by RAF KATIGBAK

After two weeks of frustrating delays, Canadian astronaut Steve MacLean successfully launched into orbit last Saturday aboard space shuttle Atlantis. Like many Canadians, I was overcome with a mix of emotion. Actually, it was mostly jealousy. Since my nerdy prepubescent days, I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut. In fact, I clearly remember coming to Mrs. Quinlan’s second grade class during career day in a make-shift astronaut costume, complete with a cheap-ass tin-foiled bucket helmet on my head and a dirty white snowsuit with the word “Space” written on it in smelly grape magic marker, eager to announce my candidacy for next Canadian spaceman. I should probably also mention that career day was not actually a dress-up day.

Perhaps it was my obsession with Star Trek and the possibility of getting acquainted with—to paraphrase Eddie Murphy—some “freaky green bitches,” or maybe it was the prospect of all-you-can-eat freeze-dried astronaut ice-cream, but my obsession with space exploration continued throughout my teenage years. Up until the end of high school, I was convinced I could do it—all I needed was a resilient mind, a sharp focus on my goal and determination. I was later to find out that an intimate knowledge of laser-induced fluorescence of particles and crystals and multi-photon laser spectroscopy helps. Needless to say, my aversion to fancy book learnin’ is the only reason I’m not whizzing around in one of those gyroscopic gravity thing-a-majiggers right now.

But it’s just this need for smarty-pantses that make Canadians absolutely perfect for space exploration. While we may not have the outward machismo and noble chutzpah of history’s global explorers and frontier people, we do have brains by the ton, and since we’re so nice, we can get along swell with all the other space folk. After all, wasn’t Star Trek—the pop culture epitome of today’s global space climate—really just Degrassi in space? Just like Degrassi, you had the Asian guy, a black girl, a kooky weird-looking dude and a charismatic leader, who all had to hang out in this confined space, sharing, caring and getting into all kinds of crazy shenanigans. Remember the episode when Scotty went to buy condoms for his date with Uhura and the pharmacist ended up being Uhura’s mom? Awkward! I’m sure this kind of stuff goes on in the International Space Station all the time.

But the notion of being one big happy global space family is relatively new. In the ’80s, Russkies launched secret spy satellites to keep a close eye on the Yanks, while Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative planned to use laser-armed satellites to shoot incoming missiles in the event of a nuclear attack. Just over 20 years ago, it was every man or comrade for himself. It was near the end of the Cold War, when for almost a half-century the two superpowers of the Soviet Union and United States competed for global primacy, and space was a crucial arena. Then as now, space represented something larger than a never-ending sea of stars and planets. It was a source of hope, a great mystery to be solved, and a place to shape the legacy of the limitless potential of mankind.

What’s Canada’s contribution to that legacy? We built a giant robot arm to pick up space garbage.

On November 13, 1981, after the first deployment of the first Canadarm from space shuttle Columbia, American commander Joe Engle and pilot Richard Truly uttered those immortal words, “Okay, the arm is out for the first time... working great... it’s doing exactly as we hoped and expected...” Okay, while it might lack the gravitas of Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man...” speech, the American crew probably couldn’t have said anything more Canadian, unless of course they added, “Does the job, eh!”

But no one said it better than Steve MacLean himself. When asked his feelings on being the first Canadian in history to use the Canadarm2, the Ottawa astronaut responded politely, “Being first has never been important to me. In fact, being second has a lot of advantages,” later adding that he’s looking forward to cooperating with the other astronauts who will also hopefully see the use of both Canadarms as “a great Canadian handshake.”

My guess? Two words: space-wedgie.

Riff-Raff@sympatico.ca