Montreal Space Symposium 2019

Global government space budgets are in the early stages of a ten-year growth cycle with total world expenditures reaching $70.9 billion in 2018, and forecasted to grow to $84.6 billion by 2025. According to the research, the U.S. government continues to be the world’s largest investor in space programs, with China, Russia, France and Japan following in that order. Among other interesting findings, the research shows that two records were broken in 2018, with more government satellites launched than ever before and more governments launching satellites. Canada holds the 16th position in the world with regards to its government space budget. With 2018-2019 being an important year marked by the launch of RCM and the country's long-term commitments to the lunar gateway, the country's space budget is set for a significant growth in the coming decade, further affecting Canada's impact on the global space scene.

People often think of innovation as coming from either industry or academia, but from Robert Goddard to Wernher von Braun to many of today’s leading rocket entrepreneurs, the history of aerospace has been shaped by people who began as amateurs. Countries that recognize and support this grassroots talent and create an ecosystem in which it can thrive can harness an unmatched drive and passion to learn and innovate, at very little cost, and this has been proven time and time again.

Here in Canada, there is an unprecedented surge of grassroots interest in rocketry, particularly among students. The space launch industry is changing rapidly, driven by game-changing companies like SpaceX and RocketLab, and Canadians want to be a part of it. There are now around 20 student rocket teams across the country, many of them undertaking cutting-edge sounding rocket work, and regularly winning a disproportionate number of the top honours at major international rocket competitions.

Yet many of them face a relative lack of support in Canada. They have few options to pursue their rocketry work at home, and few avenues available for support. Often these exceptionally bright, motivated Canadians have no choice but to either abandon their passion, or leave the country. In an increasingly competitive high-tech economy, Canada cannot afford to keep losing this talent.

The Launch Canada Rocketry Association aims to change this by helping Canada’s rocket innovators to pursue their activities, collaborate, learn and thrive. We are working to promote safety in advanced rocketry and are creating Canada’s first-ever advanced rocketry competition to incentivize the development of significant rocket propulsion and launch vehicle technologies with a bold, entrepreneurial mindset. It will help develop a pipeline of highly skilled, knowledgeable and experienced aerospace professionals through challenging hands-on rocket engineering projects and will use the excitement of rocketry to promote STEM education.

Bureaucracy can be a tough battle for space technology. Through the story of new rocket engine design team, this talk details the struggle to help administration understand why deeply complex, expensive, and potentially dangerous technology is worth investing in, and why effective communication and activism in space technology is essential for the space industry to grow in Canada.

Space is a highly interesting field, but finding a first job in the space industry is not always easy.  The current members of the Engineer Development Program of the Canadian Space Agency discuss their transitions from university students interested in space to employees working in the space domain.  They discuss the strategic decisions one can take at the undergraduate level, the need to acquire soft skills (including interviewing skills) and the ways to do so, the value of a master degree including how to carefully pick a program and a supervisor, and finally, life as an employee in the space sector.