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A little known fact about Canada is that it has been a member of the "space realm" for 170 years; something most nations in the world would agree makes Canada a long-standing member of today's space industry. The first concrete evidence of Canada's desire to explore what lies above the atmosphere came in 1839 when Sir Edward Sabine established the first magnetic observatory in the world at the University of Toronto to study the Northern Lights.

The desire for Canadians to understand the happenings of the atmosphere above their nation has been a long-standing goal of almost all space research and exploration projects undertaken by them since then. For the most part, the early history of Canada's efforts in space centered on the exploration of the inner or near-outer atmosphere and its strategy focuses on that.

To counteract this, Andrew Godefroy states, "Canada has always had strategic interests in space; however, the advancement of those interests has been sporadic at best." Although Godefroy was making an observation on the state of Canada's space strategy of the 1980s and 1990s, his statement is accurate for the space strategy of America's northern neighbor since its roots began growing in 1839.

The first 115 years of Canada's history in space is actually a tale of building better and better observatories on Earth centered around exploring the atmosphere, but like most nations in the world, Canada did not believe space would ever prove to be of strategic importance for hundreds of years to come. All this changed when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I into orbit in 1957.

The launch of Sputnik I surprised the entire world and the Soviet Union took an early lead in what is now dubbed the "Space Race." Ultimately the "Space Race" was centered around the achievements of only the Soviet Union and the United States, but the nation of Canada played a significant role in the progress of the race and actually spearheaded many efforts that made the primary powers take a second glance at the relatively "small space nation."

To understand the events that happened in Canada and those in the rest of the world contributed to by the Canadians during the "Space Race," one must understand the Canadian space strategy of the time. A quick analysis of the events of the "Space Race" shed some light onto this strategy that is focused on four areas: satellite development, assisting the United States in its endeavor to reach the Moon, non-militarization of space, and the Churchill

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