NASA Does Not Know How Big Canada Is
FYI @mikamckinnon we fixed your map so that it shows ALL of Canada pic.twitter.com/ilvojarJBR
— SpaceRef Canada (@CanadaInSpace) January 6, 2017
Totally amused by & approve if this fix, @csa_asc needs to hassle @nasa into fixing the official image! https://t.co/iuYUIlDtJN
— Mika McKinnon (@mikamckinnon) January 6, 2017
Keith’s note: NASA does not seem to know how large Canada actually is – check the illustration they have online.
If I can say this without offending the 15,000-odd people living in the arctic archipelago, the NASA map does show the inhabited part of Canada.
Typical American response. Would you approve of maps with similarly sparsely inhabited huge chunks of Alaska not shown as being part of the U.S.?
That was actually a joke, and I wouldn’t be offered if someone poked fun at Alaskans with that sort of map. But the NASA map was really just a stupid mistake, so making fun of them over it also strikes me as appropriate.
Maybe we can arrange a free Spring vacation for you at Resolute.
Actually I have been to Resolute 3 times on my way to and from Devon Island.
Well I hope the Twin Otter rides were smooth. Some of my friends got posted to Resolute during the Soviet era. They say it was an Interesting place to visited.
As long as it’s a two-way ticket, I’d be happy to be given one.
But Vancouver Island has nearly a million people, that’s pretty inhabited.
I missed that one. And, just to be complete, Hawaii is off the side of the map, so we can’t say if they forgot it or not, and France is missing both Corsica and French Guiana. And, even that may not be complete.
Seriously people, it looks like someone just pulled up a blank map in Photoshop, used the fill function to color in things within the lines, and clicked on all the places he happened to remember where the right country. That’s only a significant issue for one reason: the whole point of the PR map was promoting NASA’s international work and how well they involve other nations. Getting the borders wrong sort of botches that.
As someone else pointed out, a much more real issue is all the blank space on the map. That map makes it very clear that there is a whole lot of the world (e.g. essentially all of the southern hemisphere and non-Russian Asia) who are not involved.
The interesting question to me is the flags that are missing. The ISS has had visitors from Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Denmark, but not one from China or India.
Neither Italy, United Kingdom nor France are correct either.
I am sure my US friends are capable to spot the errors 😉
I caught France, but I can’t believe I didn’t notice Italy; I’ve been to Sardinia. I’m not sure about the UK. NASA has something wrong, but the map is labeled “Great Britain” and it does show that correctly. Unfortunately, the caption says “country”, not geographic region, so the map ought to show the United Kingdom.
Sorry, but I spotted another one. Russia is missing Kaliningrad.
And Crimea!
The United States doesn’t recognize the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. I guess that puts NASA in an awkward position, as far as this map goes.
Northern Ireland is still in the UK, but not shaded on the map.
That was my point. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom (a country), but it is not part of Great Britain (a geographic region, specifically the big island just east of Ireland.) So the map correctly shows Great Britain, but incorrectly implies it is a country. If they wanted the country, it would be the UK and Northern Ireland should have been included.
Also, I think, the Faukland Islands (which can be seen on the map) and some smaller islands (which are too small to see on the map) might also count. But I’m not sure about that part: I don’t think those islands voted in the Brexit referendum, so I’m not sure of their legal status.
Later edit: I just remembered. Gibralter is also part of the UK, and did vote on Brexit. So they are presumably as much a part of the UK as England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Uhm, folks, the territory in question is only leased by Canada. Everybody knows it belongs to Santa Claus. He keeps it as buffer land to protect his operation further North.
you are aware that Santa was declared Canadian and his officially recognized residence is in Montreal (based on his postal code hoh-oho) ?http://www.canada.com/life/…
Likely it was just one of those Microsoft “auto-correct” errors.
This just compensates for all past Mercator projections.