Astronaut Trading Cards Help Library Programs

One of the coolest jobs I ever had was as a researcher and assistant to the International Science Film Festival in Montreal in 1996.

One of the projects I had to work on involved organizing a panel on the future of human space exploration that we managed to convince PBS to broadcast. The discussion, which included Hubert Reeves, one of the world's top astrophysicists-slash-science gurus, as well as science writers and space engineers, was filmed in English and then in French at the Canadian Space Agency in St-Hubert, Québec.

I remember walking into the place for the taping of the program. I thought I had died and gone to geek heaven. It was every kid's and big kid's dream come true.

So I have a soft spot for our people at the Agency.

Well, the Agency staff have come up with an interesting program to promote libraries and encourage kids to read: an astronaut trading card series.

400,000 sets of cards are being produced, with each card portraying a Canadian astronaut. Sets will be distributed to kids between the ages of 6 and 12 who enrol in library reading programs over the summer. The theme of the program is "Blast off" in English and "Vite en orbite" in French (Quickly into orbit).