Canada Has Put a Man in Space

[Elomin Sha]

Okay, it was only a Lego man but he did have the Canadian flag.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16759220

[FourEyedTroll]

I saw this on the BBC news. Pure awesome-sauce.

[Dutch guy]

Thats not space. Not even close.

[rustak]

Thats not space. Not even close.

C'mon, don't rain on Canada's achievement!

[Keab42]

Closest thing to a national space program they're ever going to get...

[Geoff_B]

At least it's cheap Did they put a space minifig up though? The whole exercise is pointless if they didn't!

[empath]

Dammit; they weren't supposed to AIR that! Crap; there goes the annual budget for CSIS now - now everyone knows that we had a camera up there surveilling on our 'friends' to the south (at least they didn't air ALL the footage)

[Brad]

Canada put a robotic space arm into space a few hundred times. It's called the Canadian Space Agency, and they have in fact put twelve astronauts into space.

Chris Hadfield
Julie Payette
Robert Thirsk
Jeremy Hansen
David Saint-Jacques
Roberta Bondar
Marc Garneau
Steve MacLean
Mike McKay
Ken Money
Bjarni Tryggvason
Dave Williams

[Brad]

Britain has had 8 astronauts, incidentally.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Not really fair to compare with the UK, we have to play fair with the ESA.

Also, if Canada ends up making the starship Enterprise, my vote is for Brad to be the captain.

[Lord Chrusher]

Cough the Canadian Space Agency.

Canada was the third country after the USSR and the USA to build its own satellite. It was also the first country to build a geosynchronous communication satellite. Admittedly Canada does lack its own launch capability and contracts out to NASA and the ESA for its launches.

[Brad]

Canadian high five with the Canadarm, Chris.

[Geoff_B]

We try! We had the Beagle probe and... yeah...

*whistles nonchalantly*

[Master Gunner]

Funny story, my father was one of the engineers involved in building the Canadarm, and actually built one of the first small-scale prototypes. Last summer I almost had the chance to work with the CSA, but they didn't get back to me in time, and I didn't really feel like moving to Montreal anyways.

[empath]

Wow; you guys are absolutely resident of the NoFun Atoll.

I mean, yeah - I was thinking about rattling off about the Canadarm & Marc Garneau (the only one whose name was on the top of my head) but even boring old me kept up with the funny...

[General Michi]

I love reading the title of threads like this and letting my mind wander. This time I liked to think that the entire nation of Canada simply placed a fully grown man in space, just put him there by hand and then continued about their normal lives

[Tycherin]

And these guys are still in high school? Ow. That was my pride in my achievements dying a quick, brutal death.

[empath]

I love reading the title of threads like this and letting my mind wander. This time I liked to think that the entire nation of Canada simply placed a fully grown man in space, just put him there by hand and then continued about their normal lives

Ooooo; beautiful image/idea - there IS more than thirty million of us; if we could somehow translate say the lifting power of each of us into raising a single man that 100km to the Kármán line, that'd only be an effort of raising a ninety-kilo man (incl. weight of pressure suit) 1/8 of an inch per person.

[Lord Hosk]

I love reading the title of threads like this and letting my mind wander. This time I liked to think that the entire nation of Canada simply placed a fully grown man in space, just put him there by hand and then continued about their normal lives

I picture this as Bo-Taoshi, or like the worlds largest human tower.

BBC news: all 30 million Canadians descended on Winnipeg today for the Guinness book of world records tallest human tower attempt. Stephen Harper said of the event, "Wow! we asked everyone to come but didn't expect EVERYONE to come" as a side note William Fluferington of Nunavut was initiated by the Canadian space agency as the thirteenth Canadian astronaut for being "the guy on top" when asked for comment he said (gasp gasp) then fell over and plummeted 100 Kilometers to his self dug grave.

(side note my spell check is saying Nunavut is spelled wrong)

[FourEyedTroll]

Cough the Canadian Space Agency.

Canada was the third country after the USSR and the USA to build its own satellite. It was also the first country to build a geosynchronous communication satellite. Admittedly Canada does lack its own launch capability and contracts out to NASA and the ESA for its launches.

Indeed, not to be disparaging, but building satellites is relatively easy compared to making and operating working launch vehicles, Britain makes more than a few satellites. The launch system is the thing people look to for measuring success in space programmes, No-one really describes Britain or Canada as having a space programme compared to say America, Russia, China or India.

Britain had its own satellite-launching space program and a working orbital-launcher operating from the desert in Australia. Look up Black Arrow rocket programme. The only successful satellite space programme ever to be axed...

I know Canada and the UK have had several astronauts/cosmonauts, but somehow it's not really the same when they have to beg/borrow/steal seats on launches from the Russians and the Americans.


Maybe we should gang together with India, New Zealand and Australia and set up the Commonwealth Space Programme, we could probably afford it between us, just about.

[Brad]

Britain had its own satellite-launching space program and a working orbital-launcher operating from the desert in Australia. Look up Black Arrow rocket programme. The only successful satellite space programme ever to be axed..

Devil's Advocate time:

Doesn't that... doesn't that just mean that Australia had a working orbital launcher operating in its desert?

Question being - if it is Britain - why not launched from Britain?

