Journalist Howell does an excellent job giving the history of Canada’s space program, the importance of international cooperation, the technological advancements that sprouted, and the political maneuverings necessary to keep the program flying.

All of this is presented in a clear and easy to listen to manner. The narrator was smooth and even keeled. And every chapter ended with a bunch of websites read out letter by letter. Which was difficult to get used to.

This book is essentially a breakdown of the history and politics of Canadians in outer space. Howell is writing as a journalist, not an astronaut or engineer or physicist, and she succeeds in providing an accessible source of information for non-specialist readers by focusing on notable people, political economics, international relations, public relations, gender disparities, and significant milestones.

I struggled with this one at first. After having thoroughly enjoyed Hadfield’s “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth”, I was interested in learning more about our nation’s involvement with celestial goings-on. This one started out really dry, building the historical, political, and international context for succeeding chapters, but my interest was aroused by Chapter 3’s fascinating conversations with septuagenerian former astronaut Roberta Bondar.

By the end, I'd gained a more nuanced understanding of the value of international partners/collaborators in such a venture, and of working together with these partners outside of politics and regardless of political differences. I was very glad for Howell's woven-in critique of gender and other diversity disparities throughout the text, relating to STEM fields in general and the astronaut world in particular.

As a resident of Ottawa who is accustomed to reading about a lot of places other than here, I was blown away by how much Ottawa is in this book! I had not even realized that the author lives here until the end of the text.

I found the narrator took a bit of getting used to, but ultimately I think she was a good fit. Her style is clean, clear, and sober where it needs to be, and there were moments in the beginning when I wondered whether I was listening to synthetic voice and not a live human. By the time Chapter 3 rolled around and the content became more interesting to me as we began diving more into people’s lives and experiences, I found her voice subtly and effectively accommodated the text’s change in tone.

I have a pet peeve to reveal here, and it is in no way the narrator’s fault: I can’t stand when non-fiction audiobooks narrate all of the endnotes—not only the in-text references, but also the entire list of endnotes at the end of each chapter. Yes, that’s right, the pitiable narrator has to read out entire web addresses, including every single instance of “hyphen”, “forward-slash”, “underscore”, "question mark", etc. I could feel my brain melting from boredom while one of these sections went on for over 10 minutes! I understand that they are necessary for credibility, but, for those of us who listen for fun and not for research purposes, there must be another way. Could these notes be made optional? Could they be grouped all together at the end of the book to avoid the jarring interruptions of useful content? Could the endnotes at least be made into entirely separate files at the end of each chapter that can just be deleted or disabled if the reader doesn’t want it breaking up the flow of the book?

I am a space nerd and love reading books about the space program, I was even one of the 4000 who applied in 1983 for Canada's first call for potential astronauts. So I was very excited to read a book focused on all that Canada has contributed to NASA directly and the International Space Station. Canada is often an after thought when talking about space but our involvement was there from the beginning with Canadian scientists helping NASA with initial human space flight after the cancellation of the Avro Arrow program.

Author Elizabeth Howell does a good job of telling the story of our history without drowning us in 'science' yet cites numerous places one can dig deeper if desired. It was interesting to see the politics of the CSA through the years and get a glimpse into Canadian astronauts and all they did to get a chance to go into space.

'Don't let go Canada!' Science and policy are intertwined and government needs to support the CSA and science in general, not just for going to space but to benefit all Canadians with the discoveries and the tech industry that supports it..

Narrator Tracey Hoyt has a smooth delivery and speaking style that suits the scientific subject matter. As this is a science book there are a lot of references and citations and I liked how the file organization had each chapter as a separate section so citations were at the end of each file allowing you to fast forward through all the citation readings without worrying about missing any of the story narration.

Thank you to ECW Press Audio for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I love books about space exploration. One of my favorites is Chris Hadfield’s memoir, mentioned by Elizabeth Howell’s excellent account of the space race in Canada. Thanks to Hadfield, I knew about the important contribution of Canadians in the field, but Howell really sets is in context. For instance, there was never a Cold War with the USSR, but the alliance with NASA forced the CSA to walk a fine line when collaborating with the Soviets. There were also different political challenges that I had never heard of, knowing little about Canada’s history. Casual readers may be surprised by the significance of Canada’s role in the International Space Station and other endeavors. Tracey Hoyt’s voice is perfect to narrate this audiobook, since she sounds like the journalist Howell is. The one thing that I didn’t like about the audio version versus the printed one, is that there are too many footnotes, which are read aloud and are hard to follow. Otherwise, this is a fascinating look at space, from a different angle.
I chose to listen to this audiobook and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/ECW Press Audio!

I love space nonfiction!!!! I've recently read Packing for Mars by Mary Roach and Endurance by Scott Kelly, as well as a slew of space fiction. Canadarm and Collaboration was a wonderful addition to my growing knowledge of space exploration! It was so cool to get another country's perspective of space history and the ISS, and Canada's part in it all is surprisingly fascinating. To clarify, I'm American, never been to Canada, and know almost nothing about the country.

This book is a great collection of political summaries of various events and technologies, a general timeline of Canada's participation, and neat facts about how Canada has contributed both to space technology and to everyday tech. I found the politics so fascinating! To see how Canada had to really work for its place with the bigger contenders like Russia and US, how the different US presidents affected their participation, etc, was really neat.

I listened to the audiobook. It's written very concisely! This is not an overly long book, perfect for those who are usually resistant to nonfic. It's clear, simple, and so easy. The narration is great.

The one thing I struggled with is that in the audio-version, every chapter ends with citing the sources, so the narrator spends between 5-20 at the end of every chapter listing off websites and such. I've never encountered this in an audiobook and found it strange. I skipped it, but I'm not sure why it would have been made that way? Rather than leaving it at the end or leaving it out entirely?

Anyway, it's another fascinating , quick, and easy nonfic for space geeks! I'm so glad to have read it and definitely recommend it. Thank you NetGalley and ECW Press Audio for a free audio-copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.