Space Mission 41-G

Mr. Seymour

Distinguished guests, members and friends of The Empire Club of Canada: It is my pleasure to welcome as our guest speaker today Marc Garneau, Canada's first astronaut in space.

The March, 1985 issue of Saturday Night described the October, 1984, launch of the Challenger shuttle as follows: "The countdown had gone on all night and yet the moment came as a surprise-a gush of white smoke and steam that billowed up around the launch pad like a volcanic eruption. "There was the brightest white light... There was the awesome fact that the orbiter was lifting. But mostly there was the noise, a furious sound felt in the chest more than heard. It grew stronger, to the point that any increase would have been painful, but no final increase came. It took four seconds for the three main engines and the two solid rocket boosters to reach ninety per cent of full power. In sixty seconds, Marc Garneau was fifteen miles high."

Canada's space programme began on September 29, 1962, when Alouette I was blasted into orbit from an American test range. Its success in recording data on the upper atmosphere led to four more satellites-designed, developed and built by Canadians, but launched by Americans.

In 1971, the two countries officially joined forces in the communications-technology satellite programme. In 1972, with the launch of Anik A-1, Canada became the first nation to have a domestic communications satellite in orbit. Anik-2 and Anik-3 followed and, in 1982, the highly sophisticated Anik C-3 was launched on the first commercial flight of the American space shuttle. Since then, two more Anik satellites have been launched from the cargo bays of shuttles Discovery and Challenger, employing the Canadarm developed by Spar Aerospace, whose president is with us today, to set them in orbit.

Despite the success of Canadarm, most Canadians gave little thought to the Canadian space programme, until the possibility arose of a Canadian astronaut. In 1982, on the occasion of the twenthieth anniversary of the Alouette launching, NASA extended a public invitation for Canada to supply the shuttle programme with either mission specialists or payload specialists. Ottawa accepted the invitation the following year and the Canadian astronaut programme was born.

In December, 1983, the then Minister of State for Science and Technology, Donald Johnston, announced that, from the 4,300 applicants who had answered a newspaper advertisement in July, six had been chosen for the programme. Working to a very tight schedule so as to accommodate the planned October launch date, Karl Doetsch, director of the Canadian astronaut programme, announced the National Research Council's choice of prime and backup crew members on March 13, 1984: Marc Garneau, prime, and Bob Thirsk, back-up.

Born in Quebec City, Marc Garneau earned a bachelor's degree in engineering physics from the Royal Military College of Kingston in 1970 and a doctorate in electrical engineering from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, England, in 1973.

While an instructor in naval weapons systems at the Canadian Forces Fleet School in Halifax in 1976-77, our guest designed a simulator for use in training weapons officers in the use of missile systems aboard Tribal Class destroyers. Following appointments of increasing responsibility in both Ottawa and Halifax, Marc Garneau was promoted to Commander and transferred to Ottawa to become design authority for all naval communications and electronic warfare equipment and systems in 1983.

He is married to the former Jacqueline Brown of London, England. The Garneaus live in Ottawa with their ten-yearold twins, Yves and Simone.

In response to his experience in space, Garneau said: "The most moving thing is to look down at your own planet... to be able to see entire subcontinents and seas is incredibly beautiful, very moving."

Looking to the future, our guest was quoted recently as saying:

"Canada should charter its own space lab mission as West Germany did, since there are many experiments that you can perform in the space module, because of its size, that you cannot perform when the module is not there."

I am certain that our guest would be a ready and willing volunteer if Ottawa were to make such a decision.

Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to welcome as our guest speaker today Marc Garneau, Canadian astronaut, who will first of all address us on the topic "Space Mission 41-G" and then participate in a question-and-answer period.

