Book Review: A Most Extraordinary Life

book cover Review: A Most Extraordinary Ride by Jeff Foust Monday, December 2, 2024 A Most Extraordinary Ride: Space, Politics, and the Pursuit of a Canadian Dream by Marc Garneau Signal, 2024 hardcover, 328 pp., illus. ISBN 978-0-7710-1621-9 US$30 A military officer is selected as part of his country’s first group of astronauts. He later becomes the first person from that country to orbit the Earth. Later in his life, he turns to politics, becoming a legislator and even, unsuccessfully, seeking to lead his party. To American ears, that sounds like the story of John Glenn, the Mercury 7 astronaut who later became a senator and made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984. It is also, in very broad strokes, the story of Marc Garneau. As a Canadian naval officer, he was selected as part of a class of six astronauts by the Canadian government in 1983 and became the first Canadian to go to space on the STS-41G shuttle mission in 1984. After two more shuttle missions, he left the astronaut corps to lead the Canadian Space Agency, and was then recruited into politics, becoming a member of the House of Commons and a minister for transportation and foreign affairs. Garneau recounts that life in space and politics in his new memoir, A Most Extraordinary Ride. There is nothing in his early life that suggested he would become either an astronaut or a politician. The son of a Canadian infantry officer, he decided to join the navy, and was rising through the ranks when, in June 1983, he saw a newspaper ad from Canada’s National Research Council inviting people to apply to become Canada’s first astronauts. “The possibility of becoming an astronaut awakened something in me, and I couldn’t brush it off,” he writes, adding that while he had followed space missions, “I never for a second imagined myself in their place.” He applied, and six months later became one of six people, out of more than 4,300 applicants, selected as Canada’s first astronauts. Just a few months later, the government selected him to be the first Canadian to go to space, flying as a payload specialist on STS-41G. To this day he says he’s not sure why he was selected: perhaps his military background, or because he was bilingual. “In the end, it didn’t matter. What mattered was the job ahead of me.” “The possibility of becoming an astronaut awakened something in me, and I couldn’t brush it off,” he writes, adding that while he had followed space missions, “I never for a second imagined myself in their place.” As a payload specialist, he had an abbreviated training program and did not get to spend much time with the crew ahead of the launch, although he said that did not affect relationships with a “fabulous crew” and the mission itself. He returned to Canada as a celebrity, crisscrossing the country for speeches and media appearances. He hoped, though, he would get another chance to fly to space. That happened in the 1990s, when he became a full-fledged mission specialist astronaut—which meant going through formal astronaut training after his first flight to space—and then flying on two shuttle missions. After his final shuttle mission, STS-97 in late 2000, he left the astronaut corps and returned to Canada, becoming executive vice president and, later, president of the Canadian Space Agency. In 2005, happy in his job there, he was approached by two Liberal party politicians, who asked if he would be interested in running for the House of Commons. Like his first career as an astronaut, he had not dreamed of going into politics, but was intrigued. “The possibility of making important decisions that would shape Canada’s future appealed to me,” he wrote. After losing his first race for a Montreal-area district in 2006, he won in 2007, remaining in office until he retired in 2023. At one point, he sought the leadership of the Liberal party, which would have put him in line to become prime minister. He lost, though, to Justin Trudeau, who would become prime minister when the Liberal party won the 2015 elections. Garneau became transport minister—a surprise, he said, having expected other ministries like defense or industry based on his career—and, several years later, moved to foreign affairs. Garneau describes a distant relationship with Trudeau during this time, with few face-to-face conversations over several years. The second part of A Most Extraordinary Ride, about Garneau’s political career, is likely of less interest to space enthusiasts (particularly outside Canada) than his insights abought spaceflight; despite has background, Garneau did not spend much time on space issues while in parliament. He does touch on the topic of Canada’s place in space near the end of the section of his time leading the Canadian Space Agency, calling for the country to do more in space. “If I were to summarize my position on the future of Canada’s space program, I would say we need to ramp it up,” he writes. “I have always believed that Canada should be doing more, not just because we need space to help us here on Earth, but because we’re good at it.” He adds that Canada is “failing to exploit one of our most obvious strengths, and we risk being overtaken by others.” Unlike Glenn, Garneau expresses no interest at the end of the book of making another trip to space. The two crossed paths, Garneau recalls in the book, in the late ’90s when Glenn was preparing for his second flight to space. Garneau wrote that “even astronauts have their heroes. Glenn was certainly one of mine.” For many, Garneau is a hero, with a life that, as the title accurately states, has been an extraordinary ride. Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.