You're in orbit over the Earth. And suddenly it's very, very quiet. It's dramatic. You realize you're floating in the straps in your chair. And you take off your seat belt and float over to the window and look out, and you realize, "I'm not looking at a picture, here." I couldn't process it all. Even if I forget everything else in my life, that will stay with me, burned into my brain until the day I die.

Canada and space are a natural fit.

Through these ongoing activities and possibly in the future, a Canadian will go live and work on the International Space Station and we will continue to make Canadians proud of our achievements in space.

I would love to see the world's space programs continue toward sending humans to an asteroid or to Mars, with, of course, a full plan in place to bring them back. That excites me. And one of the things that excites me most about space is that we can go up there and put spacecraft in orbit with sensors that will help us measure the health of our planet, which is becoming particularly important. Our planet needs to be observed.

We have played a critical role in meeting the new safety standards. The Canadian space industry contributed new tools that make the inspection of the space shuttle possible.

It is a challenge to have your launch date slip continuously.

I wanted to further my education, so I went on to get a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and came back and served about ten years in the Canadian Navy as what we call a combat systems engineer.