: been*“feeli: ov When ! did find out, 1 took a . long walk on the tideflats. Nothing, of course, is really remote anymore in our world. Even my isolated cabin had a phone. Yet the space shuttle disaster seemed to have cut awfully close to the bone, even’ allowing for telecommmunications. It was strange. Justa week be- fore, I had talked to Byard M. Wood, the West Van man who has just set up the headquarters of an organization called Young Astronauts Canada, about sign- ing my kid up. Here at last, I thought, was something that a seven-year-old and a 44-year-old could both get interested in. The boy.chas already logged tens of thousands of. hours on . other worlds, courtesy of televi- sion cartoons, books, comics and - coloring books. - And 1, as the reader knows, cama Space Cadet from way, way “back. -L. used to. have possibly : Western Canada’s biggest collec- tion of pulp science fiction mag- azines and: “paperbacks. { have seen every sci-fi movie made, no J matter how bad. In fact, one of the things. the kid and I regularly do,'is go see flicks like The Last. Starfighter and Dune. His’ first movie, by. the way, te aT. a “T have already ‘ee _ | flown’.to Jupiter on. ~ ‘| Moses ‘Znaimer’s “| simulated. spaceship | at the. CN Tower... self; well: g ‘rather smarmy for a while, thinking that’l: have: actu- : ally’ managed to position. myself ./p so that I have a decent chance’ of i getting -on a commercial ~ Space flight. sometime inthe 1990s. Ihave a story, currently ap- pearing in an aisline magazine that is illustrated ‘with a ‘cartoon of me zipping, with a great big na fittle wee rocket throug “space, 7 \ have: already “flown” to Jupiter on Moses” Znaimer’s sim- “British“Columbians to catch the - fantastic IMAX film taken ‘from : ‘the same. Challenger ‘shuttle that is now scattered in a million pieces over the bottom of the Ailantic. \—f.-. Recently, I caught a glimpse of Marc Garneau, Canada’s first astronaut, which was an interest- “J ing.‘ coincidence,”, since Canada, DR. me E. MALLIN- $- ~ Sunday, February 9, _ 1986 - North Shore News teh fy. -t have: oe - North. Vancouver _Telephone 988-7030 Bob Hunter ° strictly personal ¢ \ I WAS over on Vancouver Island at a lonely cabin near Parksville, working on a movie script, with no radio, TV or newspapers, when the space shuttle Challenger ex- i ploded. It was three days before I found out. now has a chance to piggyback i in a big way into orbit, getting in- volved in Ronald Reagan's prom- ised spuce station. For the first time, the issue of space has intruded into the Ca- nadian political sphere. More to the point, | have also been in touch with Society Ex- peditions, the Seattle-based lux- ury travel company that is pro- moting commercial flights on a yet-to-be-built Phoenix E orbital Spacecraft. FIRST CANADIAN 1 was the first person from outside the United States to call as soon as they announced their program. The purpose of talking to these people? Well, it is part of a scheme of mine to become either (a) the first travel writer in space, (b) the first person to go up ona complimentary ticket (first comp in space!}, or {c) to remortgage the house to raise the money to buy one of those $50,000 tickets. Actually, one plan is to stage a SEND BOB BACK INTO SPACE benefit, inviting all the people who ever wrote a nasty letter to the editor about me. (THAT should do it!) “part from all the personal stuff, 1 also happen to be con- vinced that. the space program is the safety valve we need to release the enormous competitive pressures here on Earth. Scientists who. make the case * for-.: an- ‘4himanned space program mist/the point entirely that once we break out.into space, we open the door onto a, whole new histo- ry of the human race. SELF-DESTRUCTION “If we-stay on this one planet too long, we'll destroy ourselves, either through fouling the nest or simply ‘getting so bored some-~ body finally pushes the Button just to see what will happen, or because somebody can’t stand the. waiting any longer, or ’ because some berserko wants to “die for Allah, taking, the bio- system with him. So as I walked on the tideflats I‘thought about my small guy’s fife, and my own life, and ‘the lives of that, beautiful. American crew, beginning to look like the crew of the Starship Enterprise. | ‘counted three races .and two ~ sexes, not bad for what was once definitely a honky trip ‘and | thought about the human race and’ our grandchildren and the universe, realizing, after a long while, that as soon as 1 got home, “1. would’ ‘give Byard -Wood another: call — just to make sure ‘the Young Astronaut application forms were on their way. Per ardua ad astra! 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