Montreal Space Symposium 2019

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.