Mod parent up! :) To me, this has always been one of the coolest (and most unique) things about Star Trek. It's cheesy I know, but the conception of a (relatively) peaceful, hopeful future where the heroes were more so explorers and ambassadors and less so warriors - that's really cool. Especially keeping in mind that this was made in the thick of the cold war, where a lot of people thought there might not be any humans left in two decades. That whole concept has kind of been lost in more recent Star Trek ("Enterprise", mostly) and maybe SF in general, which partly makes sense since it doesn't make for really exciting television, that's for sure.

But still. The thought of an optimistic, bright future universe is really something. Props to Gene Roddenberry for being ahead of the curve on that one.

No F-16s for us here in Canada, just CF-18s. Unless they're American, and visiting here on joint exercises.

Holy cow - thanks for writing this! That's really something. I hope the other post (about you being on the wrong site) was being fascetious - consider me among the Slashdotters genuinely interested in what you're saying here. Keep it coming.

Actually, the company that makes it (MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates' space division) was very almostly sold to a US defense contractor last spring. Which would kind of have sucked for Canada's space industry, since that company is basically ...our only one.

So really - back off, get your own robot space arms! : ) Cool, thanks, eh?

A bit of canadian history - in the late 50s, Canada had developed the world's most advanced jet interceptor (the Avro Arrow). When it was cancelled in 1958, almost every single scientist and engineer working on it moved to the States to work on the US space program. The Canadian aeronautical industry never recovered (but at least we can take credit for all the cool stuff NASA did in the 60s!). People really worry that if MDA Space ever gets sold off, the same thing will happen again.
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2008/04/10/mdablock.html

Best wishes to your wife. And kudos beyond words to you for putting in that kind of time and care and love.
All the best to you both.