the space bustle, the CSA has no more reliable access to orbit than the Americans. Hopes for a Canadian rocket program have never materialized, although the success and reliability of I see a bright future for Canada if we make the necessary Bristol Aerospace’s Canadian-made investments in space. If we have the tools, we have the Black Brant family of suborbital rockets might have made it seem inevitable. responsibility. If we don’t use them, we’ll fall behind. In 1967, Albert Fia, then Bristol’s lead engineer for Black Brant, claimed that a satellite-capable rocket could be ready within a decade. The only thing the fact that space exploration is at a crossroads—and it’s not just Canada lacking was someone to pay for it. A subsequent government report rec- that’s caught in the shifting landscape. ommended just such an initiative. But the policy wonks never pursued The planet-wide commitment to expanding human presence in space the domestic orbital solution. Thus, every Canadian-made satellite and has never been greater. Yet the motors to achieve it are still in quesevery Canadian astronaut has been launched on foreign-built rockets. tion. The Canadian space effort has managed to ride the crests of waves This puts Canada in sharp relief to the efforts of Europe, China and created by the larger agencies. And in the humble context of Canadian Japan, all of which at least have rockets capable of launching satellites. achievement, it has done well by this method. Canada has stayed near The ESA—as the third most active space program—has a thriving the front of the race, expressly by not participating in it. manned-flight initiative and China broadcast its desire for cosmic domiBut can the model last? In the rapidly changing environment of the nance this October, with the dramatic simulcast of their first spacewalk. new space age, can the Canadian Space Agency just continue to surf? Even the nascent space programs of India and Iran have limited orbital Very possibly—particularly if it can manoeuvre itself into new relationlaunch capability. ships of the sort it has established with Roscosmos, NASA and ESA. But the risks aren’t small. Even if it was never really caught in the space “FLOATING IN THE MOST PECULIAR WAY” race, Canada could still end up losing it. Perhaps there’s a tactical end to all this. Canada has always followed a unique path in its drive for respectable rank in the space-faring hier- Go to sharpformen.com to read expanded interviews with Marc Garneau, Dr. Dave archy and it has done so with the relatively small aerospace budget of Williams, and X Prize founder Peter Diamandis. Also, learn more about the history of $300 million a year. It’s a strange model but what it lacks in romance, it the Canadian space effort in Sharp's “Milestone of the Canadian Space Effort.” more than gains in efficacy. PHOTO: NASA

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