(Montreal) 40 years ago, on October 5, 1984, Marc Garneau took off aboard the famous space shuttle Challenger for an eight-day mission, becoming the very first Canadian to go into space.
One June evening in 1983, Marc Garneau, who was then an engineer for the Canadian navy, was reading the newspaper Ottawa Citizen when a classified ad caught his attention.
“It was after work, I was sitting on my balcony and I almost fell out of my chair when I saw the ad,” recalled Mr. Garneau in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Read the article “Marc Garneau’s first space flight recounted”
NASA was looking for two Canadians for its next two space missions.
The advertisement placed in the newspaper indicated that “candidates must have a degree in engineering, science or medicine and be in good health,” summarized the former federal minister.
“My wife gave me her blessing to submit my candidacy and that’s what I did,” explained Marc Garneau, who was 34 years old at the time.
More than 4,000 people, like him, responded to the call for space exploration.
Then, during a rigorous process that lasted six months, on the evening of December 3, 1984, a representative of the National Research Council of Canada telephoned Marc Garneau to tell him that he was one of six Canadians chosen to be part of the country’s first astronaut corps.
I think I celebrated with a glass or two of wine and then my wife and I realized that our lives were going to change in a very, very important way.
Marc Garneau
First flight
PHOTO PROVIDED BY NASA
Marc Garneau flew aboard the shuttle Challenger.
Of the six Canadians, Marc Garneau was the one who made history, becoming the first to go into space, aboard the space shuttle, during the STS-41G mission on October 5, 1984.
The former astronaut confided that it was never explained to him why he was selected.
“I never had an official explanation, but I was in good health, I could communicate in both languages, I had experience in the navy,” indicated Marc Garneau before adding that having crossed the Atlantic by sailboat, a few years before the call for applications, had undoubtedly worked in his favor.
During one of these trips, “which lasted about 20 days, we encountered difficult situations, with wind, waves and all that and we were forced to work as a team in order to reach our destination. destination”, so “perhaps it was this experience that convinced them that I was capable of doing a mission in space”.
Jealous American astronauts
It was the second time, in 1984, that NASA included a non-American crew member.
The invitation to Canada was a way of thanking the country for its contribution to the Canadian arm, the manipulator arm of the NASA space shuttle.
But this decision was not unanimous, according to Marc Garneau, especially among American astronauts.
“I felt a certain coldness from American astronauts, who in some cases had been waiting for several years to make their first flight” and who said: “but what is this guy doing who arrives from another country and then jumps the queue and gets the chance to fly after just a few months? “.
This selection was also accompanied by “pressure that came from” Canadian citizens.
“I was the first, so naturally the citizens wanted everything to go well, for my flight to be a success. So I realized that if I missed my shot, it would leave a bad impression at NASA and it would affect the future of the astronaut space program here in Canada,” summarized Marc Garneau.
The first mission of a Canadian in space was ultimately successful and Marc Garneau was able to carry out certain experiments aboard the Challenger shuttle, notably the first tests of the space vision system designed to give eyes to the Canadian space arm.
“Of course we had work to do, but when we are in orbit, we also have the opportunity to observe the Earth” and “when we observe the atmosphere, this thin layer which surrounds us “, and “when we see the oceans that we share and when we see all that against the darkness of the space that surrounds us, we realize that there is no option B, that it’s the only place you can live and you have to take care of it.”
The tragedy
The shuttle Challengerthe spacecraft in which Marc Garneau carried out his mission in 1984, is the same device that exploded two years later, killing all seven astronauts on board.
When the accident occurred, he was in Houston, at the Johnson Space Center, to help plan the flight of the second Canadian.
The Challenger explosion took place a little more than a minute after takeoff, in a gigantic conflagration of hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
On that fateful day, Marc Garneau was accompanied by several NASA employees and he watched the shuttle take off on a giant screen.
“We all saw the explosion. There were people crying. There was a lot of emotion and many people were in denial. There was this desire not to recognize that something terrible had happened, it’s human nature to think that it will be resolved”, but “I knew the sequence of a takeoff down to the second and I knew there was no hope of the crew making it out alive. It was a terrible moment. I knew a little about the different members of the crew. »
After the accident, Marc Garneau returned to space twice, both times aboard the shuttle Endeavor.
In the missions in which I participated, in 1996 and 2000, in my skull, I had this horrible view of the Challenger which was exploding, so I knew concretely that it carried risks.
Marc Garneau
When traveling in space, “there are no real ways around these risks”, which is why it is “essential to always be absolutely rigorous in all verification checks and all decisions before allow take-off.
After his career as an astronaut and a stint at the head of the Canadian Space Agency, Marc Garneau became an MP in 2008 before being named Minister of Transport and then Foreign Affairs.
Anyone who retired in 2023 is not bored of political life.
Despite “the difficult times” his former Liberal colleagues are going through, he believes that Justin Trudeau will remain at the head of the Liberal Party and that he will run in the next election.
Asked whether he believes this decision is the right one, the former minister responded this way: “It’s his decision, I’m not venturing into that area”, but “I have the “It seems like the caucus supports it, so we’ll see.”
Marc Garneau is currently touring different cities across the country to promote the English version of his autobiography.
The French version of the book “The Most Extraordinary of Journeys” will be released in November 2024.