Comment by neom
13 hours ago
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.