Canadian Facilities by Philip A. Lapp and Arthur E. Maine
From The Space Library
Paper given at the Commonwealth Space Symposium August 29th 1959 London.
Mr Lapp and Mr Maine represented the De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited, Downsview, Ontario, Canada
Contents |
Introduction
In writing this paper, the authors have been confronted with a tremendous problem, and this in effect amounts to writing within the space of a few pages a meaningful summary of Canada's industrial, government and university facilities. It has been found to be quite impossible to give anything other than a very broad outline of the country's resources, punctuated here and there with a little detail and a few highlights. Notwithstanding the difficulties involved, an attempt is made to clarify Canada's strong and dynamic capabilities in this modern space-age. Naturally the authors have no mandate to comment upon the degree of availability of the facilities described, for use in connection with a space research programme, but it is hoped that the material presented will clearly show that Canada is well equipped for participation in such a programme should one subsequently develop.
National Resources
At this stage a few facts and figures about Canada may be helpful, if only to enable subsequent material to be viewed in its proper perspective. Firstly, as is well known, Canada is a large territory and extends from the 49th parallel of the North American continent up into the Arctic Circle and covers approximately 4 million square miles. The present population is somewhat over 17.5 million and its growth is at one of the fastest rates in the world. Natural resources include coal, oil, natural gas, gold, nickel, uranium and many others, and large territories still remain to be fully examined geologically for what they might yield. A rough measure of a country's commercial—industrial capacity is the value of its gross national product, the annual worth of all of its goods and services passing through commerce per annum. Figure 1 shows the upswing of this factor over the course of the last five years and indicates a value of some 34 billion dollars for 1959. Employment in Canada includes a variable factor and this usually peaks around August each year. Taking the national employment figures for this particular month for recent years yields Curve "B" in Fig. 1.
In this paper we are concerned with the technological aspects of the country's resources, and furthermore our immediate interest is centred around astronautics; for this reason, subsequent considerations are restricted to those industries and facilities that are most closely related to the technology of space research. Immediately coming to mind we have the aircraft, electronic and chemical industries, government research and development agencies and, of course, of vital importance, the universities. The remainder of this paper considers these segments in the order given.
The Aircraft Industry and Guided Missile Capacity
Not commonly known is the fact that Canada ranks within the first five of the world's biggest aircraft manufacturing countries. During the last war a total of 16,418 aircraft of various types were produced in Canadian plants. These included a large number of Hurricanes and Mosquitoes, a total of 430 Lancasters and a lesser quantity of Lincolns and Yorks. PBY5A's and AVRO Ansons were also made in considerable numbers.
At the end of the war three major aircraft manufacturing companies constituted the greater part of the Canadian aircraft industry : A. V. Roe at Malton, Ontario, Canadair at Montreal and De Havilland at Toronto. These companies entered into vigorous post-war, design and construction programmes and many all-Canadian designed and manufactured aircraft appeared.
AVRO's early activities in this period began with the conversion of Lincolns, Lancasters, Venturas and DC-3's to non-military configurations and this period led to the design of the AVRO Jetliner, North America's first all-jet passenger aircraft which made its first successful flight within weeks of the British Comet 1. The company next undertook the design and manufacture of the CF-100 twin-jet all-weather fighter and by the end of the programme had made over 700 of these aircraft which were received into squadron service both in Canada and in the N.A.T.O. countries. During the closing years of the CF-100 programme AVRO commenced the design of a radical twin-jet delta-type interceptor reputed to be in the "Mach 2 plus" category This ill-fated CF-105 programme was terminated by contract cancellation early in 1959 at which time the aircraft had progressed to the initial flight-testing phase. Orenda Engines, a part of the A. V. Roe organization, designed and produced large quantities of turbojet engines, notably the Orenda, but including the Chinook and the Iroquois. The latter, a tremendously powerful engine in the De Havilland Gyro power bracket, was intended for the CF-105. The company is presently commencing the manufacture under licence of the engine for the Lockheed F-104G, a hundred of which have been ordered by the Canadian Government.
Canadair's early post-war activities were concerned with the manufacture of considerable quantities of North Stars (Argonauts), an aircraft based on the DC-4, and later the manufacture of over 1,500 Sabres, many being sold to N.A.T.O. governments. Many T-3 trainers were built, and the Argus and CL-44 derivatives (based upon the Bristol Britannia) are now being manufactured on a production line basis. A recent Canadair design is the "540," a multi-purpose aircraft: using the Convair configuration but powered with Napier-Elan engines. Canadair have recently won a competition for the manufacture of 100 Lockheed F-104G airframes, thus further extending the company versatility in the aircraft construction business.
