🚀 go-pugleaf

Tom Harris (bq627@FreeNet.Carleton.CA) writes:
>    SYNOPSIS OF TOM HARRIS' MEETING WITH SENIOR CANADIAN SPACE OFFICIALS
>                      (as recorded by Tom Harris)
> 
> 
> DATE/TIME OF MEETING: June 9, 1995/11:00 am -12:15 pm
> LOCATION: Canadian Space Agency (CSA) President's Ottawa office
> ATTENDED BY:
> 	(1) MR. MAC EVANS, President of the CSA;
> 	(2) MS. DIANA DURNFORD, Special Assistant-Policy to the Minister
> 	of Industry (The Honorable John Manley);
> 	(3) MR. TOM HARRIS, Speaker, Space Exploration and Environment.
> 
> ******************************************************************************
> 	MEETING OVERVIEW:  Generally friendly and open-minded -- while not
> 	immediately in complete agreement with each other on some issues, there
> 	was some give and take on both sides and good progress was made.
> ******************************************************************************  
> 
> I started the meeting by giving Mr. Evans and Ms. Durnford copies of some
> of the e-mail I had received and news group entries I had seen over the
> past few weeks which were supportive of Canada's continued participation
> in manned space flight.  Following a brief discussion of my use of
> Internet news groups for space activism, we got down to the two main
> points of the meeting.  These two issues were: 
> 
>         (1) The suggestions made by an increasing number of social
> scientists that the space agencies should focus more on the societal
> consequences of manned space exploration and development when marketing
> the program;  
> 
> 	(2) The general perception in the space activist community that,
> by reducing Canada's contribution to the international space station
> project, the government was, in effect, "eating our seed corn", thereby
> damaging our potential to generate wealth in the future.  
>  

etc.etc.........

Addition to the above:                                                                         

In looking through my files, I see that in another of John Manley's
letters to me (dated March 24, 1994) he said:

"I also acknowledge your point on the need to market the
Space Program as a vital element to the development of a healthy society
and your argument on the necessity to establish an international social
science research program into the implications of human space flight.  The
government recognizes the value of cooperation between academia and the
public sector in the space field."


At the time, I was pushing to have some funds put aside to establish some
sort of coordinated effort to further study the social science
ramifications of space flight.  Now, I am just trying to get the CSA to
use the arguments which are already being put forward by social
scientists.  It turns out that there already exists an organization called
the "Institute for the Social Science Study of Space" at Fairmont College in
West Virgina - I left a  brochure describing this organization with Mr. Evans 
(as referenced in the first news group submission).


Tom Harris