Julie Payette

Looking at the UWC Mission Statement, are we that good? Are we really striving for so much? Are we just kidding ourselves? I do not think so. I think the opportunities are out there for everyone to make a difference.

Julie “Grut” Payette (AC 80-82) is a Canadian Astronaut. She works at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. In 1999, she served as a crew member on mission STS-96 on Space Shuttle Discovery and became the first Canadian to board the International Space Station (ISS). She is currently assigned to a second space flight  launching in June 2009 on Space Shuttle Endeavour, construction mission STS-127 to the International Space Station.

Julie was selected for the space programme in 1992 by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) from 5,330 applicants to become one of four Canadian astronauts. After her basic training in Canada, she worked as a technical advisor for the Mobile Servicing System (MSS), an advanced robotics system contributed by Canada to the International Space Station. Ms. Payette holds a multi-engine IFR commercial pilot license and received a military pilot captaincy on the CT-114 “Tutor” jet aircraft with the Canadian Air Force. She has logged more than 1,300 hours of flight time, mostly on high performance jets.

Julie started Mission Specialist Astronaut training at NASA in Houston in 1996. From September 1999 to December 2002, after her first space flight, Julie worked as a crew representative with the European and Russian space agencies where she supervised procedure development and equipment verification for the International Space Station Program. Then from 2003 until her recent assignment to a second space flight, Julie worked as a Capsule Communicator (CapCom) at the Mission Control Centre in Houston, Texas. The CapCom is responsible for all voice communications between ground controllers and the astronauts in flight.

Before joining the space program, Julie conducted research in computer systems, natural language processing, automatic speech recognition and the application of interactive technologies in space. She worked for IBM, the University of Toronto and the Speech Research Group, Bell-Northern Research/Nortel. After graduating from UWC of the Atlantic she returned to Canada to study for a B.Eng. in electrical engineering at McGill University, Montreal. She also holds a Masters of Applied Science - Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto.

“I heard about UWC whilst I was at school in Montréal. The 1976 Olympics in Montréal made me realise that there was a world out there...it felt like the world was on my doorstep. As a result of the Olympics, I had said that I wanted to travel and see more of the world, and then I saw a poster in my school corridor that was advertising studying in either Great Britain or British Columbia. I was interested in seeing more of the world, and my parents didn’t have the money to enable me to just travel for leisure, so UWC was a great opportunity for me. The National Committee had one scholarship to Atlantic College and five to Pearson College – my desire to be an astronaut pushed them to pick me for the Atlantic College scholarship. They thought the discipline of a British school would benefit me.

“I believe UWC has had a huge impact. I can’t even think how to articulate the difference it made in my life. It was a privileged environment – the college was amazing.

“UWC was very different from my earlier school experience. The community service was a complete different dimension, being with people from all over the world. UWC happens at the right time in life, we are exposed to things when we are young, you gain a lot and it creates good habits, so UWC doesn’t change people – it betters them, it takes what is already there and makes it more rounded and open. There is also a discipline with the IB that is really good for the future at the time when young students are figuring out how they are going to behave, act and prepare for the future. "

*with thanks to NASA.