Canadian to join Endeavour crew SubHead: Steve MacLean will 'ride and fly' Canadarm 2 Author: Rick Mofina OTTAWA - An Ottawa-born physicist will be the next Canadian in space. Allan Rock, the Industry Minister, announced yesterday that Steve MacLean, 47, has been assigned to fly aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in April, 2003. The flight will be his second time in space. He flew onboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1992. Dr. MacLean will join the Endeavour crew for the 10-day mission to complete the next stage of assembling the International Space Station. He will join other astronauts in four spacewalks to add trusses to the station and deploy additional solar panels. Two Russians are also among the six-member crew. Canadarm 2, a crane-like device attached to the station, will be used to its fullest extent when Dr. MacLean moves a communication aerial from one end of the craft to the other. "I cannot tell you how pleasing it is to my own ears to hear me say that during my mission I'm going to ride and fly Canadarm 2," said Dr. MacLean. In May, Dr. MacLean will be working at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, during the next shuttle shot to the station. As capsule communicator, Dr. MacLean will relay information between the shuttle crew and Mission Control during flights. Dr. MacLean tugged a red Canadian Olympic hockey shirt over his blue astronaut flight suit yesterday, telling reporters he wanted to get several more for the rest of the Canadian control crew to wear while working on the mission in May. But Marc Garneau, the head of Canada's Space Agency, said how many more international astronauts will follow Dr. MacLean into space is an issue Canada and other nations are facing after the U.S. said last year it will reduce the scope of the space station program. "There will be an impact starting probably in 2004," Dr. Garneau said, adding that the U.S. cuts mean reduced scientific experiments and reduced shuttle flights. Dr. Garneau pointed to the station's rescue vehicle as a key example of the program's reduction. The space station's emergency rescue ship to return the crew is a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that can only accommodate three crew members. U.S. budgetary problems means plans to build a larger craft have been halted. Space agencies from Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada, partners in the space station program, will meet in March to discuss their concerns over its future. "The pressure at this point is to try and get our American colleagues to live up to the obligation that is embodied in the inter-governmental agreements we all signed,"said Dr. Garneau, Canada's first astronaut.When it is fully constructed, the space station's lifespan is 20 years, so it is vital to enlarge the size of the crew, Dr. Garneau said. Construction of the space station began in the mid-1980s. "The clock is ticking. It [the station] has a limited lifetime,"said Dr. Garneau. "So it's very important for us to get back up to that crew size of six or seven. I'm confident that we're going to find a way around it. At the moment it's a challenge." Copyright @ 2002 National Post Online |