Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down on July 21 2011 and the shuttle program ended with it. By that point the machine was irreplaceable, not because it was precious but because it had been repaired and adapted so many times that every component was one of a kind. The only thing left to do was glide it home with no engines and one shot at the runway.

There is something worth sitting with in the fact that Doug Hurley piloted that final mission and then, six years later, commanded SpaceX Demo 2, the flight that put Americans back into orbit from American soil for the first time since Atlantis landed. Both ends of a twelve year gap. Same person. Artemis II splashdown is at 8:07 Eastern tomorrow and Jeremy Hansen is on board for his very first time in space. Someone on this show opened a Twitter account he hasn't touched in years just to find pictures of this crew every morning. That is the actual measure of what this mission has done to people.

Twelve years between then and now. The waiting is the part worth understanding.

Topics: Space Shuttle Atlantis final mission, Artemis II splashdown, Doug Hurley SpaceX, throwback Thursday 2011, Jeremy Hansen

Originally aired on 2026-04-09

Artemis II splashdown is scheduled for 8:07 Eastern, and the Orion capsule is cooking toward Earth fast enough that reentry is expected to produce a significant fireball through the atmosphere. Everything on NASA's tracker is showing green. Nobody wants to jinx it.

On April 8th at 4 a.m., the Alan I. Carswell Observatory at York University pointed its telescope through part of a wall to capture the Orion capsule moving against the background stars on its way home. The capsule is small and dim and was low on the horizon, right at the limit of visibility. They caught it anyway. One pixel. Moving fast. Somewhere inside it, Jeremy Hansen, only the second country in history to send someone around the moon. The Space Shuttle Atlantis made its final gliding landing in 2011 without engines, one shot, cross your fingers. By the end of its life it had been patched together with so many different parts you couldn't have built it on purpose. Artemis is a different thing entirely.

Canada might lose Canadarm 3 from the lunar gateway. This mission is the argument for why that would be a mistake worth fighting.

Topics: Artemis II splashdown, Orion capsule, Jeremy Hansen, Alan I Carswell Observatory, Canada space program

GUEST: Elaina Hyde | https://www.youtube.com/live/dT_ykVY1VaI

Originally aired on 2026-04-09

Maple syrup fraud just became the most Canadian scandal possible. Quebec has a strategic reserve, a single desk authentication system, and wholesale testing on every batch. Someone still managed to swap sugar cane syrup into maple syrup cans, put stickers over the logos, and sell them to grocers across the province at a discount. The grocers didn't ask questions.

Steve Boudreaux is currently the most hated man in Quebec. The CBC's French language consumer program Encaite tested samples after what Dr. Sylvain Charlebois suspects was a whistleblower tip, and the story came apart fast. The Quebec farmers union have filed filed a class action. And then more cans with covered labels started showing up. Dr. Charlebois makes one point that cuts through all of it: without the CBC, nobody finds this. And he doesn't believe it was the first time someone tried.

Food fraud matters because it makes innovation impossible. If the producers cutting corners can undercut the ones doing it right, the whole system breaks down. That's the real cost sitting underneath the pancake jokes.

Topics: maple syrup fraud Canada, Quebec strategic syrup reserve, food fraud, CBC Encaite, Steve Boudreaux

GUEST: Dr. Sylvain Charlebois | @foodprofessor

Originally aired on 2026-04-09

Throwback Thursday 2011 is the year everything was normal right up until it wasn't. The Space Shuttle Atlantis glided home in July with no engines and one shot at the runway and human spaceflight went quiet. The Arab Spring started reshaping the world. Houses cost $250,000. Harry Potter was in theatres. Stephen Harper and Barack Obama talked about Canada and the United States in complete sentences without threatening each other once.

That last part is worth sitting with. The audio of those two leaders on the Canada-US relationship sounds like it needs subtitles today, not because the language is different but because the temperature is. Artemis splashdown is at 8:07 Eastern tomorrow. Someone on this show described the launch as humanity's next great voyage. That framing hasn't been available for a while. 2011 is where it stopped being available and this week is where it came back.

The Canucks lost game seven that year and the city rioted. Progress, maybe, that nobody bothers anymore. Or something else entirely.

