I like the opportunity to travel the world and work in close company with other people.

New standards for safety are now in place and Canada has helped provide tools and techniques that were needed. Technologies like these are innovative and represent great achievements for us.

Well, my father was in the Army and we traveled quite a bit when I was growing up, and I thought that I would like to have a military career, although I was drawn more towards the Navy.

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.

In 1983, NASA invited Canada to fly three payload specialists, in part because we had contributed the robotic arm that is used on the shuttle.

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.

Canada's a huge country, so to be able to unite the country through communication satellite technology or to be able to observe it through remote sensing technology from space is a natural fit for a country like Canada.