The 30th Launchivesary Of A Canadian Legend

I struggled to write this post more than I should have. I remember hearing all about the first Canadian woman in space when she went launched but it didn’t really register in my mind that much. I would have been in grade 7 at the time so people should have been talking to us kids more about this inspiring event but they didn’t. STEM wasn’t something that was pushed on the average kids. So, while I knew her name and her accomplishment, it always felt like she wasn’t really that big of a deal. Why? Let’s start first with an introduction to the amazing, Robert Bondar.

Roberta Lynn Bondar is a Canadian astronaut, neurologist, and photographer. She was born on December 4, 1945, in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. She loved the sciences early on and her dad actually built her a science lab in the basement so she could perform experiments. She went on to get a Bachelors’s degree in zoology and agriculture from the University of Guelph, a Masters’s in experimental pathology from the Univerity of Western Ontario, and a doctorate in neurobiology from the University of Toronto. And then, she was off to McMaster University to become a neurologist. Crazy impressive already, am I right? And that’s before all her medical certificates and accolades.

In 1983, she was then accepted into the newly formed Canadian Astronaut Corp where she began training with others such as Marc Garneau, the first Canadian to go to space. Her training was as a Payload Specialist for the first mission of the International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-1) which was NASA’s precursor to today’s International Space Station. On January 22, 1992, she boarded the shuttle Discovery as a part of mission STS-42 becoming the first Canadian woman in space, the first neurologist in space, and one of the most decorated astronauts the world has ever seen. Her mission lasted 8 days where she spent her time performing research where she studied the human body’s ability to recover from space.

Dr. Bondar retired from the space program later that year but her work as a photographer continued. Her early love of photography made her an excellent person to photograph the Earth from the shuttle showing us the incredible planet we live on. Like many astronauts, she returned to Earth with a newfound desire to protect our little, rocky, blue home. Through her photography and her organization the Roberta Bondar Foundation, we can see the amazing world we live in.

Like many countries, we too celebrate our best with postage stamps. On October 1, 2003, Canada Post released a set of stamps celebrating Canada’s astronauts and you guessed it, Roberta Bondar is one of those stamps!

On the evening of January 22, 2022, the University of Guelph Physics Department and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Montreal Centre held a virtual talk to commemorate Roberta Bondar’s 30th launchiversary. While the event was hosted by two older men, the talks were given by two young women. Virginia Marquez-Pacheco did a great job of summarizing Dr. Bondar’s career and I have posted a couple of her slides with Dr. Bondar’s impressive resume. What struck me though was a question that was asked of these women after their talks. “How has Roberta Bondar’s career influenced you?” They didn’t know who she was until they started university! How do people not know who she is? We all know Chris Hadfield and Neil Armstrong but why is Roberta Bondar more on the country’s radar? This was a great discussion during this event because it raises a lot of pressing issues. Is our memory short because we don’t think that Canadians are worthy of hero worship? Is there a touch of misogyny at work here? Dr. Bondar’s Wikipedia page is pretty weak for someone so accomplished which is apparently quite typical for women of note. Canada Post recently released a stamp of Canadian jazz great Eleanor Collins (her post is coming up soon!) I had never heard of her yet I’ve been playing jazz music for more years than I care to admit. Why? Why don’t we celebrate Canadian women more?

I watched a few clips of Roberta Bondar’s recent interviews and decided to include one from the CBC here. If I could be half the person she is, I would be very happy.