A science blog with Eric Berger




During a live broadcast from space aboard the International Space Station, the web site CollectSpace reports, Canadian Space Agency astronaut and Expedition 35 commander Chris Hadfield revealed the astronaut- and robot-arm-adorned bank note from on board the orbiting complex.

Chris Hadfield with the new currency. (Collect Space/NASA)


The new $5 bill features images of the Canadian-built Canadarm2 and Dextre, robotic arms and manipulators that were used to build and and now maintain the station.

There’s also a spacewalking astronaut, presumably Hadfield, who was the first Canadian astronaut to walk in space, doing so more than a decade ago.

The new Canadian bank note.

The new Canadian bank note.

The old dude in black and white is Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Prime Minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911.

In America, $5 bills carried a variety of portraits until 1929, when all $5 bills were standardized to carry Lincoln’s portrait. And for all the respect I have for NASA, I wouldn’t want to change that. Lincoln was a boss.

Agree? Disagree?

Categories: Space
Eric Berger

12 Responses

  1. gjh says:

    Eric, ditto everything. Love NASA. Love Lincoln. To be honest, the Canada $5 looks a little bit like LEGO money. Keep Lincoln on the five, but how about let’s lose the penny?

    • Corey says:

      My daughter was visiting from Canada last week and informed me that Canada has also recently eliminated the penny.

      Not sure why we can’t do it here.

    • JohnD says:

      Why can’t we eliminate the penny? Because there are too many old codgers (and young kids) who still like and use it. And because there is too much potential for abuse in removing it.

      The penny isn’t like the mil, which is now familiar only through gasoline purchases and has been abandoned as a practical unit of personal currency. Pennies are used in hundreds of millions of transactions every day. If you eliminate the penny, then you have a choice: rewrite the tax codes so that everything now comes in multiples of a nickle or rewrite the cash register codes so that the transactions reliably round (which for customers means 1-3 cents rounds down and 4 cents rounds up and for the store means 1-2 cents rounds down and 3-4 cents rounds up) and make it so that customers can check the math without having to dig out a calculator.

      And you should remember that it took the better part of a century to remove the mil as a currency even though it was rarely used. We’ve only been arguing about the penny for a couple-three decades now.

  2. JohnD says:

    I agree that we shouldn’t change the bills. But why not put something on quarters, as the Treasury did with the US State quarters? Say one quarter for each of the major manned programs (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle) and one for each of the planets (including Pluto).

    It would be popular with collectors and raise money for the US, just as past sets have. Heck, if it is as popular as the States quarters program was, it would pay for half of NASA’s budget!

    • Bill in Houston says:

      I like the idea of a quarter, or maybe even the half dollar. We don’t see that one much anymore. I had to look up who was on the obverse (John F. Kennedy).

      In 2015, Kennedy will also be on the dollar coin.

  3. Jack says:

    How about leaving Lincoln on the front and redesigning the back. All paper money has two sides. Take off the Lincoln Memorial building and put a NASA themed item. One side of a bill is enough for Mr. Lincoln.

    • Eric Berger says:

      I’d be good with that.

    • Brazos says:

      Sounds good! But how about the US Mint offering coins of pure silver with a design honoring for example the space program but selling a $.50 piece for the going $/oz (currently $24.29/oz). It would collectible and have something to pass on down to the kids. I used to get silver half dollars (pre 1964)for birthdays etc. Bring that back!

  4. Alisonymous says:

    To space out or not to space out? The important part for many Canadians has nothing to do with the space theme – it’s the controversy over the maple leaf that is depicted on the right side of that bill:

  5. Gwen Dallas says:

    I would support replacing Alexander Hamilton on the $ 10 with a moonwalking astronaut.

    Maybe for bills printed in 2019, anyway.

    • Gwen Dallas says:

      The $ 10 bill also had Lewis and Clark on it in 1901… There is precedent for commemorative $ 10 bills.

  6. Ridge says:

    No one can outwaste Obama. Challenge accepted Canada.