After a year of milestones in orbit, the Canadian Space Agency is searching for an encore as the shuttle program gets set to wind down in 2010. President Steve MacLean has spent over a year preparing a long-term space plan to chart the future of the agency.

With no more government astronauts set for spaceflight after two flew in 2009, it's possible the next Canadian to fly in space will be a private tourist just like Guy Laliberte, who flew in September.

The "space clown" and head of Cirque du Soleil paid the Russians tens of millions of dollars for the privilege of wearing a red nose in space and touting his cause for water equality.

Fourteen Canadians -- including John Criswick, the Ottawa-based CEO of Magmic Games -- have each ponied up $200,000 for a ride on Virgin Galactic.

"I think as time goes by, the cost will come down and it will be available to more people," Criswick told CTV Ottawa's Tech Now in December. 

The British suborbital space tourism firm unveiled its flagship craft for the job, SpaceShipTwo, at a California event in December.

On the heels of a difficult time

The renaissance of the CSA comes after years of critics decrying a lack of funding and direction for the agency. Before former astronaut MacLean assumed the helm in September 2008, the agency went through three interim presidents in as many years.

Canada's space budget remained frozen around $350 million annually throughout the changes, a mere fraction of the approximately $17 billion NASA had in 2008.

When MacLean was appointed, then-Industry Minister Jim Prentice tasked him to complete a long-term space plan to figure out where the agency should go as NASA retires its 30-year-old shuttle program.

Although NASA spent 2009 publicly holding meetings for its own long-term space plan, MacLean took a different approach. He privately met with government officials, representatives from Canadian aerospace companies and other people with a vested interest in the space program.

There's no date yet set for the release of his agenda. The budget is still set for $350 million annually until 2012, although the Canadian government in 2009 added a $110 million one-time contribution to boost funds.

The agency has put out a number of contracts for robotic technologies, including moon rover and base concepts, using the funds.

A year of milestones

Meanwhile, Canadian astronauts celebrated an impressive 2009, according to Benoit Marcotte, the director-general of the Canadian Space Agency:

  • For the first time since 1992, the Canadian government selected two new astronauts in May to join its aging corps: Jeremy Hansen and David St-Jacques, the 11th and 12th people selected since the astronaut program began in 1983.
  • Physician Bob Thirsk took his second flight into space, but this time it was on board the International Space Station between May and October. The six months he spent eclipses the longest time for a Canadian in space previously, which was measured in just days.
  • Fellow astronaut Julie Payette took a shuttle flight up in June to meet him, the first time two Canadians shook hands in space.
  • Guy Laliberte charmed news outlets worldwide when he spent 10 days in September and October on the International Space Station courtesy of a ride on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
  • Quebec Liberal Marc Garneau, a three-time space shuttle flyer and once president of the Canadian Space Agency, marked the 25th anniversary of his first flight in space in October 1984.

With files from The Canadian Press