Peter Black
Local Journalism Initiative reporter
peterblack@qctonline.com
Marc Garneau is not known as the most poetic of Canadian astronauts, deep thoughts not being an essential requirement of a naval engineer for flying a space mission. But at a recent speaking engagement at the Morrin Centre, the first Canadian in space mesmerized the audience with a profound, nearly spiritual reflection on the vastness of the cosmos and humanity’s presumption of significance in it.
“From Earth, our perspective goes out to the horizon – 10 or 15 kilometres around. When you see the entire planet, your perspective starts to change. You see that this planet is the cradle of humanity … there’s nowhere else to go, and we have to find a way to get along with each other.”
One supposes that’s what sets astronauts – and now commercial space travellers – apart from more Earth-bound folk: The unique experience, as the poem goes, of slipping the surly bonds of Earth, and being alone with one’s soul and intellect at the doorstep of the unknowable universe.
Garneau, a proud francophone son of Quebec City, made his first of three voyages into space in 1984, a highlight of the remarkable role Quebecers have played and continue to play in exploring the secrets of the heavens.
There are, of course, Garneau’s fellow Quebec astronauts, David Saint-Jacques, who holds the Canadian record of 204 continuous days in space, and Julie Payette, who took part in two space shuttle missions, in 1999 and 2009.
Garneau went on from the astronaut program to become president of the Canadian Space Agency, whose first president in 1989 was physicist Larkin Kerwin of Quebec City, a former rector of Université Laval and head of the National Research Council. Kerwin is credited with naming the famous space Swiss army knife, the Canadarm.
Though, like Kerwin, he never made it into space, one of those remarkable Quebec space explorers, alas, recently “joined the stars” as his family put it – Quebec astrophysicist and science media “star” Hubert Reeves.
Educated at both Université de Montréal and McGill University, Reeves, who died at 91 in October, authored more than 40 books and countless articles about the mysteries of the universe and Earth’s environment.
An adviser to NASA in its early years, Reeves, who, with his white beard looked every inch the wizard professor, was also a serious researcher. He created several TV series to shed light on topics of astronomy and other scientific matters, earning accolades and awards from around the planet.
About his twin passions, he wrote, “Astronomy, by telling us the story of the universe, tells us where we came from, how we came to be here today. Ecology, by making us aware of the threats to our future, aims to tell us how to stay there.”
At the other end of the age spectrum is a remarkable young astrophysicist, Laurie Rousseau-Nepton, who, coincidentally was a recipient of a Hubert Reeves fellowship in 2010. She is also the subject of a newly released five-part National Film Board documentary, called North Star, about her life and career.
Rousseau-Nepton, who grew up and looked up at the stars in the Innu community of Mashteuiatsh in the Saguenay-Lac Saint-Jean region, is described as Canada’s first female Indigenous astrophysicist. She was a resident astronomer for six years at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii, forming an international group called SIGNALS “designed to investigate massive star formation in numerous galaxies close to the Milky Way.”
Currently an associate professor at the Dunlap Institute of the University of Toronto, Rousseau-Nepton, like Reeves, has become a popular communicator of the wonders of the stars, with an added Indigenous touch.
As she says in the documentary, “In the Innu culture and many cultures in Canada, we come from the stars and we also return to the stars – and it’s a cycle. For me, it makes sense that I’m doing this. It’s something that I’ve actually learned all of my life: to study where we come from.”
Based on these and other individual contributions, Quebec, with the world-class observatory at Mont Mégantic and the Canadian Space Agency in Longueuil, might rightly claim to be the centre of Canada’s universe in terms of the study and exploration of space.
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