Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Space Policy Edition: Canada's Uncertain Future in Space (with Kate Howells)

Episode Date: December 7, 2018

Canada was the third country in history to launch a satellite into space, but now lags in its space ambitions, capability, and spending. What happened? Kate Howells, who serves on the Canadian Space Advisory Board, joins the podcast to talk about the challenges facing Canada's future in space and how the nation needs to do a better job of communicating the benefits of space exploration to its citizens. Casey and Mat also look at the latest machinations of the U.S. congress, which has yet to fund NASA for 2019 and is rapidly running out of time to do so. More resources to explore this month’s topics are at http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2018/space-policy-edition-32.htmlLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back to the Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio. We're glad to have you for this monthly installment, the last one of 2018. I'm Matt Kaplan, the host of Planetary Radio, coming to you every week with the regular version of the show. Now back with my colleague, the chief advocate for the Planetary Society, Casey Dreyer. Welcome. Hey, Matt. Happy to be here again. It's always good to be in December mode. Starting to look back on 2018 now. Yes, and we're going to do a little bit of that in a moment. There have been some

developments, even though it's only been a couple of weeks since we were on. Before we do that, though, why don't you introduce our colleague and special guest today who's going to be joining us across the show? Yes, we have a bonus guest and we're temporarily bumping her up to a special co-host guest today. Kate Howells, who is our national coordinator for Canada and a card-carrying Canadian citizen, I believe, right? Hi, Kate. Hi, guys. It's great to be on the show. Thank you for having me. We're glad to have you. We'll point out that Kate, she has at least two roles with the society. Most of us have at least two. She is also the Global Community Outreach Manager with responsibility

for coordinating with our vast network and growing network of volunteers around the world, right, Kate? Yes, indeed. And we're actually recording on International Volunteer Day, which is a big day for me because I get to send special thanks and shouts out to our 4,500 plus volunteers around the world. So it's a great day for me, but I'm also happy to be here talking about the other hat that I wear with the society, which is my work in Canada. And I know you're going to have an extended conversation, mostly with Casey, about the Canadian Space Program and your activities up there and get your impressions. But let's begin, as we always do, with the encouragement to folks out there

who are not yet members of the Planetary Society. It's a great time to join. And if you are a member, it's a great time to make somebody else a member, provide a membership as a gift. You do that at planetary.org slash membership. And of course, we would love to have you on board. As we have said many times, it is the support of our members that makes this program possible, all of Planetary Radio, all of our outreach activities, and of course, everything else that we do, light sail and those space policy and advocacy activities that Casey is such a key part of.

And for that matter, it enables Kate to represent Canada and work with those 4,500 volunteers all over the world. Planetary.org slash membership. We hope you'll consider it and become part of the organization today. It does make a great holiday gift, Matt, right? There is none better than finding the Planetary Society under your tree. What's better than the gift of exploration, the joy of exploration? And in fact, if you don't receive this, you actually technically have a bad holiday season. And we should emphasize because Kate is here representing Canada that Canadians can also join the Planetary Society as can any person around the world. And I believe, Kate, correct me if I'm wrong, that Canada is our second largest representation in terms of membership.

Yep, that's correct. And it is my personal goal to get our Canadian membership up to 10% of our total membership because Canada's population is about 10% of the U.S. population. So I think it should be reflected in our membership as well. But we're not quite there yet. So I do encourage more Canadians listening to this show to please join up. And there are a lot of Canadians listening to this show. About 30% of the Planetary Radio audience is outside the United States. And Canada seems to jockey back and forth with the UK and Australia for number two, listening to most of the shows. Good on you up there.

Yeah. And the UK and Australia, we're all part of this glorious Commonwealth. So we should all unite and get on board with the Planetary Society. I am. I'm envious. I've always been envious of members of the Commonwealth. I wish that things had gone better in 1776 so that we could have claimed that status. Why, did something happen back there? I'll tell you about it later, Casey. Okay.

There's one other thing I want to mention. Maybe you are already a member, but you're looking to do more to support the Planetary Society, and this is a great time to do that. We have at planetary.org slash planetary fund. It's a chance to go beyond membership and support the core enterprises of the Planetary Society that reach across everything that we do. You don't have to be a member to donate to the Society, although we would love for you to become a member first and then, if you feel like it, provide additional support. And this is a great time to do it because there is a $50,000 match underway, and we would love to get all of that extra money from some terrific donors. And we can only do that if other people step in at planetary.org slash planetary fund. Okay, commercials are done, guys.

No, you mean opportunities. Opportunities. Thank you. Opportunities. The opportunities continue, but the message for the moment is done. I suspect we'll come back to it. Before, Casey, you get to talking to Kate about Canada. Yes, it has only been two weeks, but there's been some activity, right, in D.C.?

Yeah, so a couple of things have happened, and we'll just talk about some of the U.S.-centric stuff here. And, Kate, please feel free to jump in with clarifications or additional commentary. I should add that Kate attended the George Washington University Space Policy Institute in her past, so she does have a policy background as well. Institute in her past, so she does have a policy background as well. Something very, I'd say maybe the most important thing, at least in terms of NASA in the short-term policymaking sphere, is that we are still trying to determine, or when I say we and when I say determine, I really mean Congress is struggling to set NASA's budget for the fiscal year 2019. Notably, we are in fiscal year 2019 right now. We have been since October 1st. NASA and maybe half of the federal government is functionally operating on this stopgap extension of funding from last year. They do not have final appropriations

passed by Congress. That deadline was originally December 7th. That was when the government was going to run out of the ability to spend money on NASA and some other federal agencies. Congress recently passed a short-term extension to that to December 21st. So we have a couple more weeks for Congress to really battle it out over, really, it's not NASA's funding that's contentious here. It is the border wall and border security. Obviously, some highly partisan, highly charged political issues right there. NASA is unfortunately along for the ride on this one. So we've been here a couple times before in the past. Congress is really just pushing themselves up right to the deadline, right before the Christmas break. And when they break for Christmas this time, any legislation that has not been passed yet, even if it's been in the works, basically gets reset

