Vancouver-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. is an amazing world class company. I know from personal experience as I worked there for a few years in the early part of my career. So it was sad to see negative news of MDA planning to sell its Information Systems and Geospatial Services business (including technical teams and know how that built the iconic Canadarm, the newly launched Dextre, and the Radarsat 2 satellite) to Alliant Techsystems (an advanced weapon and space systems company).
Here are some news about the recent delay and an interesting and seems valid legal opinion from Rideau Institute,
- Ruling on sale of Canadarm delayed - TorStar
- Time to ground space firm's sale - National Post
- Ruling on sale of Canadarm, Radarsat to U.S. arms-maker delayed 30 days - Canadian Press - "Nobel laureate John Polanyi delivered a devastating critique of the sale this week: "There are many forms of short-sightedness. Selling your eyes is a rare form," observed one of Canada's most decorated scientists."
- Legal Opinion from the Rideau Institute - ACCESS DENIED: U.S. Law Will Limit Canadian Access to RADARSAT-2 Data if Sale of MDA’s Space Division Proceeds - PDF file
- Access Denied: U.S. Law Will Limit Canadian Access to RADARSAT-2 Data if Sale of MDA's Space Division Proceeds - from Fox Business of all places
- as an aside and for the record, here is a link to MDA Shareholders approve proposed sale transaction
When asked about this potential MDA divisional sale in Calgary recently, the well respected Senator Roméo Dallaire answered that it will be worst than the sale of the Canadian Avro Arrow. Here is an excerpt from the Arrow Wikipedia entry,
Following the Canadian government's cancellation of the Avro Arrow project in 1959, CF-105 Chief Aerodynamicist Jim Chamberlin led a team of 25 engineers to NASA's Space Task Group to become lead engineers, program managers, and heads of engineering in NASA's manned space programs—Projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. This team would eventually grow to 32 Avro engineers and technicians, and become emblematic of what many Canadians viewed as a "brain drain" to the US. Many other engineers, including Jim Floyd (whose design studies at Hawker Siddeley (Avro Aircraft's UK parent) on the HSA.1000 SST design studies were ultimately influential in the design of the Concorde[20]) found work abroad in either the UK or the United States.
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March 23rd update: Marc Garneau, first Canadian astronaut and former head of the Canadian Space Agency, against sale of space technology - from CTV with video.
March 25th update: Here is a 1st March, 2008 CBC Quirks and Quarks program about Dextre (mp3 audio).
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