Canada, normally content to mull around earth connsidering it’s large and indefensible expanse of land, may be on the verge of entering the space age.
Yes, I know we have Canadian astronauts and the much-vaunted CANADARM. But we’re little more than cosmic hitchhikers, dependent on the fancy rockets and shuttles of more space-savvy nations. Perhaps no more. Look out, NASA, there may be a new kid on the block.
The feds are considering coughing up $45 million to help fund a commercial rocket pad on Cape Breton Island. All of a sudden, Louisbourg went from a historically interesting make-work project to the most kick-ass rocket watching spot in the whole country.
Additional funding for the project is coming from everyone’s favourite purveyor of fine missile systems, Lockheed Martin. Apparently, when Canada bought a bunch of airplanes from them (17 c-130J’s), they agreed to invest in ‘regional projects’. From the CBC:
The project is headed by Chicago’s PlanetSpace Inc., which has a non-monetary agreement with NASA to work on commercial space projects. PlanetSpace has indicated that one of its goals is to send 2,000 tourists into space within the next five years, at a cost of at least $250,000 US a person.
So not only will we have a commercial rocket pad, but it will be a totally useless installation for putting rich twits into space. Hm. Maybe that isn’t such a bad idea, so long as we don’t bring them back.
But I ask you: once Canada has the ability to lauch things into orbit, can a Tim Horton’s on the International Space Station be far behind?
Canada: putting arms on other people’s spaceships since 1981.
I’ve got a Canada Arm!
I’m not sure I’d call this “totally useless” (although I should point out that I’m a HUGE fan of space exploration, so I’m biased!). After all, even if you’re just sending rich tourists into space, sending ANYTHING safely in to space and back again is still a pretty risky business and impressive technical endeavour. I’m sure the engineers on the project will learn TONNES that will benefit non-extravangently wealthy citizens too, in the long run.
Personally, I’m all for the (well-regulated and reasonably safe) private exploitation of space (for tourism anyway… I’ll wait until we start mining operations to get worried…). Anything that pushes us further into space (and lets face it, NASA and the CSA don’t have the influence to push anymore) is a good thing, imho.
Plus, the article doesn’t say that the pad will ONLY be used for tourism. It will also be used for missions to the ISS, and probably (hopefully) other future space stations as well. Personally, I’d love to see the next generation of manned vehicles (post-shuttle) taking off to repair the space station, or rotate in a crew from a ground station in Nova Scotia. I’d also like to think that such a station might spur us on to actually putting a Canadian in space ourselves. Only three countries have put people in space (the U.S., Russia, and China) and I’d love to see Canada be the fourth (before the ESA puts someone up).
Anyway, as I said I’m a big proponent of space exploration, so you’ll rarely see me objecting to any money for space-related exploration. Still, I think objectively that this is a good thing for Canada. There are worse things we could spend Lockheed martin’s money on, imho!
I’ll have to confess that I was being a smart-ass here, LKO. I am also a big fan of space exploration, although less so when the skies become cluttered with rich idiots.