A small-town workshop gives Peter Visscher space to dream of outer space
Behind the stone structures of downtown St. Mary’s sits a century-old brick building. Large paned windows stretch upward. Green wooden doors hang awkwardly on their hinges. Peering at the exterior, many might consider the space to be past its earthly charm.
Yet, inside the rugged building, Peter Visscher and his team design prototypes of lunar rovers. From an earthy place, he invents, builds and tests vehicles for outer space.
“That one is probably 10 years old,” says Peter, pointing to an ATV-sized rover in his shop. “It has been all over the world, from Iceland to the desert, to see how robust its navigation is in harsh conditions.”
A road winding to outer space
Peter has been working on lunar rover projects for 17 years. After graduating from LCH in 1991, he completed two years of university before dropping out to continue vegetable farming (not his thing) and then to venture into power sports mechanics.
At 27 years old, he returned to university to finish an engineering degree, and started working for a company building extreme terrain vehicles and floating amphibious units.
“I never had any real interest in space,” says Peter, Vice-president, Rovers at Mission Control. “But, when the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) approached our company for help in designing lunar rovers, I jumped at the chance because it sounded like a good challenge. I’ve been doing it ever since.”
A rover heading to the moon
Working with CSA and NASA scientists has given Peter immense opportunities to apply his engineering mind to exploring the universe.
“In 2013, we developed and tested a rover that could land on the moon and drill into the lunar surface to take samples and figure out if water is there,” he explains, adding one of his rover designs is scheduled to fly to the moon in a couple of years. “If water is found on the moon, a lot more possibilities open up for space exploration.”
That potential inspires him to continue—even though years or decades can pass before any of his vehicles are launched into orbit.
A reason connecting to God
“People get into this kind of work for a lot of reasons,” he admits. “Mine comes from God’s mandate for His creation—to reflect the nature of God in what we do.”
His professional journey as an engineer, in part, connects to his high-school days at LCH.
“I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, but my teachers included healthy doses of integrating the Creator and creation into every class,” says Peter.
“Back then, I didn’t see how faith connected to subjects like math, but now it makes sense to me. The math always has to work out, just like creation.”
“Part of God’s nature is to create things, and that’s reflected in what I do. I just need to keep making stuff. It’s who I am.”
