Industry committee  Yes, I just wanted to thank the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology for the invitation to be with you today. In recognition of our visit with you, I'd like to leave you with what we call a montage that celebrates Canada's involvement in Expedition 20/21 aboard the international space station.

Industry committee  And that would reinvigorate us. Some of the sleep studies, by the way, are Canadian, from Toronto.

Industry committee  If you're the type of person who enjoys camping, you'd enjoy being an astronaut, because a lot of the things you do when you're camping are the same. We eat freeze-dried food, we don't have running water, there's no fridge, there's no freezer, and we use sleeping bags. Typically we sleep in sleeping bags.

Industry committee  Can I talk about medicine and telehealth? I have a medical background, so I'm rather biased. I talked about the neuroArm a few minutes ago. One of the things that the ground team needs to do is provide health care for astronauts in orbit. We're isolated in orbit. If we have a medical problem, you have to think very carefully about whether you're going to return that individual to the ground or allow the person to continue in orbit.

Industry committee  The University of Calgary and MDA, the company that manufactured all the Canadian robotics on the space station, have teamed up with the faculty of medicine there and created something called neuroArm. NeuroArm is a neurosurgical robotic tool--not experimental, but operational--that uses the control algorithms and the vision system from the Canadarm to perform surgery on human brains.

Industry committee  I'm guessing I'm the same age as you, because I can remember that day in 1969 when I watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon. It's very true that the Apollo astronauts inspired me in the way my education path and my career have gone. Back in 1969 Canada didn't have an astronaut program, but that interest in space was a dream that rested in the back of my brain, so one day when Canada was ready to have an astronaut program, because of my interest and capabilities in science and technology, I was a reasonable candidate to pursue.

Industry committee  Those of us from Canada and the United States explained what Halloween was to our Russian and European crewmates. If you can remember that, keep the mental image in your mind. I'll tell you a story about it later. It's quite funny.

Industry committee  The only sad moments were when we had to say goodbye to crewmates. The photo shows a green tag on Nicole's back that says she was transfer item number 914. We're transferring over to the shuttle. Frank De Winne and I were preparing to go home. We undocked from the station. As opposed to the launch, which takes two days to arrive at the station, after undocking from the station, we were on the ground within three and a half hours.

Industry committee  That's our family movie.

Industry committee  It's typically 350 kilometres. As you can imagine, there's a vacuum in space, but it is a very rarified environment up there. There is some drag that affects the station and it slowly creeps down over time. Every once in a while, we need to boost the station back up. The usual target is 350 kilometres.

Industry committee  I'll give you the quick tour of the station. It's a huge facility, 85 metres long now, about the same volume as a large passenger jet. This is the Japanese lab. I have the Canadian flag up for doing an education downlink event. This is the Columbus module. It's an incredible laboratory facility for doing plant, animal, and human biology, and also for materials processing.

Industry committee  This is the astronaut training centre in Houston, the Johnson Space Center. If I had a laser pointer, I could show you where I live. Here are the Grand Cayman Islands.

Industry committee  You see some sad things as well. This is an oil field fire. We saw other evidence of human destruction in the environment, which is sad, but also, as Frank mentioned, of scientific importance.

Industry committee  We transport a lot of cargo when the MPLM or the HTV arrives. This is a new treadmill that arrived and required installation. Legs are useless for locomotion in space. They just float in the breeze behind us, so we use them for transporting cargo instead.

Industry committee  The primary reason for building the space station in the first place was to do world-class medical science and material science. This is one of the medical experiments studying osteoporosis and involves six mice. This is an experiment from York University in Toronto. It's an attempt to figure out how the brain adapts to weightlessness, and in particular how we perceive orientation in a weightless environment.