As outlined in the December 9th, 2009 SpaceRef.ca article "Canadian Space Agency Supports Prize Competitions," Chapman even received a reply from the then new CSA president, who agreed with the suggestions and indicated that "over the coming months," the CSA will be looking at a series of "space challenges" as an "instrument to help develop Canada's excellence and promote collaboration in a number of strategic science and technology disciplines."
Of course, nothing ever resulted from this correspondence, although Chapman had a hand in the subsequent development of the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge, a Canada-wide competition for teams of university students to design and build a small low-cost satellite, and this contest is currently sponsored by the CSA.
But the creation of a series of national contests and prizes similar to the NASA Centennial Challenges program in order to accelerate Canadian space related technology development is a good idea and should be revisited by the Federal Review of Aerospace and Space Programs and Policies, announced in February 2012 and currently collecting information for presentation to the Industry Minister sometime before the end of the year.
Most of the documentation on this proposal may already be collected and organized, even if those documents are deeply hidden inside the Industry Canada office files containing CSA proposals which are never, ever supposed to see the light of day.
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