Article from Ottawa Citizen
By Tom Spears
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Canada must push into space the way the Elizabethans explored the oceans and new continents, says Canada's industry minister.
Expanding space development will build a "critical mass" of thinkers and industries that will do things no other country can do — and will make money for Canada, Jim Prentice says.
The minister responsible for the Canadian Space Agency hasn't spelled out specifics, but is pushing a vision for space exploration that is bullish on the agency, space technology and economic spinoffs from it. His words are the most ambitious from a Canadian space official since Marc Garneau's famous "Let's go to Mars!" speech of 2001.
And this leaves the space community in Canada wondering: What's next?
"We are on the threshold of enormous opportunity — if we have the vision and the will to seize it," Mr. Prentice said Friday at the space agency's headquarters in Montreal.
"Canada has the potential to use its exploration and development of space to launch our economy and our society to levels we may have difficulty imagining right now."
He then suggested Canada look to 16th-century England's phenomenal expansion as an example of what can be accomplished.
"How did the Elizabethans do that? They were a tiny nation, on an island on the periphery of Europe. Other nations — more wealthy, more powerful and more at the centre of the action — had raced ahead to explore and develop the vast areas that were blank spaces on the maps of the day," he said.
England's expansion, he noted, began on dry land with managers who revolutionized the supply chain for ships, inventors, map-makers, as well as sailors and expedition leaders.
Canada still needs other space agencies, especially NASA, he noted.
"We are not the foremost space-faring nation. But we are a major player. We are not experts in all aspects of space science and technology. But we lead the world in some applications, and these applications benefit Canadians directly."
The speech comes as Canada experiences good and bad space news. We have a major satellite under construction and space instruments on a NASA probe approaching Mars. But the government has also been criticized for lack of leadership in the space business, notably when part of the space giant MacDonald Dettwiler Associates Ltd. was nearly sold to U.S. interests. Mr. Prentice blocked the sale, saying he did not consider the transaction to be a benefit to Canada.
"I didn't see the minister's speech ... but I'd have to say, 'Welcome to the party,' said Iain Christie, president of Neptec Design Group in Kanata, which makes vision systems for aerospace, including the laser camera that inspects for damage under the space shuttle after each launch.
Space industry leaders have been calling for exactly this attitude for a long time, he said.
Canada's space business is driven by exports, which proves its value, he said. "You can't do that unless you have something that's best in class."
"If they (government) ever did decide to get serious, what could we achieve? I really do hope the government is serious about that."
Canadian space technology isn't headline-grabbing stuff, he noted, but it's unique, and each success leads to others.
The MDA flap may have surprised the government by showing that Canadians care more about our space program than anyone realized, said Gordon Shepherd of York University, a veteran in space technology.
"That's what ultimately drives it — the public."
"Dextre (our newest space robot) is finished and Radarsat-2 is finished, so there has to be something big coming along," he said. "I personally like small projects, but for a company like MDA they need bigger projects ... Somebody's got to make the plans for that.
"But I haven't heard anything that suggests there is a plan ready to go.
"It's really nice that, although this was conceived as a bit of a problem (with the MDA sale), the minister is now focusing his attention on it. And the public now are more aware of it, so this is a great opportunity to do something new ... They (the public) realized we do have this fantastic technology, and having made the investment we should get some benefit out of it besides Radarsat and so on."