One of De Havilland's early post-war achievements was the design of the Chipmunk trainer, a total of 128 being made in the Canadian plant and over 1,000 more of this popular aircraft being manufacture by other De Havilland agencies around the world. The company association with, and unique understanding of the requirements of "bush" flying led to the design of two extremely successful types of aircraft, the Beaver and Otter, and these have had a strong influence on opening up previously inaccessible regions of the country. Sold to practically every country of the world, substantial quantities have been purchased by the United States Army and over 1,200 of these machines have been made with construction continuing in volume. De Havilland have also constructed under licence to Grumman, 99 S-2F Tracker aircraft for the Royal Canadian Navy. This twin-engined submarine chaser is heavily laden with complex detection and other systems, and the problem of furnishing the complete weapon system involved the setting up of an extensive electronic facility within the company. The latest De Havilland design is the highly successful twin-engined Caribou STOL aircraft of approximately 26,000 lb weight. Presently in production, it has been ordered by the United States Army.
The last few paragraphs have highlighted the activities of the three major manufacturers, but space forbids mention in any detail of the large number of other important and well-known companies. Sufficient to say that these are concerned with practically every aspect of aeronautical engineering and jointly represent a large fraction of the total industry.
Almost since the end of the Second World War, Canadian Government agencies were actively engaged in assessing and analysing the role of guided missiles in regard to Canadian defence. In 1951 a programme was initiated and administered by D.R.B. (Defence Research Board) for an air-to-air radar homing missile under the code name Velvet Glove. Canadair was ultimately appointed the prime contractor with the other major aircraft companies and important segments of the electronic industry acting as sub-contractors. The ensuing three years saw detailed design of the weapon system carried almost to the stage of completion, all sub-systems including fire control, guidance and control, the A.P.U. (Auxiliary Power Unit), etc., being satisfactorily developed and most of those tested in flight by live rocket firings at Canadian ranges. In 1956, this essentially training programme was terminated in preparation for the Canadian version of the Douglas Sparrow 2 missile. At the conclusion of the Velvet Glove programme, aside from the technical status of the missile, which was good considering the time of its emergence, an impressive guided missile capacity existed in Canada. The major companies had established strong Guided Missile Divisions including environmental test facilities (Canadian Westinghouse) among the best in North America, numerous sub-contractors had been exposed to missile requirements and had built up special skills in this connection; finally, industry was supported by impressive government research agencies, extensive computer facilities, rocket ranges, and so forth.
With the entry of the Sparrow 2 missile, Canadair was once more appointed prime contractor and production capacity for this missile was set up. De Havilland designed the complete A.P.U. for the missile and this sub-system represented an extremely advanced configuration. Unfortunately, cancellation of the CF-105 programme resulted in the termination of Sparrow 2 in Canada and, inevitably, in the absence of a follow-on order, the growing guided missile industry suffered immediately and quickly shrunk. .However, some of the major industrial companies still maintain their guided missile departments and there is evidence of a slow return to former strength in these cases by virtue of their gradual participation in United States defence production.
| CANADA'S AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY | ||||
| Airframe | Engine | Subcontractors and components | Overhaul and conversion | |
| No. of employees | 17,000 | 4,500 | 15,000 | 2,500 |
| Floor space (sq ft) | 3,500,000 | 900,000 | 2,500,000 | 550,000 |
Turning to the present capacity of the aircraft industry in which is included the major part of the country's guided missile resources, Table 1 outlines the present standing and is applicable to some sixty companies. The figures are based upon the 1957 figures issued by A.I.T.A. from which have been subtracted 12,500 employees and 1.7 million sq ft of active floor space roughly to accord with recent cancellations. No firm figure is available concerning the book value of plants and equipment., but a value in the region of 0.35 to 0.5 billion- dollars is probable.
In closing this short account of the Canadian Aircraft Industry is woefully inadequate in presenting the numerous important contributions made to aeronautical engineering by many agencies and well known companies, attention may be drawn to a rather unique aspect of the industry's versatile operations. We find that Canada, in addition to designing aircraft herself and manufacturing both British and American types in quantity has also combined American airframes with British engines and vice versa. These operations have built up ready ability on the part of Canadian company managements to cooperate closely and effectively with companies and agencies of other nations, and the demonstrated success of this in the highly technical aeronautical field suggests that co-operation in any astronautics venture that might conceivably develop would be equally successful.