because there's a new Congress coming into town on January 3rd, 116th Congress. This is the consequence of this midterm election we just talked about. And so if there's no budget by the 21st, two things can happen. Either the government shuts down right before Christmas break, and that means a lot of federal employees basically get furloughed without pay over Christmas. Not the best political situation to be in. Or Congress could kick the can down the road yet again into the next Congress. So they could basically pass another short-term spending measure, keeping NASA temporarily funded for another amount of time. So we really don't know what's going to happen yet. Obviously, we really want NASA to have a budget because of these new initiatives that we've talked about in

the past, particularly this like low-Earth orbit commercialization. We have this new opportunities for commercial payloads at the moon, not to mention really important stuff like moving forward with Mars sample return, being able to pursue these new missions in science, particularly with the DART mission, being able to deflect an asteroid test. So we really need this budget. And of course, NASA, again, is just along for the ride. Well, two weeks doesn't seem like a lot of time to clear a logjam. And then is that logjam going to continue when the House is taken over by Democrats, but the Senate and, of course, the executive are still in the hands of Republicans? I think overall that the issues and the partisan agreement about

increasing spending is going to dissolve pretty quickly next Congress. As I've been saying before, having a divided government actually promotes ideological division because each party wants to define itself against the other. Previously, when we had total Republican control of the House, the Senate, and the executive branch, everyone likes to spend money when they're in power because they get all the blame or they get all the credit. And so it's easy, in a sense, for the Republicans to spend extra money, which they did. They also cut taxes. So, you know, the whole kind of ideological stuff about the debt kind of disappeared when they were in power. Same thing happened under George W. Bush back in the early 2000s.

Now that we have divided government, I predict that these issues around the debt are going to significantly increase in terms of the public debate. You've already had the White House say that it wants to cut its spending by 5% on discretionary spending. You've seen the reassertion of the Budget Control Act will be coming next year, which technically will have across the board cuts unless certain spending cuts are made. Congress has the option or the opportunity to just waive those yet again, which they've basically done every year since they passed that bill. So it'll be a bunch of headwinds against overall government spending in the next year. This is a completely different issue, actually, than this 2019 spending bill. So it's really just this complicated thing. Ideally, Congress just deals with it. This is the lame duck session of Congress. A lot of people are not coming back next year. That changes some of the political calculus once you've already lost. And so you don't have as much consequence necessarily for compromising, which tend to be a lot of political consequences, unfortunately, in this country right now for compromising on issues like budget.

In the words of the great Betty Davis, fasten your seatbelts or keep them fastened. It's going to be a bumpy ride. Yeah, it's not going to be pretty. So this is, maybe I'll just mention again that this is Planetary Society depends on individuals like you to exist. And the more donations and support and membership we have, the better we can represent you in Washington, D.C. and other parts of the world for global space policy. So I'll just maybe just put that out right now in the context of there's going to be a lot of work to do in the next couple of years. All right. Fortunately, there is good news from off world because since we last spoke, we've got a new citizen that has arrived on Mars. And in just the last few days,

we've got a spacecraft that has reached an asteroid, asteroid Bennu, and that, of course, OSIRIS-REx. Let's start with that new arrival on Mars, the InSight lander, Casey, which we were celebrating at Caltech with a thousand other people jumping up and down when it set down safely. Ahead of us, though, of course, is the 2020 rover, which is going to be collecting samples. And you've just written about that at planetary.org. Yeah, well, this is a great opportunity when we're kind of basking in the afterglow of a successful landing on Mars. And we should just emphasize here, this is the eighth time NASA has successfully landed on Mars. No other country or agency or anything, any other organization has successfully pulled that off. That's worth just considering for a second. seemed to work like clockwork, right? It was just this beautiful example of the investments this country has made in developing its workforce and developing its technological capability.

This is the consequence of 20 years of unprecedented exploration of Mars. We are in a point, however, that it has been six years now since the last new start of a Mars mission. That was Mars 2020 in 2012 is when they selected it or at least announced it. That is the longest break, the longest gap in new Mars missions in three to four decades. It's a really long time. It's an unprecedented situation that we're finding ourselves in for this generation, we need to really remind ourselves that things like InSight happen successfully because we have made that investment over the years,

because that workforce is trained, because the expertise is there. That expertise doesn't just come out of nothing, right? It doesn't spontaneously generate the first time you go to Mars. And you can see that ESA has struggled with this over the years to land successfully. Other nations have struggled to land successfully. It is not something you can just create out of

whole cloth. So we need the next step. The next step has been defined by the scientific community. The next step has been already kind of enshrined in the activities of the Mars 2020 rover. And that next step is sample return. Sample return has been the priority of the Mars Committee for decades. The decadal survey done by the National Academies stated that sample return is not just the most important mission, but really the logical next step. And really for the value of the money that you put in, it'll provide the best value of science returned. So we have to pursue sample return. We have taken the first step. Mars 2020 rover will sample cache.

It'll drive around core samples of the surface of Mars, put them in little tubes, drop them on the surface. And right now we have zero plans to get those, right? I just want to emphasize that NASA has literally no official commitment

to go get the samples that we're spending two and a half billion dollars to prepare right now. Those samples won't last forever. The communications infrastructure of our satellites around Mars will not last forever. In fact, they're all quite old. The situation is getting worse by the day. And so the longer we delay the next step, which is the Fetch rover and Mars Ascent vehicle to launch back into orbit, the harder it's going to be to successfully pull that off. Not just in terms of technology, but the workforce sticking around, the communications satellites, everything. We have not secured that commitment yet.

We have seen from the White House for 2019 an investment of $50 million to study the technology, to study the concept. That's an important step. But really, this mission should have begun three, four years ago. Thomas Zurbuchen, the Associate Administrator of Science at NASA, has stated that he wants to pursue a lean sample return, trying to incorporate international partners, incorporate commercial partners to try to lower the overall cost. ESA is studying this.. They're going to really meet and see if they can commit to participating in such an endeavor. So there's things moving forward. But I would say if we look for this next budget request from the White House in 2020, which comes out in roughly February of next year, if we do not see a new start proposal for sample return, then we're

really not seriously taking this issue. This is not a serious issue here. And we're really undermining the overall stability and health of Mars exploration program. So again, InSight, and I wrote about this, InSight provides us the incredible outpouring of public engagement. Millions of people watched the landing. It reminded everyone around the world of some of the exciting stuff NASA can do when it has the resources and commitment. And particularly Mars. And the exciting aspect of landing on the surface of a new world, seeing a vista for the very first time. It's just you are there with that spacecraft.

