Part 1: Abandoning the Emerson Aerospace Review?

While All Can Contribute, Not Everyone Will Get into the Final Report!

          By Chuck Black

No doubt, it's a good thing that the space industry has climbed far enough up the news cycle to get noticed on page three of the Sunday Toronto Star, especially during a federal election. But it might be a bit premature to expect reasoned discussion on this topic, especially in the "mass" media, without some additional context.

A scanned copy of the lower section of page three of the September 13th, 2015 Toronto Star. As outlined in the article, both the federal NDP and the federal Liberal party have committed to developing a long-term space plan (LTSP) before 2016. But as reported in the January 19th, 2013 post, "Praising Steve MacLean," the last LTSP, developed in secrecy by then Canadian Space Agency (CSA) president Steve MacLean in 2009, was rejected by the federal government because of its high cost, and finally superseded by the David Emerson led aerospace review in 2012. Scan c/o the Toronto Star. 

After all, the September 12th, 2015 Canadian Press article, "Liberals and NDP promise Long-Term Space Plan, if elected," failed entirely to even mention the 2012 David Emerson led aerospace review, the most current of the various federal government political exercises designed to allow "all the stakeholders in Canada" to have a voice in future aerospace activities.

As described in the December 5th, 2012 post, "What the Space Volume of the Aerospace Review Actually Says," the 2012 aerospace review, organized in conjunction with the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada (AIAC) was originally released to generally positive comments from those involved.

All submissions to the 2012 review along with the final reports were released to the public on the Aerospace review website, unlike the 2009 Steve MacLean long-term space plan, which was referenced in the Canadian Press article, but created in secret and never publicly released.

Organizations which contributed to the 2012 report included:

PDF document c/o Aerospace Review website.

• Blackbridge - The owners of the RapidEye Constellation of five commercial Earth imaging satellites and attendant support facilities. As outlined in the July 24th, 2015 post "Bye, Bye, BlackBridge," the company was purchased by San Francisco, CA. based Planet Labs Inc. for an undisclosed amount earlier this summer.

• Canada 2020 - A partnership including the Monk School of Global Affairs and the University of Toronto, focused on building an Ontario aerospace cluster. 

• The Canadian Alumni of the International Space University - A private, non-profit association of 275 members which serves as “Canada’s launch pad for tomorrow’s leaders” and also helps to promote the International Space University (ISU) in Canada. 

• The Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries - The national voice of more than 1,000 member companies operating in the defence and security industrial sector.

• The Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) - Currently a component of UNIFOR, created from the 2013 merger with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada and the CAW, the organization represents aerospace workers at Boeing Canada, Bombardier/ de Havilland, Cascade Aerospace, CMC Electronics, Magellan Aerospace and Pratt and Whitney Canada.

PDF document c/o Aerospace Review website.

• The Canadian Satellite Design Challenge Management Society (CSDMS) - The organizers of this Canada-wide competition for teams of university students to design and build a small science research satellite recommended the "institution of a series of Canadian design competitions in order to promote investment into, expertise in, and development of, innovative new technologies, processes, products and applications for the aerospace and space sectors."

• The Canadian Space Commerce Association - which contributed three papers to the review and was even cited in volume two of the final Emerson report.

• The Canadian Space Society (CSS), the organizers of the upcoming 2015 Canadian Space Summit, which will be held in Vancouver, BC from November 19th - 20th and is expected to include current Canadian Space Agency (CSA) president Sylvain Laporte as keynote speaker.

The review also included private submissions from two of the "three kings," or largest Canadian space focused companies, Cambridge, ON based COM DEV International and Ottawa and ON based Telesat Canada.

The third king, Richmond, BC based MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) was also represented in the review. MDA senior executive Dave Caddey acted as the chair of the Emerson Space Working Group, which contributed a document under the rather pedestrian title of "Space Working Group Report, 2012."

And this leads to the real problem with the 2012 Emerson report.

The Honourable David Emerson, the head of the 2012 Aerospace Review, during  the public release of the report in Ottawa at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum on November 29th, 2012. Most reacted positively to the its release, as outlined in articles like the November 29th, 2012 press release "Ryerson University Welcomes Emerson Aerospace Review Report." Photo c/o Aerospace Review website. 

Some of the individual recommendation will contradict others and not all recommendations will make it to the final report. While contributions to the Emerson report were welcomed in 2012, not every specific contribution to the report was included in the final list of recommendations.

This wasn't the fault of Emerson. All government commissions are eventually expected, after sifting through the various submissions, to publish a series of coherent conclusions which will either be embraced or ignored by the government of the day. 

But chief among the ignored recommendations were those incorporated into the Emerson Space Working Group, chaired by Caddey and generally conceived to have been representative of the views of the senior executives working at MDA.

Chuck Black

The specifics of how the final report differed from the Working Group report and the logical consequences to Canada's largest space company of having its recommendations largely ignored by the federal government, will be the subject of our next post  on "Growing or Shrinking the CSA: How and Why the Emerson Space Working Group Report Differs from Volume Two of the Final Emerson Aerospace Review."
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Chuck Black is the editor of the Commercial Space blog.