In my opinion, the Apollo 11 moon landing was the highlight of the 20th century. It took everything that humanity had – a culmination of a decade of technology development – to pull together this capability to get us off the planet.
Although I no longer serve as Chancellor of the University of Calgary, I remain in touch with my undergraduate school and help out when I can. I was pleased when Professor Mark Migotti of the Department of Philosophy invited me back to campus recently to meet with his Arts and Science Honours Academy students. The […]
Last month I visited with the Masters students of International Space University. Each year the university, based in Strasbourg, France, offers a one-year graduate studies program to about 40 international students – young professionals who wish to learn more about the space program and who aspire to push back frontiers. This year’s students have completed […]
On December 3, David Saint-Jacques will launch with two crewmates from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station. David will spend six months aboard the Station as part of the ‘C3’ expedition, Canada’s third long-duration mission. Preparation for an ISS expedition is a significant undertaking requiring the […]
A new art exhibition entitled Cosmos opened Saturday at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary. The exhibition features intriguing works by three esteemed Canadian artists – Gathie Falk, Margaret Nazon and Erik Olson – on the subject of space. A few months earlier, Melanie Kjorlien, Glenbow Vice President, approached me to submit a narrative about her […]
I dropped in last week on an educational workshop being held at the Vancouver office of SAP Canada. 40 Grade 6 to 9 students and their teachers from local schools were engaged in a hands-on project called Living Space. As I moved about their workspace, I noted that the students and teachers were coding tiny […]
This week I attended the gala for the 2012 Canada Gairdner Awards held at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto. In the shadows of towering dinosaur skeletons and in front of an audience of the who’s who of health research, six international and one Canadian researcher were presented with their awards.
I had the privilege this morning to meet Canada’s outstanding elementary and secondary school teachers. 27 of our nation’s best educators were in Ottawa as recipients of the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence and for Excellence in Early Childhood Education. Their visit coincided with World Teachers’ Day which is held annually on October 5th.
Alain Beaudet, president of CIHR, and I had lunch today with Dr. Yves Joanette. Yves is the Scientific Director of one of CIHR’s thirteen Institutes, the Institute of Aging. In addition to serving as Scientific Director, Yves is also a professor at the Faculty of medicine of the Université de Montréal and Lab Director at the Research Center of the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal.
For the last 28 years I served as an astronaut of the Canadian Space Agency and was privileged to fly twice in space. I have a lifetime of wonderful memories of both of those missions and long-lasting friendships with my crew mates.