This can happen. We have done this before. We can do it again. But right now, policy-wise, we are choosing to walk away from it. And so we need this commitment as soon as possible. And that's what we're working on here at the Planetary Society. For more on this, take a look at Casey's recent blog post. He put it up at planetary.org on November 28th, it's titled, After the Success of InSight, It's Time for NASA to Commit to Mars Sample Return. Of course, the 2020 rover, that's a flagship mission.

InSight is not, and neither is OSIRIS-REx, which we want to give some kudos to for its success so far. That asteroid sample return mission, different kind of sample return, and not easy, but a lot easier than bringing stuff back from Mars. Anything to say about OSIRIS-REx and that whole class of lesser missions, Casey? Well, let's call them lesser missions, maybe cheaper missions. The New Frontiers class is this medium class mission for planetary exploration at NASA. Their cost capped at about a billion dollars. OSIRIS-REx was about as beautiful of an example of engineering, planning, and investment as you can get. It actually came in slightly under budget. It is pursuing new science. It's going to bring back some amazing samples from Bennu.

It's just how you do these types of missions. And it's going to be really exciting. And maybe I don't have much to say about it. They just got there. The cameras, the images from the cameras look beautiful. I was actually there to see the launch of OSIRIS-REx back in 2016. And I was fortunate enough to sit on top of the vehicle assembly building with a small group of photographers and see that beautiful Atlas 5 take off as the sun was setting. It's one of the most spectacular launches I've ever seen in my life. So I have a little special moment knowing that I saw the beginning of this mission and now it is just getting to this strange alien world asteroid that can't even hold a spherical shape. It's so small.

It has these giant bizarre boulders. And it's just cool to see that and to know that this is the exact example of why we have these class of missions. High quality science, focused budgeting, long-term commitment. Unlike flagship missions, you don't require a new start from Congress for every new Frontiers mission. The program line is approved. And so as long as the program line has money, you can just select new missions as the funding is available. So that really simplifies some of this. Just like Discovery, you can move a little faster in these mission selections. So it's just really exciting. I'd also point out that OSIRIS-REx has international contributions. And one of those

comes from Canada. We provided the instrument that's going to create the 3D map of Bennu's surface, which will allow scientists to choose the sample site. So Canada contributes little bits and pieces to a lot of NASA missions, and we're generally quite proud of what we do contribute. And so up here, we're celebrating OSIRIS-REx as well, because it's a pretty big moment for Canadian science. Yeah, and the use of that instrument has already begun as they begin to survey that little asteroid and figure out where they're going to sit down and collect that sample. You mentioned long-term commitments, Casey. It's not just building up to launch, but right through the mission, of course, because it's going to be 2023 before we

see those samples of Bennu come back our way. Yeah, set your calendar. Make sure you have that in your planning for 2023. I'm sure they have probably the exact date and time pretty much nailed down because they're going to snatch it out of the air, right, as it's coming down on a parachute or they're going to let it land, I forget. You know, I can't remember if they're going to snatch it or if it's coming down like Stardust did down in a capsule to the ground, but we'll look into that. Hopefully not like Genesis did. Yeah, not like Genesis. Ball did, down in a capsule to the ground. But we'll look into that. Hopefully not like Genesis did.

Yeah, not like Genesis. Ballistically, a ballistic reentry. So Matt, I want to bring up one more thing before we move into Canadian space policy here in Canadian space history. I realize we're recording this on the official state service for President George H.W. Bush. George H.W. Bush, his big space policy contribution, it was kind of like this meaty, all of the above, really vast and ambitious human space flight program for NASA that not only would have the space station, but go to the moon, then on to Mars. Does this sound familiar? But asking for real commitment from the White House to pursue this

ambitious space policy and space exploration effort, which then kind of famously leaked some early estimates of half a trillion dollar cost to do this and pretty much crashed and burned in Congress. They've functionally excised, with a scalpel almost, excised any funding to start this program from NASA in the very early 90s of George H.W. Bush. So interesting just to remember, looking back into George H.W. Bush's life, that he was a very, at least verbally, strong supporter of the space program. He wanted to put some really interesting and ambitious plans together for NASA. And it's a good example. There's a there's an interesting book called Falling Back to Earth by the guy who served on the National Space Council back then talking about the struggles of trying to push this through.

And, you know, the president was going out trying to raise awareness and support. And it reminds us now how easy it is to replicate the Kennedy moment saying that we want to do something ambitious in space, but to actually follow up with the Kennedy-style budgets and political support, and also just having the broad political agreement to pursue ambitious things, particularly in human space flight, that really has not been in the United States since even, I would say not even since the end of Apollo, but even since the mid-60s. Yeah, that was a unique moment, unfortunately. And it does remind me, Casey, that as we head into this period of perhaps even increased partisanship in D.C., it's going to be more important for voices to be heard on Capitol Hill.

And you're still taking names, aren't you, for that visit in March? Indeed. You can sign up at planetary.org slash spaceadvocate. We have about 85, I think, at last check. I think we're capped at around 100 right now. So there's still some room and some time to sign up if you want to come join us. It's going to be great. This is probably that we're going to have the biggest cohort of Planetary Society members ever coming to DC.

