Aaron’s grandfather, Ireal, worked at the highest levels of Canada’s aerospace industry. Now, 37 years after his death, Aaron uncovers Ireal’s story, sending him on a mission to launch his grandfather’s ashes into space.

A documentary short film by Aaron Smail and Adam Marley. Coming Soon.

Canadians in Space 🇨🇦 Part 3 Here is the actual commemorative stamp on an envelope in Ireal’s collection, showing an embossed original Canadian Astronaut Program logo (left) and the stamp itself (right). On the second slide, we can read some
Canadians in Space 🇨🇦 Part 2 The commemorative stamp in the previous post came in this envelope as it was provided by Spar Aerospace to Ireal and other company executives. #findingirealfilm #ohcanada
Canadians in Space 🇨🇦 Part 1 This stamp in Ireal’s collection, was issued on March 15th, 1985, to commemorate Marc Garneau’s becoming the first Canadian to go to space! He was one of six first Canadian Astronauts and he became the fir
Canadarm 🇨🇦 Part 3 After a long process of testing the system in various scenarios, Canadarm was installed on Space Shuttle Columbia, and first tested in orbit on November 13th, 1981, on the STS-2 mission crewed by astronauts Joe H. Engle and Rich
Canadarm 🇨🇦 Part 2. How did the achievement of Canadarm come about? After a facility was built at 1700 Ormont Drive in North York (slide two), engineers got to work on solving several problems that the mere idea for a remote manipulator system bro
Canadarm 🇨🇦 Part 1. On this day 44 years ago, @nasa formally accepted the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System or “Canadarm” from the National Research Council (@nrc_cnrc) and Spar Aerospace Limited at Spar’s RMS Division Plant in T
Ireal Mayson, Football Champion, 1935 Here, Ireal is seen third from the end of a large team photo (2nd & 3rd slides) for his highschool football team at Harbord Collegiate Institute, when he was in the ninth grade. The photo was in commemoratio
Ireal in Brazil 🇧🇷 Ireal is photographed here standing with an @embratel employee outisde the Telemetry Tracking and Control Centre for the Brasilsat satellite system, presumably sometime over 1985-1986. In the second slide Ireal sits inside one
Happy Birthday, Ireal On this day, January 19th in 1920, Ireal was born in Toronto. Here he is, photographed sitting on the porch of his residence at 92 Christie Street, probably sometime between 1946 and 1950. #findingirealfilm
Ireal in Nigeria 🇳🇬 Ireal is photographed here next to a sculpture in the lobby of his hotel in Lagos. The second slide shows Ireal and others looking at alcohol for sale from local street vendors. The third slide shows Ireal and members of the