Marc Garneau

Mr. President, head table guests, ladies and gentlemen, young people in the audience:

Thank you very much for having me here today. I always look forward to the opportunity to speak to Canadians about the honour I felt when I was chosen to fly in space in October of 1984 aboard the shuttle Challenger. I look forward to showing you a film that describes a little bit the sort of experience one undergoes when one has the opportunity to fly aboard a shuttle. It's a sort of home movie, taken by the different crew members, which pretty well shows you how a typical day goes by aboard the shuttle. Now, I know you've all seen small clips on television, which show you perhaps 15 or 30 seconds of what astronauts are doing when they're up there, but this is a longer film. I think by the time you've seen it, it will have answered some of the questions you may have about what it's like to go up in space aboard a shuttle and what sort of things you do while up there.

Before I show that film, I want to speak very briefly about Canada's space program. Mr. Seymour has mentioned a number of `firsts' that illustrate how Canada has been involved at the forefront of developments in space, particularly in the communications-technology area-communications satellites. But there are also a number of other important areas that deal with remote sensing, search and rescue, and space technology in general. We also have a very eminent group of scientists in our country whose aim is to try to learn more about our universe, and a lot of that can be done by sending I sensors up into space and looking down towards our planet. Now, I don't know whether it was by coincidence or just good planning that I was invited to speak today, but, at this time, Canada's space program is at a very important crossroad. In fact, this is probably the crucial month in our history. The Canadian Government is reviewing a document called The Space Plan, a sort of White Paper, which looks at the direction Canada may take during the next fifteen years with regards to space.

We have been involved with space now for about thirty years and in a very significant manner. We've had to become involved with space because of the need to bring us together through communications satellites; because of the need to be able to look at our resources through remote-sensing satellites; because of the vastness of our country, where searchand-rescue can be far more efficient by using satellites. Now we're looking into the future and we're wondering what we are going to do as far as space is concerned.

This Space Plan basically proposes three very major projects. The first has to do with the space station, a very large structure that will be placed into orbit in the next decade, probably about 1993-94. It's a U.S. space station but, in actual fact, there will be significant contributions by other countries. Canada may be one of those countries. Japan, Canada, the European Space Agency, which involves about 13 countries, and the United States, are going to put together this space station.

Canada wants to build something called "the integrated servicing and test facility," an element of that space station. And, if you like, it can be compared to a garage-a place where satellites or other free fliers are brought to be refurbished or to be refuelled, simply to check them out or perhaps to replace some of the modules, to update them, that sort of thing. Canada wants to build this integrated servicing and test facility and has proposed that to the other partners.

First of all, the Government has to decide whether we will go ahead and fund this development. Secondly, we also have to persuade our partners in the U.S. and in the other countries that we should be the ones to build the integrated servicing and test facility-and, believe me, the competition will be stiff. I think we probably, in choosing that particular part of the space station, hit upon a very very important part because of the fact that it involves some key technology, and particularly in the area of robotics and artificial intelligence. And, because the space station will be a focus for certain technologies, a lot of countries-and particularly a lot of private companies-want to be the ones to be involved significantly with areas such as robotics and artificial intelligence. So, we're not the only ones who want to build this integrated and servicing test facility because of its large involvement with robotics; the United States and other countries want to get involved with that part of it. So we have to persuade our partners that we should be the ones to do it.

Another important element in the space plan is "Radarsat," a remote-sensing satellite that uses a number of sensors but primarily a radar. We've been involved in remote sensing for a number of years; these are satellites that look down at the earth and can pick up a lot of detail from their sensors. We have developed considerable capabilities processing the signals that they send down, but we've never had our own remote-sensing satellite, and Radarsat will be the first Canadian satellite in this area.

We shall be sending that information down, and it will tell us a great deal about a number of things. It will tell us mostly about the sort of conditions that exist up in the Arctic that we want to develop-the ice-flow conditions, which will be important from the point of view of navigation. It will also provide us with information that may be of use from a surveillance point of view, although that isn't a primary role; with information about our forests; perhaps some of our other natural resources; information useful to farmers and people who are involved with the resources of our country. So that's another major project that Canada will be considering.