We're going to have a lot of meetings. We're going to have really tight focused experience where it're going to have a lot of meetings. We're going to have really tight focused experience where it's going to be a lot of fun and you'll be really functionally making a difference in terms of representing, particularly to a lot of people in the new Congress, if you're in their districts, that space is important and space has your support and something that they should support as well. That's enough inside the Beltway, I guess, for now. Let's take it to the Great White North. And Kate, again, we're very happy to have you on the show. Thank you. It's always great for me to get opportunities to sort of bring Canadian space issues to the table in a larger discussion with a larger audience. We up here,

our space community is quite small, and we are all very much in agreement with one another, at least at the moment. And so we kind of tend to be preaching to the choir a lot of the time. So it's always good to get an opportunity to sort of bring the conversation to other new listeners. And there's been quite a bit going on, at least on the policy front. And that's really what kind of sparked me to think about talking to you, because I realized who would be the best person to really represent this policy stuff that's happening in Canada. I was like, oh, yeah, I actually work with this person. Kate, so I immediately thought of you as to come onto the show. But before we really go into what's

happening in Canada right now in space policy, why don't we actually just kind of quickly jump back and just hear a little bit about you first, how you kind of ended up working in the area of space policy in DC, and then also your current role and how you're participating in this actual discussion right now of advising the future of in the US. I went to George Washington University for a master's in science policy, and they offered a focus in space policy, which I jumped right into as a big space fanatic. But this was, you know, a very DC oriented program. And as a Canadian, I knew I wanted to be more involved in my own country, working in my own country. But while I was in DC, I got involved with the Planetary Society. I was lucky enough to meet the board of directors and got talking about what the Planetary Society might be able to do in Canada, because we've always had a considerable membership in Canada. And

Canada has always been a strong neighbor, strong collaborator with the US in space and in many other areas. So it kind of made sense to explore what the society might do in Canada. So they hired me on to begin that exploration. And that was back in 2013. Over those years, I mean, I also work with volunteers and developing a youth education program with the society. But the Canada part of my job has mostly been really getting a sense of what are the policy challenges in Canada? What kind of contribution could an organization like the Planetary Society make? And how would that actually work? Because mechanisms for advocacy in Canada are different from how things work in the

States. So over that time, I've gotten more and more deeply involved with the Canadian space community. I was appointed last year to a newly formed advisory board to the federal government on space policy issues. And that's really when things started to kick off as well with space policy in Canada. We are, as you mentioned, in an interesting time. So we'll get more to that later. But that's a bit of a background on where I'm coming from and how I got involved. So let's talk about Canadian Space Agency a little bit. It formed, what, in 1990 is when it officially came together? Yes. So we've had a longer history in

space than that. But our actual space agency formed in 1990. So it's pretty young compared to NASA or other space agencies around the world. Yeah, we have a long history in space. We were the third country to put a satellite in orbit, and that was in 1962. We've been partnering with the US from then onward. I mean, the NASA rocket launched Alouette 1, that spacecraft that we put up in 1962. But now the Canadian Space Agency, I mean, it had its origins in sort of defense concerns, much like NASA, but has evolved to be the civil space agency for the country. So it does very similar things to what NASA does. It's science, it's exploration. It's also very concerned with issues that are directly relevant to Canada as a

nation, specific needs that we have as a country. So it's not all about going out and exploring. It's also about understanding our own landmass, our own geography, our own climate, understanding sovereignty issues, tracking ships, that kind of thing, as well as providing communications services to the country because we are a very, very large country geographically with a very small population. And we have a lot of people in remote communities, especially in the north. The Canadian Space Agency is responsible for developing technologies and providing services that are relevant to Canadians. So it looks a bit different from what NASA does, but otherwise, you know, it's a pretty standard space agency.

So what was, going back to Alouette 1, was that a communication satellite that it launched? It was scientific in nature, I believe. It was studying the ionosphere. I was actually just thinking that same thing, that Canada actually seems like it has a huge motivation to invest in space, particularly for this communications and observation aspect, because of exactly what you said. Canada is what, is that the second largest in terms of landmass,

third largest in terms of landmass in the world? Second largest, second only to Russia. And we have the longest shoreline of any country in the world. Yeah, the nature of our country creates unique challenges and space is very well suited to meeting those challenges. So whether it is remote sensing, you know, earth observation or communications, these are technologies that are really relevant to the needs that Canada has as a nation. So investing in space would make a lot of sense. And we do, but I think that the federal government has not necessarily recognized to what extent we as a country rely on our space assets and to what extent you have to really strategically invest and plan for the future to be able to maintain the kind of assets that we rely on as a country. So it's interesting that you say that. And I think that's reflected in the budget of the Canadian Space Agency that we'll maybe talk about in a second. But just going back, I mean, it sounds like Canada came out really early with the Elouette 1, and it's had a series of small satellite launches over that past. Did something shift or did something change? Why does the government have a hard time seeing space as a valuable investment for Canada?

That's a good question. And I wish I had a confident answer because it is not clear to me and to many of us in the space community here why the government has been retreating from space and decreasing investment over time. When it is not only an industry that we rely on for, like we've said, communications, but sovereignty as well for our scientific community and for our remote communities. But it's also a profitable industry to invest in. I mean, the return on investment economically is great. So there isn't a real clear reason why a country like Canada would not invest strongly in space. invest strongly in space. I think part of the issue that we've had as a country, at least in the last decade or so, is that our space agency hasn't had sufficient budget to communicate to the public about why investment in space is important, particularly the sort of less flashy,

less sexy kinds of investments like Earth observation. You know, sending an astronaut into space is always going to be popular politically, but getting political support for the sort of nuts and bolts of space investment, I think, is more difficult. And I think because of that lack of public engagement and public interest, there isn't enough political justification for making significant investments in space. So I think that's part of the problem. But I think also because we have a long history of having a very pragmatic space program where we have invested in core competencies like robotics, like what you see with the Canadarm, our most famous investment,

and with things like remote sensing and communications, because we've invested in those historically to a great degree, we have the capabilities now and we rely on them. But I think that they are, to an extent, taken for granted where they're already in place. And so as government is handed over through various leaders over the years, the newer leaders might not necessarily understand the investments that were made in the past to get us to the point now where we're comfortably relying on our space assets. Do you think it has anything to do with the close relationship to the United States? So does Canada inadvertently or vertently depend on U.S. space aspects,

