Left on the Launch Pad

摘要

It takes a leap of imagination to think of Canada, that innocuous land of Joni Mitchell, Molson beer and occa-sional cold fronts, as a national-security threat. Unless, of course, you are the U.S. State Department, and the issue is satellite sales. That's what Mark Bitterman learned late last year when his Dulles, Va.-based company, Orbital Sciences, lost an $80 million contract to build part of a radar satellite for the Canadian government. Though Ottawa just wanted to monitor the movement of ice floes—not troops—the part was considered sensitive military equipment.