A look at space predictions through the ages with the help of Bob McDonald, host of Quirks & Quarks and guest host Jeff Goodes. Rewind has dug deep into the CBC Radio archives to find predictions about space travel from the 40's through the 80's.

You can listen to the program right here!




Right now circling around our blue planet is an amazing astronaut. Chris Hadfield has branded himself as the tweeting, singing, video-making Commander of the International Space Station. He's exciting a whole new generation of Canadians about the possibilities of space exploration. Hadfield tweets photos of earth back to over 600,000 followers, he uploads Youtube videos brushing his teeth and cutting his fingernails in space. He even sang a duet with the Barenaked Ladies while sitting in the cupola of the Space Station. A space to earth duet - with Astronaut Chris Hadfield and the Barenaked Ladies.

Who could of predicted that?  Well, today on Rewind we will find out. We are looking at space predictions through the ages. And we have a special guide for this extraterrestrial journey. It's someone who began his media career a few years back reporting on NASA space missions: none other than Bob McDonald, host of Quirks & Quarks.

Clip One:
1946 - just after the second world war. Matthew Halton is in France. He reports that French scientists are designing a rocket that could potentially land on the moon. We're jumping ahead ten years for our next clip.

Clip Two:
1957. Smack dab in the middle of the era of 50's sci-fi. People were watching those fantastic movies about outer space: Forbidden Planet. The Day the Earth Stood Still. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In the midst of that, here's what you would have heard if you turned on your radio on August 14 1957.

Clip Three:
There are thousands of satellites in space. That's amazing when you think that the first communications satellite launched only about fifty years ago. Here's a 1962 interview with science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. Right around then the Telstar communications satellite had been launched.

Clip Four:
NASA's Mariner 2 probed Venus in 1962, and the Soviet Venera 4 made it to Venus' atmosphere in 1967. And NASA was looking beyond even Venus in the 1960s. They had a plan for something they called the Grand Tour. Here's NASA's Dr. John Nagel talking about it in 1968.

Quiz:

Q: Why does this classic cancon rock song have a special place in space history?




A:  It was the wake up song for the Space Shuttle Discovery crew March 6, 2011, the last day of its final mission to the International Space Station.

Clip Five:
Back in 1974, Barbara Frum and Alan Maitland bought some property which presumably is still there waiting to be built upon. It's on the moon.

Clip Six:
1975. Dr. Gerard O'Neil, physics professor at Princeton University shares his ideas on moon colonies with Barbara Frum.

Clip Seven:
1983, the era of Star Wars - the US Space-based missile defence plan. This is science fiction writer Spider Robinson speaking with Jack Farr.


Another PIcture of Bob McDonald from the TV show Wonderstruck back in the 80's. (CBC Image Library)