It is an interesting question. It just so happens that I personally have been involved with the space station since its beginning. There aren't any leaders in the space world who were there in the beginning, except myself. I have always said -- and it is coming to pass -- that one of the greatest legacies of the International Space Station will be that the space-faring nations of the world will learn to work and live together for a common goal.
And this is coming to pass. In the early days this was difficult. The United States is clearly the world leader -- they could have, if they had chosen, done the station by themselves, but they invited international players to come. I think the word at use at the time was partnership -- we've been hammering that since day one.
In my view it has taken the U.S. a few years to learn what that really means in terms of true partnership. But they're there now -- the program is clearly a partnership. It is led by the U.S., without a doubt, but we've worked out a mechanism where small countries' -- like Canada 's -- views are heard and are acted on.
We're quite satisfied, in general, with the arrangements. It was new. It was groundbreaking. It had difficulties in early years. But now I think it works very, very well.
Have the delays in the space station project been frustrating?
I suspect that given the immense nature of this program, and a whole host of unforeseen events -- like the shuttle fleet essentially being grounded to redo the wiring -- there will be more of those things as we go down the road. I think it is highly likely that the schedule will slip, just simply because of the unforeseen things on a project this size.
Is it frustrating? Canada has fortunately ridden through most of these budget restraints quite well. Our major contribution to the space station -- the new arm -- is at Cape Kennedy undergoing integration tests. It's there waiting to be launched. What it costs us with these other delays is simply 'marching army syndrome.' We have to keep people there, tempting the army, looking after it. There are certain costs of these delays, and of course we don't like that. But it's part and parcel of a major program.
To me, it's worth it because not only is the space station going to be a frontier-pushing scientific laboratory, it is forging the type of procedures, processes and relationships that are going to be absolutely essential if mankind is going to do more than just orbit the Earth. We really think we're laying a very essential cornerstone and foundation for international cooperation in space, which will allow humanity to do a lot more than any individual nation could do.
Is Canada concerned that the space station could become a sort of high-on-the-hill military base?
Well, we had very significant debates about just that issue. I don't see that.
I think we've passed that milestone, and think it's clear -- certainly in our minds and the European and Japanese minds -- that this is a space station for peaceful purposes. Now many military operations are in fact for peaceful purposes, so it's not to say it wouldn't have some military use from time to time.
But I think everyone agrees that this is for peaceful purposes, and that's the way we all see it proceeding.
How closely does the space agency work with the military?
Not very much. In Canada the civilian space budget is $350 million Canadian. The military budget is about one-tenth of that. It's not how it is in the United States. What we do is have a liaison from the space agency who sits in our department of national defense, and likewise they have one sitting with us. Those people look for synergies between our programs, so we get more bang for the taxpayer's dollar. But it's not a very big relationship.
Will Canada send astronauts to live on the station?
We have none scheduled for expeditions at the current time, but we have two scheduled for this current year.
It's part of the understanding that we get a certain percentage of the resources, including flying astronauts. I think the numbers work out to one member for a three-month duration every year.
How popular are astronauts in Canada?
Here in Canada, it's very much like the early days in the U.S., although our astronauts have been flying since 1984. Any one of these astronauts -- and we have seven active ones -- can fill an auditorium in any city in this country at any time, to talk about their flights.
They're very, very popular people, and that's the key element to us. Because one of the objectives we have for our astronaut program is to use the excitement of space and space travel to attract youth to careers in science and technology.
What are the benefits of the Canadian space program to Canadians?
The Canadian Space Agency really has two fundamental objectives. One is to use space technology to meet the needs of Canadians. The second one is to promote an internationally competitive space industry. We focus our program to meet those two objectives, and have had to because we're a relatively small player. We pick the areas in which we have competitive edge. We don't for example, do launch vehicles.
Our major area of application is Earth observation. If you've got a country like Canada -- very large, borders three oceans -- it made for the use of space technology.
Telecommunications applications are of course a key one.
Like all nations, we pursue a science program to allow Canadian scientists to participate in the global change, to study ozone depletion. The depletion layer happens to over Canada most of the time, so we have a significant interest in that.
Then it's robotics, because of our part in the shuttle program, where we did the Canada arm for the shuttle. That gave us a unique world niche. It turns out that it has been extremely profitable in an investment sense. We've had a return on our investment in excess of six-to-one. This goes back to the late 1970s-early 1980s. We've spent about $100 million.
We designed, built and gave to NASA the first arm, and they've bought four more. It's been quite a good investment.
We've taken that technology and have applied it to a wide variety of applications. Some of that technology is under trial in the U.S. for environmental cleanup purposes, and we've used it in mining operations.
What is your budget?
It's a lot smaller than the United States'. Our total budget is $350 million Canadian, and I don't know what the exact comparison is, but at one point several years ago I did those numbers, and it turned out that the Americans were spending a good dinner-per-person on their space program per year. Europeans and the Japanese were spending a good lunch. And the Canadians were spending about a breakfast on their programs.
The normal ten-to-one ratio that applies between activities in the United States and activities in Canada does not apply here. NASA's budget is about $11 billion. It's more than 100 times our budget.
Do you hope to see Canada's space program increase and grow?
Any organization would like to see its budget grow. Over the years with the budget the government has given us -- and all governments have been quite supportive of the program -- we feel that because we've focused on very specific niches rather than trying to cover the waterfront, that we in fact have accomplished a fair amount.
Canada is one of the largest users of space systems in the world on a per capita basis. Our industry exports over 45 percent of its sales. That's one of the largest, if not the largest, export ratios in the world. With the money we've been given, we think that we have quite a successful program. Canada has the largest astronaut core outside of the U.S. and Russia.
There are always good ideas that we're not pursuing because we don't have the funds. We don't do the launchers and heavy expense programs of that nature.
I don't actually see the Canadian space program being one tenth of the U.S. program.
You're located in Quebec, where there's a separatist movement. Has this been a problem?
It's no different than any other federal department. There are a large number of federal installations in Quebec, of which we are just one. It's had no impact so far. The Quebec government has been a very strong supporter of the space program. They see that as an element of industrial strategy. So we work quite closely with them.
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