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 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.


DETAILS
(note: I will be submitting the details concerning our discussion of issue
#2 in another news group entry to be submitted soon -- stay tuned -- Mr.
Evans' answers to my questions were very interesting indeed.  It turns out
that things are better than I had thought -- relatively speaking, Mr.
Manley is currently treating the CSA as a favored department.  Were it not
for his enthusiastic promotion of the space station project, other forces
in cabinet would likely have already had their way and Canada would be out
of the program entirely - thanks Mr. Manley!)

CONCERNING ISSUE #1:
We spent the first 40 minutes of the meeting discussing how several social
scientists (most especially anthropologists, historians and psychologists)
have some important things to say about the relevance of manned space
exploration and development to the future of our society.  In particular,
I described the following three arguments which specialists maintain are
largely being ignored when space agencies market the program (I gave Mr.
Evans and Ms. Durnford several pages of excerpts from some of my recent
speeches and a reading list typical of those I hand out at my talks to
further reinforce these ideas - I'll include all of this in future news
group submissions for your interest and feedback).  Here are the concepts
I presented:
        (1) The expansion of humans into space is acting as a driver for
the evolution of consciousness required to properly understand and solve
many of our complex global problems.  I cited various social scientists
who maintain that our movement into space is a crucial next step in human
development, one we must soon take if we are to have any chance of a
positive future.
        (2) Satisfaction of the drive to engage in geographic exploration
is important to the health and well being of our society.  Thwarting this
drive would cause our civilization to "degenerate into a frontierless folk
culture, engaged in endless self reflection" (to paraphrase historian
Stephen Pyne of Arizona State University).  People want to "boldly go
where no one has gone before" and there are some very good cultural and
genetic reasons for this (see my next news group entry for more on this).
        (3) As a society, we need inspiring dreams and visions of
alternative positive futures.  As Russell Ackoff, Professor Emeritus of
the University of Pennsylvania, has said: "The inability to envision a
positive future is, in itself, a threat to survival".   I discussed how
the enormous popularity of Star Trek is largely due to the generally
positive vision of the future it presents.  I pointed out to Mr. Evans and
Ms. Durnford that, in my experience as a speaker, I have found that young
people in particular need this kind of positive vision of the future to
counter much of the growing pessimism and negativity they see in the
society around them (to be fair, I should point out that the CSA is
apparently already doing some of this (i.e.. trying to enthuse young
people about careers in the space field) with their Space Awareness
Program, which was part of the Long Term Space Plan announced a year ago
-- however, more of this is clearly needed).

(by the way, Charles Laughlin, an anthropologist at Carleton University
here in Ottawa maintains that the various space agencies are making a
serious mistake by not taking advantage of Star Trek's popularity when
they market manned space flight - they should say: "If you want a future
that even approaches that envisioned on Star Trek, then we must support
manned space flight now".   Earlier this week, when Marc Garneau (the
first Canadian in space) was on the CBC Newsworld call-in TV show "Petrie
in Prime", I called in and asked him why the space agencies were not
already using elements of popular culture such as Star Trek to help market
the program.  He was quite gracious in his answer, admitting that they had
a lot to learn in the area of selling the program to the public - let's
hope that they don't wait until the program is completely dead before
changing their approach!  (note:  I'll put the full transcript of my
question and Dr. Garneau's answer on the news group sometime soon - his
answer was very interesting indeed (yes, he is a Star Trek fan (mostly of
"The Next Generation"))).


I then went on to explain to Mr. Evans and Ms. Durnford that social
scientists maintain that these "human centered" benefits of manned space
flight are far more important than the standard justifications commonly
used by the space agencies (I did say, however, that these scientists
don't negate the standard justifications; they just insist that they are
much less significant than the social science arguments).  I also
discussed how most audiences I have spoken to are generally not interested
in spinoffs, etc.  However, when I discuss the societal ramifications,
there are many excited conversations following my talks and many people
who were initially skeptical about the value of manned space activities go
away feeling much more positive about the activity.  I told Mr. Evans and
Ms. Durnford how several specialists believe that if space agencies don't
soon incorporate social science arguments into the marketing of the manned
space program, then it will probably not last much longer (I'll go into
more detail on this in my next Internet news group submission);