meaning like GPS or Landsat or some of these other monitoring systems that the data comes out for free or is accessible? Yeah, I think our relationship with NASA and the extent to which NASA and the U.S. are leaders in space probably does affect how we approach space as a nation. There are certainly things that NASA and the US do that the whole world benefits from and can sit back and not contribute financially and still benefit from. But there are other things, too, where we've been able to depend on NASA because we have a good relationship with the United States and there is a certain amount of security there. So Canada, for example, does not have its own launch capability. We don't have rockets that can put things into orbit. We rely on the US and Russia and European countries to launch our spacecraft. And that's always been fine. There is some concern, I think, in Canada right now that maybe we should prioritize

developing a launch capability so that we don't have to rely on other countries, but we've been able to for a long time. So I think that definitely plays into it. I'd also say that, you know, as I mentioned earlier with OSIRIS-REx, Canada has often been able to contribute instruments to scientific missions that are led by NASA or ESA or others. That's been a good way for us to engage our science community without having to put up all the money to lead our own planetary science mission. Canada has never had an independent interplanetary mission. That's a little bit unusual for a country our size and with our sort of legacy in space. But I think it's because we've always been able to depend on some of the bigger players to give us space to contribute a little

bit here and there so that we can still have a space science program without really having to go in on it 100%. It seems to me kind of this ironic consequence of focusing on cooperation, which is always pitched as a really important kind of practical statecraft benefit of investing in space exploration. That by going so far into cooperation, maybe the local political argument then is that we actually don't need to invest in space that much because we can strategically put small amounts of money in these bigger programs and we don't have to do it ourselves. Do you think that's an accurate way of thinking about it? Or do you think would competition be a better mindset to have in the Canadian space arena? Well, I think it depends. For a country that is new to the space game, I think cooperation is great.

It's a way to get in. It's a way to start your program. But I think for Canada, I think we're a country that should be leading our own missions. And I think we've become a bit complacent because we can, yeah, we can put an instrument on OSIRIS-REx and then the CSA is going to be celebrating OSIRIS-REx just as loudly as NASA is going to be because we can say, hey, we're part of this. So we don't, in terms of the political benefit of doing exploration, I think that you may be able to get just as much out of it by participating rather than leading, especially if you don't have this sort of legacy of leadership that NASA has. I think, you know,

NASA is never going to be able to take a step back because the US public wants to be a leader in space. That's very, that's very much part of this sort of story of America in space. That's never really been part of Canada's story. So there's not necessarily that political motivation to go and become a leader, although I do think that it would be well received by the Canadian public. This is really interesting kind of contrasting these different kind of, I don't know, you call them national cultural norms or expectations or self-identity. And this idea of saying, like, would it resonate with the Canadian public to say, we need to be a leader in this, we can't take second best, or maybe that sounds good, but then when you lay out the actual implications, like, okay, we need to quintuple our investment in space or something like that.

Does that then no longer become important? What level of do you see space fitting into the Canadian self-identity that resonates strongly? Yeah, I think it's never really going to be important to the Canadian public to be leading in space, partly because it's never really going to happen. We're never going to overtake NASA. I think the public would really support an independent mission because we do have national pride. We want to be independent. We have a complicated relationship with the United States where we depend on you, but we also resent that dependence to a certain degree. So I think having an independent mission would be well received. But at the same time, I think that the culture of Canada is perhaps better suited to the kind of pragmatic space program that we've had

in the past. You know, being a leader in robotics has been really important to Canada's space program. And that's, I think, something that Canadians are proud of to know that, yeah, if you want to build the next space station, you're going to call on Canada to provide the robotics because we do that the best. And we don't have to be flashy about it. You know, I think that there's a certain amount of humility in the Canadian culture that we don't need to be building our own space station. We just want to be really good at this one thing. And I think also being leaders in aspects of the space sector that are directly relevant and beneficial to our country and specifically to the people who are sort of left out a lot of the time from the conversations. This is specifically our people in northern communities, many of whom are indigenous to Canada. And I think that that serving those communities with our space program, that's the kind of thing that Canadians take pride in. I don't think that flashy leadership, for lack of a better term, I don't

think that that's really what we are all about. I mean, I'm sure there are going to be Canadians who disagree with me, but that's just my view on it. It strikes me then that this new trend in space of small sats and cube sats, and not just that, but small launchers, the cost of access for these small missions could really change the game, I guess, in Canada for a more limited budget, for more focus. You could do an independent mission. And I believe Canada has been doing that with these small sat missions. I saw a lot of them were launched in 2013 and some other ideas. I mean, for a couple million dollars, $10 million, you could actually do a pretty interesting either science or earth observation or something in space, right? Do you see that changing the discussion? Yeah, absolutely. And actually a recent program that I think is really cool

and that is, I think, something that is kind of unique to Canada is we have something called the Canadian CubeSat Project, and that was funded by the federal government, but going out and getting each province and territory to build their own CubeSat that can do some kind of unique science mission. Because we have just a relatively small number of provinces and territories, it's possible to engage every single one of them. And this is also a great way to showcase the relevance of CubeSat technologies and space technologies overall to these different parts of

the country that don't necessarily participate. Like if you look at Canada's space sector, it's really highly concentrated in mostly Southern Ontario, Quebec, a bit British Columbia, but it's really densely concentrated. So CubeSats are a way to engage more of the Canadian public, get more investment going into companies across the country that otherwise might not always win their bids to get funding from the CSA for bigger projects, that kind of thing. So I do see CubeSats as really being relevant to Canada's future in space and smaller satellites overall, for sure. I'm curious whether efforts like this, CubeSats, the fact that there is yet another Canadian astronaut who's just moved into the International Space Station, do these provide inspiration for Canadians, particularly young people? I'm thinking of sort of STEM or STEAM efforts in Canada has been limited in the last decade or more specifically in the last seven years because the actual education outreach budget of the Canadian Space Agency was eliminated in 2011.

