Chuck Black: December 2009 Archives

It's been over fifty years since Sputnik ushered in the dawn of the space age and it looks like we all sometimes get it wrong when it comes to predicting the future so this week in space for Canada is all about being cautious about those predictions we're likely to be making over the next week or so.

As the holiday season slowly sneaks up on us and others begin to climb cautiously aboard our Canadian space prediction bandwagon (most notably this week, Peter Rakobowchuk in his recent article "Canada's space program made history in 2009, but 2010 could be an even bigger year"), this week in space for Canada is all about looking back at what we've done as a space faring nation over the last few decades in order to learn lessons applicable for our future activities.

This week in space for Canada is all about collecting useful pieces of information in order to discern developing patterns coalescing around the Canadian space industry. To that end, we'll be using disjointed reports from unusual sources, incomplete information from established news outlets and passing comments from experts both acknowledged and otherwise.

This week in space for Canada is all about celebrating the final return of the last Canadian scheduled to go into space for at least the next five years, contemplating what the future might hold and maybe, just maybe making plans to help mold that future into something useful.