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SpaceDaily has an article on Canadian plans re:drilling holes in Mars, among other things. It’s a bit fluffy in the manner of a press release, but between the lines it indicates something interesting about Canada’s space exploration strategy.

The Canadians don’t seem to be interested in developing an indigenous manned space program, in the sense of launchers and crewed vehicles. Instead, they spend their federal space dollars developing associated technologies, building tools for astronauts (and eventually settlers) to use once they get to where they are going.

This looks to me like an application of McKnight’s “Spacefaring Web” concept — the Canadians don’t bother reinventing the wheel, they focus instead on what it carries, and on giving the passengers tools to work with when they get there. In this way, their investment has a greater impact on space exploration overall.