Most memories, after 30 years, begin to fade.
But if that memory explodes into becoming Canada’s first woman in space, it will get even richer.
“I talk about it a lot, so a lot of it is new,” says Roberta Bondar, an astronaut, researcher and photographer who celebrates the third anniversary of her flight on Saturday.
“But a lot of it is that I see it in retrospect with the intelligence I have today and the wisdom I’ve gained in the 30 years to look at that moment in my life and see things a little differently than I did years ago.”
Bondar’s 1992 mission aboard the shuttle Discovery lasted eight days. She’s spent the last eight years of her life preparing for the flight and the research she did on the plane on the impact of low gravity on life.
For years after that, she worked in space medicine and in academia, spending two stints as a chancellor at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont.
But those eight days never left her.
Says the 76-year-old, who will celebrate the weekend with an online celebration.
“This is the single most important thing that has the most impact in my life.
“It’s not just about Earth. It starts to make people think more deeply about how small we are. It’s really a perspective shift moment.”
“The thirty years have allowed me to tune in to this in-depth exploration of what I saw. What does that mean?”
Ultimately, the experience of space came to mean a new appreciation for the Earth. I was inspired by the example of Ansel Adams, the American writer and photographer whose work is sometimes credited with helping create the modern environmental movement.
“I wanted to pay tribute to the natural environment,” she said. “I wanted to get people to like it, because if you don’t like something, it’s very hard to want to protect it. I wanted to share those feelings (seeing the world from space).”
Bondar has become an accomplished photographer, celebrating the beauty of Canada at shows like “Passionate Vision,” a 2005 show that toured the country with large-format images from all of Canada’s national parks. Since 2009, Bondar has led Space For Birds, a project for her eponymous foundation that seeks to use photography to deepen understanding of the billions of migratory birds that fill the world’s twice-yearly flight paths.
In addition to trying to capture people’s interest in environmental issues, Space For Birds investigates where and how birds migrate, as well as the habitat they need along the way by studying them from three perspectives – space, air and land.
“These three perspectives will help people learn about migratory birds and the challenges they face,” Bondar says. “We don’t know much about bird behavior in migratory birds.”
Bondar has little direct involvement in the Canadian space program these days. Although she wouldn’t mind pointing out that 30 years later, she’s still only one of two Canadian women who have traveled in space.
Julie Payette traveled to space in 1999 and 2009. A third Canadian woman, Jennifer Sadie Gibbons, is in the astronaut program.
“Even on the days when people think about diversity, it’s really silly,” she says. “It’s still not diverse.”
Bondar joked about some of the marks those eight days had left on her. “You mean bone loss?” She laughs.
And when it comes to memory bathrooms: “It’s really hard to block out.”
But this view of the Earth – a living blue rejection of the empty sting of space – will never leave her thoughts.
“The opportunity to look at Earth from space – feeling and emotion does not change,” she said. “It’s getting different, it’s getting better.”
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on January 18, 2022.
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