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Comment by goodcanadian

15 hours ago

Canada effectively bought its participation in the US space program with Canadarm.

Not feeling particularly charitable to your country folk this morning eh Good Canadian? The US didn't include Canada in the shuttle program as a favor or because Canada wrote a check, they included Canada because the technology was excellent and necessary. Canada had world class engineering skills at that time, and was invited by NSAS to participate. I don't think we bought our way on, I think our country happened to have an ounce of ambitions during that period and we preformed incredibly well.

https://parks.canada.ca/culture/designation/evenement-event/...

  • I did not mean for it to be taken as uncharitable. I am extremely proud of Canada's contribution. My point was more that even when foreign nationals were included, the U.S. did not hand out seats for propaganda reasons. There was a quid pro quo.

Exactly like the article describes Britain doing with the Soviets - " At the time the British government wasn't involved in space exploration, so paying for a spot on a flight was the only way to get there."