Canadian scientists and engineering firms designed several significant parts of the Space Shuttle, but they outsource the financing of the launches they helped make possible. Isn't the Black Arrow then "beg/borrow/stealing" from the Aussie launch capability, by your words?

[Drinnik]

Britain had its own satellite-launching space program and a working orbital-launcher operating from the desert in Australia. Look up Black Arrow rocket programme. The only successful satellite space programme ever to be axed..

Devil's Advocate time:

Doesn't that... doesn't that just mean that Australia had a working orbital launcher operating in its desert?

Question being - if it is Britain - why not launched from Britain?

Canadian scientists and engineering firms designed several significant parts of the Space Shuttle, but they outsource the financing of the launches they helped make possible. Isn't the Black Arrow then "beg/borrow/stealing" from the Aussie launch capability, by your words?

We don't have the space. That's what the empire was for. That, and converting as many people to the Dark Side.

[General Meh]

It's about as close as we will ever get to having a Space Program in Australia, so all hail the Empress Elizabeth.

[FourEyedTroll]

Devil's Advocate time:

Doesn't that... doesn't that just mean that Australia had a working orbital launcher operating in its desert?

Question being - if it is Britain - why not launched from Britain?

Well, you could argue that, and I'm not in any way trying to suggest here that Britain is somehow better than Canada in terms of space exploration, nor that borrowing launch capacity from another programme or territory is wrong. This is more of a mild rant lamenting the short-sightedness of national government budgets on the subject of space exploration, and the lack of a unified, international space research and exploration programme supported by an international collaborative organisation, such as the UN for example (maybe I just want them to make the IASA so that Farscape will come true, who knows...).


Logistically, Britain would have either had to launch them from Australia or South Africa, because you need a large area of territory/sea down-range from the launch facility to prevent risk of the rocket failing or detached stages landing on cities, and also an area of low-population to make the facility both secure and less anti-social. You also need a climate where low temperatures won't cause operational problems with solid and liquid fuel components, and various manufactured parts susceptible to problems due to over-night freezing (see Challenger shuttle disaster and the reason the booster rocket failed).

Downrange, the US, Canada and French Guyana have the Atlantic, China, Australia and New Zealand have the Pacific and South Africa has the Indian Ocean. Britain has most of rather densely populated Europe in it's potential firing line, and we aren't exactly popular as a state with our fellow Europeans, without dropping rocket components on them on a regular basis.

You could also questionably argue that Woomera, being an Australian military base, is therefore property of the crown, and thus the question of nationality becomes a question of how far are Australia and Britain two provinces of the same state with self-governance under a single head of state?


Should we also argue that a vehicle (rocket, ship, aircraft, etc), belonging to any state, is borrowing it's capacity to operate or explore from the territory in which it operates? Did Amundsen's sled making the journey to the South Pole mark a success for polar exploration for Norway, or Antarctica? Did Franklin's expedition represent Britain, Canada, both or neither? Does this make part of the moon American, or do we claim that America didn't have the capacity to reach the moon without relying on the co-operation of the Clangers?

I may be being facetious here, and suspect that this is a much deeper topic on the nature of definition of nationality, etc. Personally, I don't like national terms of identification, what divides people does nothing to advance human society without the exploitation or subjugation of another collective grouping, generally speaking.


I'm not sure if Baikonur being in Kazakhstan means that the Russians no longer have a launch capacity, or if the cosmodrome is still sovereign Russian territory post-USSR, but I doubt anyone would seriously argue that the Russians do not have their own space programme.


But essentially my original point was... Look at Black Arrow and how cheap the project had been created and made to work, isn't it sad it was scrapped after it was successful, and just before launching commercial satellites became a huge industry. Wasn't it such a wasted potential.

And... Isn't it brilliant how high-school kids in some parts of the world still have the imagination and potential to do something so fundamentally brilliant and imaginative for such a minuscule budget, when much of the rest of the western world has decided to reduce it's spending on innovation, and exploration of the possible, in order to pay lots of money to capitalists so that they can protect capitalism instead.

[Lord Chrusher]

A few disorganised points:

I think you underestimate how complicated it is to design and build a useful satellite. The engineering challenges of building a launch vehicle and a satellite are quite different but one is not more difficult than an other. Spacecraft have to with stand harsh radiation and having one side of the spacecraft being 200 degrees colder than the other. The must function reliably for years with out any maintenance. The satellite has to be as light as possible and has to be able to unfold itself when it reaches orbit.

One stumbling block to international collaboration in space flight is the same technology that can launch a satellite can be used to deliver a nuclear weapon anywhere on Earth. In addition satellite are now vital to military communications and intelligence gathering.

Despite sharing the same head of state Australia and Britain are completely separate countries.

The reason why the US launches from Florida and the European Space Agency launches from French Guiana is that since the Earth spins it takes less fuel to reach orbit the closer you are to the equator.

24 kilometres is not that high. It is only a couple kilometres higher than the cruising altitude of the U-2 spy plane and significantly lower than the 37 km reached by a modified MiG 25. The highest manned balloon reached 34 km and the highest parachute jump was done from 31 km also from a balloon. The record for an unmanned balloon is 53 km. The two kids used a normal weather balloon which normally reach the same height as the kid's ballon or higher.