Initially, Mr. Evans and Ms. Durnford seemed skeptical about the value of
using these arguments in selling manned space flight to Canadians
(however, they did not in any way disagree with the arguments themselves).
 Mr. Evans expressed concern that Canadians understand that we are only a
small part of such large projects as missions to Mars, etc...
Consequently, he initially felt that the kind of overview these social
scientists were promoting would not go far in convincing Canadians to
support manned space flight.  I disagreed, explaining how hundreds of
thousands of Canadians were very motivated by such global causes as
protecting the environment or promoting world peace.  I told Mr. Evans
that, while I do emphasize (in my speeches) the small, though important,
role that Canada plays in the overall space effort, I have found that
Canadians are inspired when they feel that they are part of a larger
effort that is helping build a better world for their children and
grandchildren.  In contrast, I explained again, I have found that most
people don't really care about technological spinoffs and the other short
term tangible benefits the space agency uses in their marketing.  At this
point, I showed Mr. Evans and Ms. Durnford a copy of a news group
submission which summarized the results of a recent poll in the US.  The
news group submission said:

"The Annenberg Foundation did some extensive work on this a few years ago.
 They did extensive polling, focus groups, the whole nine yards.  Their
conclusion is that the argument (i.e.. spinoffs, etc.) has absolutely no
effect on anybody -- nobody cares about spinoffs.  What they *DID* care
about was the expansion of humanity beyond Earth.  This was especially
true when put in terms where people could see themselves going.  Now
compare this with NASA.  Add up the press releases about spinoffs. Look at
the elitist way the astronaut corps is treated. Pretty much the exact
opposite of what the study says.  Draw your own conclusions."


By the end of this part of the meeting, both Mr. Evans and Ms. Durnford
seemed to agree that the social scientists had a good point -- much of
what these specialists had to say should be used in the selling of manned
space flight.  However, Mr. Evans still seemed reluctant to get the CSA
involved in this kind of marketing approach, obviously believing that
Canada was too small a player in the space field to be promoting such a
long term overview.  I pointed out that, while small, Canada is still
greatly respected in international circles (reminding him of Trudeau's
peace mission during his last days as PM).  I explained to Mr. Evans that
if the leaders of Canada's space program (executives, astronauts,
engineers, scientists, etc.) started to use the social science arguments
in their speeches and other PR material, it could easily act as a catalyst
to get the major players in the space field to start thinking about using
these ideas as well.  After all, I said, a previous head of the CSA (and
NRC), Dr. Larkin Kerwin had gone somewhat in this direction already when
he delivered the Charles Stark Draper memorial address four years ago at
the International Astronautical Federation's conference in Montreal.  Dr.
Kerwin's speech was given an enthusiastic reception by the enormous
international audience in attendance -- not surprisingly, the delegates
were excited to hear a prominent figure in the space community saying that
they were part of something bigger than themselves or their generation
(note: A few years ago I sent an audio copy of this speech to the CSA,
recommending that this long term overview be used more often in the
agency's speeches and promotional material).  I also reminded them that
John Manley himself had said, in his July 29, 1994 letter to me, "I indeed
share your point of view that the humans in space component of the
programme should be marketed in a way that will focus more on social
science ramifications" (for diplomacy reasons, I didn't push Mr. Evans or
Ms. Durnford for an answer to the part of my February 22 letter to the
minister where I reminded him of his statement and wrote "I was very
pleased to hear this and would be quite interested to hear what progress
has been made in this direction during the half year since your letter."
I had guessed by the way the conversation had been going to that point
that no progress had been made on this issue and so I decided to focus on
getting something positive going from this point forward, instead of
criticizing past inaction.).

By now, I felt both Mr. Evans and Ms. Durnford warming up to the ideas I
was presenting  In fact, Mr. Evans eventually said that he would have M.
Louis Fortier, the head of the CSA's Public Relations Department (who,
apparently also write the agency's speeches and promotional material)
meet with me to investigate how to inject these concepts into the CSA's
marketing -- I expect to hear from M. Fortier in the coming week or so.

Of course, I'll keep the news groups up to date on what happens next in
this saga -- as before, stay tuned -- I've told a number of the social
scientists who have been my sources of information that they may be
contacted in the near future by CSA marketing specialists.  They were very
pleased to hear that I am getting their ideas out and all of the ones I
spoke with said that they would be happy to help if requested.


Ad Astra,

Tom Harris