Space. It’s the final frontier. And for most it will never be reachable. But we can wonder and learn from the select few who have been there, and lucky for me, I recently had that opportunity at the Dark Sky Festival in Jasper.It was the first night of the festival at the VIP Stargazing Reception when I met Bob. He came up to my table where I was chatting with a few colleagues; Bob asked to join our conversation and we gladly welcomed him. We learned that he had traveled to Jasper from Ontario and was retired. I asked him the same question that our table had just been chatting about.

“If you had the chance to be on the first ship for a tourist excursion to space would you do it?” All of our answers were similar. Despite the risk and leaving behind loved ones, we all agreed with a resounding yes.

Little did we know at that point who our new friend really was. The next day, Bob took the stage for the main event panel “Spacetalks”. And I was stunned to find out that Bob is better known as Dr. Robert Thirsk (yes, this guy). He is the Canadian who holds the record for longest number of consecutive days in space at 204. (You think he would have mentioned that the night before. Maybe a “Nahhh, I’ve already done that…” to our question about space exploration. But no. His Canadian modesty shone through and he played along, sharing his eagerness to return to space and explore like the rest of us.)

And with my jaw dropped for the most of his panel, I enthusiastically listened to Bob chat about the race to Mars, the importance of space exploration, and what it means to have Canada involved in such fascinating programs.