A Most Extraordinary Ride
Guest: Marc Garneau, astronaut and politician
In this edition of Journal, a question: Do you remember how you felt when Canada sent our first astronaut up into space? The pride? The amazement?
Did you ever wonder what it takes to be one of the chosen ones on this small team of would-be astronauts, when Canada didn’t even have a full space program?
The year was 1984 and the man was Marc Garneau, today’s guest.
His story is a remarkable tale of talent, guts, success and very hard work in a number of professions: a captain in our Navy, Canada’s first astronaut in space, President of the Canadian Space Agency and finally a turn in politics as the federal Minister of Transportation and then Foreign Affairs – and that is just a “fly-over” of his career, pun intended.
Marc has recently written a book on his adventures called “A Most Extraordinary Ride.” And indeed, it has been. He describes himself as a restless individual – a somewhat challenging young man testing all the rules.
In his career, Marc Garneau, wearing different hats, had dinner with President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Mulroney just before his first space flight, travelled the world trying to better understand the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific region, and then, as our Minister of Foreign Affairs, was involved in the chaotic aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
One of Marc Garneau’s last acts as a politician was to give a moving speech to the United Nations on Canada’s behalf, saying in part: “Space offers the unique perspective of seeing beyond one’s own national borders. In that sense, this body – the United Nations – offers that same perspective.”
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