The other major project is called "Mobile Satellite," which is in the area of communications. Mobile Satellite means a satellite that can actually receive a signal from a remote user anywhere in our country-perhaps out at sea or in the bush somewhere in the North-and that person with a small transmitter can actually make use of a satellite to send a message out and to communicate with somebody else who is perhaps in a major city. This is a key area for development in communications-satellite technology and this is the third major project that Canada is looking at for the 1990s.

So there are three big projects being considered for Canadian involvement in space. They are all highly competitive. We're receiving a lot of competition from several other countries now who are getting involved. It's not just the United States and the Soviet Union, but other countries such as Japan, China, India, some of the individual European countries, are all getting involved with space. It's no longer a preserve where we occupy a very privileged position. We now have to compete to maintain the status we have created for ourselves over the past twenty-five years.

Two other points under discussion as well in this space plan are the Canadian Astronaut Programme and whether that will continue. I think, and I certainly hope, that the program will continue, but it is under review.

I happen to be a person who believes that it is useful to have human beings go up in space to do a variety of tasks in a variety of different areas. In fact, I think we're superior in a number of areas to machines, but that's a speech in itself and I won't get involved with that today. But it is something that we have to justify, because some people do believe that it is, in some cases, more efficient to get the work done by machines.

And, finally, the last thing I think is under discussion as well is this question of perhaps bringing all the different elements of space involvement in this country together. There are various Government departments all involved in one way or another with space; whether it's the Department of Communications with communications satellites or the National Research Council, where I work, which is involved with space science and astronauts, or Energy, Mines and Resources, with remote sensing-and I mentioned Radarsat. Some people suggest that we should all be brought together and form the equivalent of the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) organization-a sort of Canadian national space agency. So I think that is also something that is going to be discussed and may come about in the years ahead.

A lot of things are happening and are being discussed at this moment, with respect to space. I think that, if we don't continue our involvement with space, we're going to be left behind. Economically, this is one of the important and perhaps-maybe 50 years from now-the most important high technology for any country and I think it's absolutely vital that we keep the momentum we have built up so far in this particular area.

I won't do any more politics now and I'll switch to the real reason I came here, which was to tell you about Mission 41-G. I flew aboard the Challenger, in October, 1984, and spent eight days aboard what we call an orbiter-which is what most people call the shuttle. It is the flying part of the shuttle system. I went up into space with six other people, which at that time was the largest crew ever to go up into space. There were five men and two women. The women were Kathy Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space-that is, go outside the shuttle and spend a few hours out in space. The other woman was Sally Ride, who was the first American woman astronaut ever to go into space. In all, we spent 8'/a days in space and went around the earth one hundred and thirty-two and one half times. Now, if you're good at mathematics, you'll realize that that works out to sixteen times every day, or once every ninety minutes. So, in that ninety-minute period basically, you have about fifty minutes of daylight and about forty minutes of darkness when you are behind the earth. Every day, because you go around sixteen times, you'll have sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets. You are travelling at about 28,000 kilometres per hour or 17,000 miles per hour to get around the world in ninety minutes. And, with 132'/2 orbits, that works out to about 3'/2 million miles or 5'/2 million kilometres, during the eight days we were up there.

Now my job, as a payload specialist, was to carry out a number of experiments during my mission. These were all experiments put forward by Canadians, which had to do with various different subjects, but the important point about it is that, as a Canadian payload specialist, my job was to go up there and to do experiments that had been put forward by people from universities or industry or government departments within Canada. And this is, in fact, what's going to happen to the next Canadian astronaut who goes up, Steve McLean; he'll be doing a series of seven experiments, once again put forward by Canadians. In fact, we are now developing the experiments for the third Canadian to go in space, which will come not too long probably after Steve goes into space. And there we'll concentrate on the medical side-what happens to the human body when a person is up in space. Well, if we could at this point turn out the lights and roll the film. . .

The appreciation of the audience was expressed by MGen. Bruce J. Legge, a distinguished Past President of The Club.