Topics: throwback Thursday 2011, Obama Harper audio, Space Shuttle Atlantis, Artemis splashdown, Arab Spring

Originally aired on 2026-04-09

Marilyn Gladue floor crossing to the Liberals is the kind of news that made Rob Breakenridge wonder if he was thinking of the wrong person. Then wonder if it was a late April Fools joke. Then confirm it was real and sit with the fact that she had been denouncing other floor crossers just days before.

What do you actually get out of crossing the floor? Not a cabinet post. Rob Breakenridge is clear on that. Not necessarily more freedom in caucus. Not even a guaranteed seat, given how conservative her riding has been. Marilyn Gladue spent years as one of the most ardent social conservatives in the party, ran to lead it six years ago, and has a track record that makes the Liberal fit genuinely hard to explain. She could walk into a private sector job in petrochemicals that would pay more than an MP salary plus whatever anyone imagines they're being offered. The incentive is baffling and that's the part nobody can answer cleanly.

This is the fifth floor crosser. At some point the question stops being about Marilyn Gladue and starts being about what the Liberal Party actually stands for when everyone is welcome.

Topics: Marilyn Gladue floor crossing, Canadian by-election, Pierre Poilievre caucus, Liberal majority, floor crosser incentive

GUEST: Rob Breakenridge | robbreakrenridge.ca | @robbreakenridge

Originally aired on 2026-04-09

Artemis crew splashdown is at 8:07 Eastern tomorrow and before they come home there is one thing worth sitting with. The Earthrise photograph from Apollo 8 in 1968 is probably one of the most important images ever taken. The astronaut who took it was Bill Anders. He died in 2024. Most people still couldn't tell you his name.

That gap is the whole point. Right now Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen have spent nine days taking photographs that may rival Earthrise. They fixed a broken toilet. Nutella floated through the capsule. Mark Carney called and talked to Jeremy Hansen about maple syrup. These are not abstract heroes. They are specific people doing something that has not been done since 1972, going around the moon and coming home. Bill Anders would have recognized exactly what they were doing.

Say their names. Reed Wiseman. Victor Glover. Christina Koch. Jeremy Hansen. Splashdown tomorrow at 8:07 Eastern.

Topics: Artemis crew splashdown, Bill Anders Earthrise, Jeremy Hansen Canadian astronaut, Apollo 8, Reed Wiseman Victor Glover Christina Koch

Originally aired on 2026-04-09

Athlete social media pressure has changed what it means to be a professional. It used to stop at the rink doors. Now there are dedicated accounts tracking every NHL player's follows and likes in real time, and Nazem Kadri's liked posts are being reported on. The game never ends.

Brenley Shapiro has worked with athletes long enough to know the difference between pressure that sharpens performance and pressure that corrodes it. Criticism of a slump is one thing. Being told to spend less time following people on Instagram is something else. That second kind hits identity and belonging and approval, pressure points that have nothing to do with how you hold a stick. Athletes are not superhuman. They are people managing relationships and trust and family while a global audience watches every move and never turns off. What gets distorted or taken out of context does not disappear. It stays and it gets in their heads.

What they actually want when they meet someone in public has not changed: just genuine human connection. That is still the thing that lands.

Topics: athlete social media pressure, sports psychology, NHL social media tracking, celebrity parasocial relationship, performance identity

GUEST: Brenley Shapiro | http://brenleyshapiro.com | @‌brenleyshapiro

Originally aired on 2026-04-09

2011 was the last normal year. That's not nostalgia. That's what historians who study decades for a living actually call it. Go find concert footage from that year. Everyone is holding up a drink or a lighter. Nobody has a phone out. It looks like a different planet.

By 2012 the majority of the world's population was addicted to smartphones and scrolling. Spotify launched in 2011 and finished off physical media for good. Charlie Sheen had a public meltdown, got fired, said I am on a drug called Charlie Sheen and took the whole thing on tour. Ed Conroy went. He still isn't sure it was real. Divorce rates went down when smartphones arrived, which nobody predicted and nobody has fully explained. Younger people are now hooking up CD players and saying it sounds different. It does. It has soul.

Fifteen years ago people were just figuring out how to turn an iPhone on. Now they're touching glass in the dark at 3 in the morning. That happened fast. Nobody voted on it.

Topics: 2011 last normal year, smartphone addiction, Spotify, Charlie Sheen meltdown, physical media

GUEST: Ed Conroy | http://retrontario.com | @‌retrontario

Originally aired on 2026-04-09