Challenge and Commitment: Canada’s Space Program in Transition, 1964–1974

Abstract

Having successfully broken the bonds of the Earth in late 1962, Canada entered a critical stage in its emerging space program just as the country itself also entered a period of widespread government transformation. Approximately halfway through Prime Minister’s Diefenbaker’s tenure in office, a Royal Commission on Government Organization was appointed to examine the whole of government services with a view towards identifying and eliminating duplication of effort and uneconomic operations and practices, and to recommend improvements in decentralization as well as more efficient management practices. Chaired by John G. Glassco, the Glassco Commission as it soon became known, included a number of recommendations concerning the future of Canadian science and technology policy, management, research and development. Events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the subsequent federal general election of 1963, however, overtook much of the commission’s work and its initial recommendations concerning changes to Canada’s space program were not acted upon until some years later.