The March COPA Flight 6 meeting was a presentation by Dr.
Geoff Steeves.
Most people will likely never meet someone
who wants to be an astronaut or even a physicist. If you
become a physicist, you will spend your life conducting
scientific research. Dr. Steeves specializes in ultrafast
microscopy at the University of Victoria. If you're not sure
what this is, I encourage you to look it up on the internet.
Now back to the astronaut part. Geoff had a dream of flying
airplanes at a very young age. Taken by the science fiction
character, Han Solo and Star Wars movies, Geoff's dream
was to leave the lower atmosphere and head to outer space.
Back in the year 2009, the Canada Space Agency put out an
advertisement looking for Canada's next astronaut. Geoff
completed his commercial pilot licence on the final day that
CSA was accepting applications. After his application was
accepted, a year long process of paring down the list for
Canada's top pilot began. The process started with 5000
applications and was quickly dropped to 1000, then to about
40. The remaining candidates consisted of pilots, doctors,
scientists and even an Olympic athlete. These 40 candidates
were taken to CSA headquarters in Montreal PQ for aptitude
testing.
From there, much of the process revolved around health
and fitness testing, and the highlight was the Canadarm2
training. Each candidate was given the opportunity to move
this integral part of the Space Station, albeit a facsimile
on earth. Next, it was off to Halifax for dunker practice
(think helicopter egress training over and over) along with
firefighting training, HAZMAT training, and trying to seal
burst pipes with virtual duct tape, not quite but almost the
same result when something is under considerable pressure.
Working in assigned teams, this chaotic exercise is being
performed above your head while very cold water is spraying
on your face and entire body. No pressure here and no
pun intended. As Geoff commented, "The hardest part of
these exercises was having to evaluate your fellow team
members once it was all over as to how well they performed."
Should something catastrophic happen 400 kilometers
above earth, you want the best team members on your side.
After Halifax it was off to Toronto for more medical
and psychological exams. Once this testing was over it was
time to introduce the final 16 candidates to the media. As
Geoff says, "This is when it really started to sink in that you
had pretty good odds of making the final cut of two."
Geoff was born in Halifax, raised in Edmonton, and calls
Victoria home. From television reporters to radio and
print reporters, everyone was at the unveiling having any
connection to Geoff’s past, all laying claim to this young
fellow wanting to blast off into outer space one day.
Although Geoff wasn't chosen in the final selection, it was
a most rewarding experience and one he will cherish for
the rest of his life. Geoff has a love of flying and has fond
memories of the process and keeps in touch with many
of the people he met during the year long journey. He
continues to be involved with human space exploration and
tele-robotics. Thanks Geoff for sharing your amazing story.
COPA Flight 6 meets the first Tuesday of the month at 7:00
PM at the Victoria Flying Club, and the next COPA Flight
6 meeting will be Tuesday, April 3rd. Captain Rob Shemilt
is away this month, but in his absence, Co-Captain Allan
Rempel will talk about the Civil Air Search and Rescue
Association (CASARA) and the Western Canada SAR Exercise
that was held in La Ronge, SK in August 2017, including the
eventful trips there and back. The SAREX was a large-scale
11-plane exercise which made extensive use of Foreflight,
and the transits through the mountains were challenging
because of both smoke and weather.