So we've had a hard time conducting outreach because there is this very, I mean, basically the communications department of the CSA handles all the educational outreach now. You don't have really major nationwide outreach campaigns or education or STEM campaigns, but you can sort of springboard off of these missions that already are happening to do educational outreach. So we saw that done by Chris Hadfield, our last Canadian on the International Space Station. He did incredible educational outreach work, engaging classrooms, engaging the general public. And a lot of that was coordinated

by the Canadian Space Agency's communications department rather than a specific education department. It was also done in collaboration with organizations like Let's Talk Science that do STEM outreach across the country. And I think what we're seeing now in terms of STEM in Canada is a lot of players other than the federal government coming to the table to try to tap into what space can offer. So whether it's Chris Hadfield on the ISS, or now David Saint-Jacques on the ISS, our latest astronaut just launched two days ago, or missions like OSIRIS-REx, there are organizations across Canada that are using what's happening in space to try to inspire and educate our nation's young people.

There are also some really great initiatives like the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge that engage students at the post-secondary level to work on designing a satellite. And it's a competition to see which design is best. And it involves a lot of, I mean, the teams themselves have to do public outreach, have to engage their communities.

That's part of the competition. But it's also a great way for students to actually develop these kind of skills. So there are a lot of educational activities going on in Canada. That's definitely really important to the space community. And I've been encouraged to see that even though federal funding has been extremely limited, there still are a lot of activities going on to try to connect young people to space. So let's actually talk about the funding issue. And let's talk about, I mean, maybe even overall, just quantify the Canadian Space Agency's budget. And let's just

use NASA as the comparison. I don't have the exact number, but right now the Canadian Space Agency's budget is around $300 million a year. Is that accurate? Yeah. So we have what's called the A-BASE funding, which is sort of this basic block that every year the CSA can draw on. And then we have additional funding for special projects. So things like our Radarsat constellation mission, which is one of the big things that's been in development, which is an Earth observation mission, a constellation of three satellites, something like that, that's kind of this extra project gets tacked on on top of our A-based funding has been basically around 260 million since 2014. Prior to that, it was 300 million. So it's gone down and it hasn't grown with inflation over these years. So it's essentially shrinking year by year as inflation happens. It's teeny tiny compared to the

multi-billion dollar budget of NASA. The CSA gets basically nothing. We do quite a lot with that. I mean, especially considering how pragmatic the space program is and how focused in on core technologies, core competencies. But still, it's peanuts compared to what the U.S. gets and actually compared to a lot of other nations. I think we've gone from being in the top 10 nations to somewhere low in the top 20. In terms of the amount of money you spend on space compared to your GDP, Canada has dropped into the bottom of the list of 20 from it was in the top 5 or 10 for a while. And so just to put that into comparison, that $300 million, $260 million base, we're comparing to at NASA's, right, last year was $20.7 billion. And then, I mean, that's smaller than NASA's heliophysics division, which is the smallest science division. That's what's funded at $700 million in U.S. And there's an exchange difference right now of about, add 25% difference to that.

So do you want to give us maybe this two-minute overview of just kind of the broad national political trends that led to this in the last 10, 15 years. You mentioned this around 2011 when they eliminated the funding for the outreach and education department. This was part of some broader conservative government initiative that really hammered the Canadian space budget. Yeah. So the sort of political reasons behind this are somewhat obscure to the outside observer, but it does seem that the conservative government, which held power for about a decade, did not see space as something worth significantly investing in. And so cut it wherever possible. Education is one of those things that is an easy cut when you're looking at an overall space program. So that was one of the first cuts. But I think more than budgets

being slashed through political decisions, I think what we've seen in Canada is budgets atrophying through political neglect. So space has not been seen as a significant part of our country's activities internationally. It has not been seen as something that we take very seriously on a federal political level because it hasn't really ever been showcased as something worth really going 100% in on. It has just been ignored and has been seen to be fine where it is and just leave it where it is. That atrophy, I think, has been what's really been problematic as opposed to big sweeping cuts. And you see this, it's reflected in Canada's space industry where companies are shutting down, are being sold to foreign buyers, are being downsized significantly. You see engineers and scientists

alike moving out of Canada to go find work elsewhere. And it's this sort of slow atrophy that now has Canada basically at a point where I think the Canadian space community sees us as being at this tipping point where either the government realizes the situation and increases investment significantly and develops a strategy, because this is one of the things that's been missing, is like a long-term strategy, a long-term policy, so that people in industry and in academia alike and international partners can look forward and see where is Canada going in space, what can we anticipate in the coming years? Because without that, companies are, I think, on the brink of moving away even

faster than they have been, because there's no predictability in what's going to happen in Canada in the coming years. There's very limited funding at the moment. There's no indication that funding is going to increase. So if you're a company looking to start building satellites, you're not going to do it in Canada, you're going to go do it in the US or in Europe or elsewhere. And likewise, if you're a person going through your PhD looking to do space science research of some kind, you're not going to make plans to do that in Canada either, because there just is not the funding to support a really thriving academic community.

There's actually a perfect opportunity then to bring up what you're serving on right now, the Space Advisory Board. When was the last time Canada had a future or strategic framework or strategic direction in space? And are there any big projects that Canada is working on in space right now? And if not, is this what you're trying to do on this advisory board? Yeah, so Canada hasn't had an actual space policy in an extremely long time. The last thing that we had was the 2014 space policy framework. But that was really just a regurgitation of sort of talking points from the 2003 National Space Strategies.

I read that and actually didn't really say all that much in preparation for our talk today. It was just kind of a lot of platitudes. And that was about it. It's sort of, theoretically, Canada should be doing these space, these things in space, but it's not a commitment to doing anything and there's no budget attached to it. I mean, the 2014 space policy framework came at the same time as a reduction in Canada's base budget from 300 million to 260 million. So we're putting out this new policy-ish document, but at the same time, lowering the budget. So there hasn't been a real solid plan with money attached to it. So whether that takes the form of a strategy framework document or an actual policy document that will outline exactly what's going to happen in the coming years.

