Chuck Black: August 2010 Archives

The Winnipeg Free Press reminds us that the Canadian aerospace industry has always straddled a dense political minefield while European based independent advocate Catherine Laplace-Builhe promotes the Canadian Space Agency (or at least she did until US based Facebook shut her down) and the Canadian contractor for the upcoming ExoMars mission reminds me personally that they consider their Canadian contribution to be "significant" and something I should mention here. All that and more, this week in space for Canada.

With the Wall Street Journal reporting that shrinking budgets and national rivalries are slowly undermining European space programs and the Asia Times noting that the cash strapped National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is still able to find US$30 million in new funding for Google Lunar X-Prize (GLXP) contestants and the Inuvik Satellite Station Facility (ISSF) opening it's Canadian Arctic doors to collect data for the German TanDEM-X satellite mission, it's getting difficult to differentiate space players without a scorecard, at least as of this week in space for Canada.

Canadian Space Agency President Steve MacLean tells the Winnipeg Free Press that his cash poor agency is developing a space policy which lines up behind the Obama administration, the Washington Post tells it's readers that the cash poor U.S. space policy is already lined up on "a collision course with itself" due to a lack of funding and cash flush private satellite operator SES publicly lusts over Canadian competitor Telesat. All that and more, this week in space for Canada.

It's the summer silly season and signs of life in Ottawa and at the John H. Chapman Space Centre in the sleepy Montreal south shore suburb of Longueuil are noticeably absent. So thank goodness for the joint European Space Agency (ESA)/NASA ExoMars mission, expected to hunt for signs of life on the red planet during 2016-2018, which yesterday announced a series of mission instruments for their ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. Canadian contributions are included, at least as of this week in space for Canada.