Welcome home Bob!

Collette

By Collette on 01-Dec-09 13:21

Early this morning in Kazakhstan, something we've been anticipating for six months finally happened -- Bob Thirsk, a Canadian astronaut on the International Space Station, arrived home to Earth.

Welcome home Bob! We missed you! While you've been gone, we have had a lot of fun with you in fact. You don't know it yet, but you've had quite the time at the Saskatchewan Science Centre.

We first met you, Bob, in June as we hosted the Canadian Association of Science Centres' conference. Obviously at that point you were already on the International Space Station, but someone gave us a large cut out of yourself. The first place "you" decided to explore was above our Space Stadium Canada Stage:

And so began a six month long game of Where's Bob? You turned up in all sorts of unexpected places. Like, the critter cave, which is normally very dark but has been illuminated by my camera flash:

I've been told that Science Explorers occasionally found you behind the critters, in the staff-only area where they can access the cages. How did you get there? I don't even have keys for that area.

Another dark place you liked to hide in was in our mining exhibit:

Another early hiding spot was in the Wheels, Wings & Waves: A LEGO World of Transportation exhibit:

You look very at home with that rocket ship!

You weren't always hiding. Sometimes you were helpful! While you were in the LEGO exhibit, you helped in a scavenger hunt that we held to thank our sponsors, corporate members, and donors:

In fact, we were inspired to create a drink just for you that night:

One of the notable things about Bob's six months in space, which is the longest a Canadian has ever been in orbit, was his meeting with Julie Payette. She went to the space station in July and met Bob, the first time two Canadians have ever met in space. We created a drink for her too!

Bob, you were also on a tv show while you were gone! Here you are appearing in an August episode of Max Magazine, a province-wide cable show:

(You're tucked in there behind the host, Brad Grass. I was trying to stay out of their way!)

In one of the most touching displays I have ever seen, you welcomed our Sports Scientist Keir back from his honeymoon:

(The sunglasses were needed -- we had a sunny August!)

You also became quite the sports fan while you were here! In early September you dressed up in your best Saskatchewan Roughrider gear with some of my colleagues in Visitor Services:

You even made it into a local sports blog with that photo!

You've also been known to hang out in our hockey exhibit now and again. Here you are with some new friends:

You've become really good at wall climbing as well. Here you are about halfway up our 18.3 metre climbing wall:

As you can tell, that's a recent photo. You've been excited about Christmas lately!

Today when I went to find you to welcome you home, I found you in The Laboratory behind Chad's fancy new desk:

It makes sense you'd like it there. Chad's desk kind of looks like a command post of some sort. Actually, when Chad, our Education Workshop Coordinator, was in Montreal in August for the Canadian Space Agency Educators Conference, he was next in line to ask you and one of your colleagues a question when the time ran out! So close.

Well, as you can see you've been very active here on Earth while you were in space!

Here is some footage from NASA of the real Bob Thirsk being pulled from his Soyuz spacecraft after landing in Kazakhstan. After six months without gravity, I bet they must have felt pretty weird!

Again Bob, in all seriousness, welcome home! And if you're ever in Saskatchewan, we sure would love to meet the real Bob Thirsk in person. After six months of having "you" around, you've become part of our family.

Stay curious,
Collette

edit: Bob posted this letter from space yesterday, and it's lovely and touching and I hope everyone reads it.