In any case, we really are demanding some kind of indication of what Canada's plans are for the future. So my role with the Space Advisory Board is very much tied in with that. In 2015, the liberal government, which was elected back then, announced that they wanted to re-establish a space advisory board federally, which is something that used to exist in the past, but had not really been active in the long times. They called out to the space community for people to apply. I wound up being a late addition to the Space Advisory Board about a year ago now. The board was tasked with reaching out to the space community, to space stakeholders, whether in industry, academia, government, whatever, to understand what are the challenges that people are facing? What do people perceive the needs of the Canadian space sector to be? And what kind of recommendations would we make to the government as a community for how to move forward with space? So that was one of the first things that the Space Advisory Board did was all these public

consultations, and then synthesized all of that information into a set of recommendations that were delivered to the ministry that is responsible for space. So it's the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. The Canadian Space Agency lives within that ministry. We delivered a set of recommendations. The very first most important one was that Canada needs to see space as a strategic national asset. That means that we recognize that space is relevant to the whole of government. It's not just the ministry that the CSA lives within. It's agriculture, it's defense, very widespread, and recognizing that it's important for Canada to have a strong space industry so that we can

support ourselves in space and not have to go and outsource everything. We don't want to have to buy all of our satellites, whether it's the hardware or just the services from other countries. We want to have our own space capabilities, and that requires having a strong space industry. So that was sort of our top recommendation. The Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, Navdeep Bains, took all of our recommendations and put together a proposal to develop a space strategy in line with the recommendations of the Space Advisory Board that would require approval from the Prime Minister's office and the Ministry of Finance. So that was submitted around this time last year. So during last year's federal budget process. And when the budget came out in February, we did not see any indication of a space strategy, of a new space policy, of space being seen as a national strategic asset, any of that. So now we're at this, we've kind of come back around to say, okay, what went wrong? any of that. So now we're at this, we've kind of come back around to say, okay, what went wrong?

What can be done? You know, how can we as a space advisory board help? And a big part of what we've been doing since then is continuing to provide advice to the minister and his staff, not only on what we think should be in the space strategy and how that strategy might be formulated, but also how to get public buy-in and political buy-in on that strategy. It's interesting that you mentioned George H.W. Bush, because I think that we have faced very much the same problem that he faced when he proposed that really comprehensive and logical space strategy, but it was just too big. And presenting it all at once scared off the holders of the purse strings in government. And I think we saw the same thing this time last year, where the space strategy for Canada, which would have to be long-term in nature, would necessarily have

to be expensive in that long-term. Like if you're pitching a 10-20 year plan, the dollar value assigned to that is going to be scary to someone like a Minister of Finance, especially when there is not a clear political rationale for doing this. So this is kind of the issue that we're up against right now. This is also this budget that's being prepared right now in Canada is an election budget. So we have a government that's looking to get reelected. So they want to be very pragmatic in the budget they put forward because they don't want to catch a bunch of flack from Canadians who say they're overspending. And space is one of those areas that I think they're afraid that people are going to see as wasteful spending.

Although we all know that that's not true. Yeah, they're not going to, they're not courting the space voter. Exactly, exactly. And I'll just say that, I mean, this problem is reinforced by the inability of the Canadian Space Agency to conduct widespread and effective educational outreach, you know, when we don't have money to talk to the Canadian public about why space is important, it makes it less likely that we'll be able to get public buy-in for further space funding. So it's kind of this vicious cycle of lack of awareness, lack of support, lack of budget, lack of communications, just going around and around.

So if you're Canadian, what can you do about this right now? Right now, there's actually an electronic petition that has been initiated by the space community and has been submitted to Parliament. So Canadians can sign this petition. It's asking government to develop and fund and implement a national space strategy. We're going to be sharing, if this hasn't happened by the time this episode comes out, it'll be very soon. We're going to be sharing e-petition with our members. There's also another campaign specifically encouraging Canada to participate in the Deep Space Gateway program, because this is really going to determine whether we have an astronaut program in the future, whether we have, you know, whether there's another Canadarm down the line, or whether we are

really stepping back from exploration. So this campaign is called Don't Let Go Canada, and it is specifically encouraging the federal government to invest in or to make a commitment to investing a contribution to the Deep Space Gateway program. So that's ongoing as well. And Canadians can join the Planetary Society. There's never been a better time for Canadians to join us because really this is one of the most critical moments in space advocacy in Canada. Yeah, we'll put the links to both of those on the show page here so people can use those. And I encourage people, Canadians, to really step up and let your representatives in government know about this, that this is an important thing. And maybe just to kind of start to wrap up here,

you raised this as an issue, but it sounds like the Lunar Gateway, this potential U.S. space station around the moon, is that really the only major project that Canada could engage with with the U.S. going forward in terms of the level of the International Space Station? Probably not. I mean, any future science or exploration mission is going to have room for Canadian contributions like what we've seen with OSIRIS-REx and so many others. But yeah, the Lunar Gateway is really the big one on the horizon in terms of Canada's future in space. I mean, the reason that we've been able to have an astronaut program is because we contributed robotics to the space shuttle and to the International Space Station. If we hadn't made those contributions, we wouldn't be granted space for astronauts to

fly on the shuttle or on ISS. So for Canada to have an astronaut program in the future, we have to contribute to the Lunar Gateway. The important caveat is that committing to participating in the Gateway is not sufficient for Canada. gateway is great and is necessary, but it's really important as well to have a balanced portfolio of missions and projects and programs to have policy in place that is responsive to the, you know, rapid pace of change of the space industry. So like the US has done with sort of relaxing federal regulations for launch and reentry, Canada needs to make sure that we have a nimble policy framework as well so that our space sector can grow and thrive. And we need to have a long-term plan so that industry and academia can know what's coming

and plan accordingly and invest accordingly. know what's coming and plan accordingly and invest accordingly, we really are concerned that the government might make, you know, a big contribution to Gateway and then just say, okay, we've solved all the problems of the Canadian space sector by doing this one thing, but that's really not going to be sufficient. So that's, I think, an important message to drive home. Yeah, I think it's really important too, or really just a good reminder of the role of policy here doesn't just impact whether the government spends money. But what we've been talking about when you've really highlighted through this conversation is that there's this broader commercial and industrial sector in Canada that is setting its own expectations and

investments based on government policy. And so absent smart policy in that, it's not just that the Canadian space or Canadian government isn't spending money, you're really having long-term impacts to the industrial and workforce and scientific base in Canada based on these decisions. Yeah. I mean, one thing that we heard in the Space Advisory Board's public consultations was that, and I'm not an expert in this specifically, but the Canadian policy structure is not very hospitable to entrepreneurship in the space sector. And that's why you see all kinds of amazing startups in the US. But you don't see that as much in Canada. If you want to start a space startup, it's better to do it in the US if you possibly can.

If you want to start a space startup, it's better to do it in the US if you possibly can. And this is one of the things that can be addressed through policy changes. This doesn't have to require substantial investment. This is something that can be done just in restructuring how policy functions in Canada. And I think that's one of the things that we've also tried to communicate to government is not everything that we're asking for requires, you know, a big line item on the budget. A lot of it is just adapting how Canada approaches our space sector to the sort of modern realities of how space works. And a big part of that is that things change rapidly, things are international, and you have to have policies that reflect that. So Kate, just to wrap up here, do you feel optimistic or uncertain about this future? How do you, how's your emotional state kind of given all of these challenges that Canadian space

is facing right now? Honestly, it changes day to day, depending on who I'm talking to. I would say overall, I'm optimistic. Canada cannot give up our space capabilities altogether. I don't think it's ever going to happen that we let our sector completely atrophy and that we have to rely on international providers for all of the things that we rely on for space. I don't think that that's going to happen. I think we're going to, I'm optimistic that we're going to see an investment in the Deep Space or Lunar Gateway program. I think where I'm more concerned is that our scientific community is going to continue to suffer because there are not opportunities for Canadian scientists to do space research as much as there should be for country or size. I think that that's the community that's in slightly more peril. But I would say that if I take a long enough term view, a broad enough look at the future, I become more optimistic for the next five, 10 years. I am concerned. And especially, I've encountered a lot of really brilliant young people in Canada

who are in school still like in undergrad or grad programs or who are early in their careers. And I see a lot of them leaving Canada. And that is what is discouraging to me. I think we have a pretty significant brain drain going on right now. I think that that's what I'm more worried about. And I really hope that the government does see the sort of state that we're in and the steps that need to be taken to reverse the damage that's already been done and, and set us up to have a more thriving space community in the future. So cautiously optimistic with occasional moments of pessimism.

It sounds very familiar, emotional state for me. This is the life you live, you get to live when you get too involved in any kind of policy world, I think is frustration, optimism, pessimism, a whole whirlwind of emotions. Yeah, just ride that roller coaster. It makes life interesting. Thanks for joining us on the show. I hope you come back and let us know what happens next year. I absolutely will. And thanks so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure.

This has been fascinating. Kate, I want to ask you, we will put links on the show page that people can reach from planetary.org or better yet, planetary.org slash radio. Do you know how people can learn more about the Don't Let Go Canada campaign off the top of your head? Yeah, I believe the URL is don'tletgocanada.ca. So you can head there. Yeah, please do look at the links on the show page because the petition to the House of Commons that I mentioned earlier, that's just as important as the Don't Let Go Canada campaign. So if you want to be a space advocate in Canada, check out those links and do what you can to contribute to making our future in space a little bit brighter. And one other question that has more to do with your other work for the

Planetary Society as our global community outreach manager. There's a program that you and another colleague of ours, Whitney Pratt, have put together for teachers. Do you want to say anything about that? Sure. Yeah. We haven't really formally announced this yet, but this is maybe a sneak peek. We are developing a youth education program. So this is looking to connect kids in school with space to help encourage not only an interest in space, but also an interest in going into the kind of careers that contribute to space exploration. So that includes, of course, science and engineering, technology, math, those kind of classic STEM fields, but also business, law, policy, design, all the creative pursuits that contribute to making space exploration happen.

We really want to just inspire kids to become part of the global space community. And it's just in early pilot stages. We're working on one project specifically, but you can learn more in the future when we are finally ready to announce it. But yeah, definitely the Planetary Society is looking to get more involved in grooming the next generation of explorers. And that's pretty exciting. Another reason to keep an eye on planetary.org. Thanks again, Casey. I'm glad we have Kate as a colleague. Absolutely. Thank you. All right, Kate. Well, thank you again for

joining us as the National Coordinator for Canada for the Planetary Society, Kate Howells. And we will certainly be talking to you again to see what happens as we go forward in the future of Canadian space. Absolutely. Hopefully I'll have good news to report next time. Well, only if our members in Canada step up and talk to their representatives in government and sign that Don't Let Go Canada campaign. And join the Planetary Society. And join the Planetary Society, of course. Well, that goes without saying. Planetary.org slash membership.

We'll say it and we'll say it over and over. Planetary.org slash membership. And that other campaign, I mean, we'll always be looking for new members, but the Planetary Fund at planetary.org slash planetary fund. but the Planetary Fund at planetary.org slash planetary fund and that $50,000 match, which we hope to realize before the end of the year. So please join us as advocates for space, as you've heard all over the world, including in Canada under the able leadership of Kate Howells.

Casey, we'll be getting together again, if my calendar is correct, on Friday, January 4th for the next monthly Space Policy Edition. Indeed we will, the new year. So this is the last of 2018. Thank you all for listening this year. And we will certainly be planning a great year ahead of us. I'm already running into too many people I want to talk to at this rate of one per month. So it's going to be a great year of shows. I'm looking forward to it as well. And pretty soon our fourth anniversary of the Space Policy Edition. That's Casey Dreyer. He is the chief advocate for the Planetary Society, working in our efforts regarding

space policy and advocacy, mostly in Washington, D.C., but with concern for advancing space exploration around the world. I'm Matt Kaplan. I am the host of Planetary Radio. Hope you will join us for the weekly show. This week, if you're hearing this early on, that show features the great success of InSight and even more recent success of OSIRIS-REx, which we congratulate both of those teams on the tremendous achievements that they have already seen and hopefully will be continuing as those missions continue. That's also at planetary.org, planetary.org slash radio. And I look forward to talking to you all again on the first Friday in January for the next Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio. Have a great set of

holidays and a great month.