The Electronic Industry
Excluding the sales and service segments of the electronic industry applicable to the consumer market, the industry comprises 130 manufacturing, companies, employs over 20,000 persons, and occupies a total of some 7 million sq ft of covered floor space. Figure 2 shows the remarkable growth of the industry over the last eleven years resulting in an annual product value of 436 million dollars for 1958. The descending value of the gross product after 1955 is due largely to a reduction of consumer goods sales (TV, radio, etc.) and also a significant reduction in defence electronic equipment. Nearly half of the industry's sales are in the consumer field and consequently these are sensitive to trading fluctuations in general; present indications show a satisfactory levelling off following the mild recession of 1958.
Defence and communications equipment volume reached some 130 million dollars for 1957 and have held around this value into 1958. In a way complementing the manufacturing facilities in Canada, imports of electronic equipment and components from the United States represent an important part of the industry's turnover and reached a value of 37 million dollars in 1958. In spite of this large sum Canadian companies manufacture practically all of the different component types required by the equipment manufacturers, and the number of resistors, condensers, vacuum-tubes, semiconductor devices, etc., produced annually in Canada run into tens of millions.
Turning to matters of research and development, most contributions to the electronics art arising in Canada have some link with the geography or conditions peculiar to the country. Dr. A. P. Forsyth of the Defence Research Board working in close liaison with engineers from Ferranti-Packard devised a means of transmitting V.H.F. radio waves by reflecting them off ionized meteor trails. The project, known by the code name JANET received world-wide interest and is presently in service. Canadian Westinghouse, a major company in the industry, had developed a 5,000 M/c tropospheric scatter system with a capacity up to 120 voice channels. This radical communications system has been widely purchased both in Europe and the United States.
On 1 July 1958, Canada became linked from coast to coast by a communications system known as the Trans-Canada Radio Relay System. The 50-million dollar network was built by seven of the eight major companies which form the country's national telephone system. Carrying large quantities of high-grade telephone circuits and network television from Sydney, Nova Scotia, to Victoria, British Columbia, the link comprising 139 repeaters operating at 4,000 Mc/s spans 3,800 miles, by far the largest of its kind in the world. Thirty-five more relay stations including a group linking Newfoundland over difficult terrain at the Cabot Straight, connect various population centres to the main network by means of spur lines.
A number of electronic companies have produced new equipment that has met with good success on the world markets, a few examples being given: Canadian Marconi Company has developed a doppler radar navigator for commercial aircraft and this is presently being evaluated for use in passenger jets. Computing Devices of Canada Limited, has recently sold some 250 automatic dead reckoning navigation systems to the West German Air Force for use in their F-104 Starfighters. Canadian Aviation Electronics Limited, has produced a series of flight and instrument simulators for training flight crews on civil and military aircraft. Canadian Applied Research Limited, has sold fifteen Airborne Profile Recorders to the United States Air Force for a major aerial mapping programme which they are carrying out. Canada of course is one of the leading nations in the field of aerial mapping having been preoccupied with this activity for a considerable number of years. The Photographic Survey Corporation has introduced a number of new techniques, on the most significant being the Stereomat, an instrument for the automatic drawing of contour lines from aerial photographs.
In the field of atomic energy Canada has been a leader in the construction of research type reactors and this has led to some interesting electronic control and measuring devices such as the 100 channel pulse height analyzer and the Zenon computer. Isotopes have been used extensively in various applications, one of the most recent and novel ones being a monitoring system to keep track of rolling stock on railways. In this system, designed by Electronic Associates, each vehicle is arranged to have its own code comprising a series of radioactive buttons and these are read by monitor stations at desired locations.
One of Canada's richest sources of new electronic developments is the Canadian Government National Research Council: an outline of some of the many contributions made by this agency is given in the Section on Government Facilities.
In summary, it must be reiterated that only a brief mention has been made in this paper of some of the highlights of the Canadian electronics industry. The steady stream of new developments as evidenced by the regular appearance of new electronic products and contributions to the literature shows the industry to be contributing its "fair share" to the electronics art viewed in relation to its size.
In terms of astronautical applications, the industry is well suited to contribute in practically any electronic area with perhaps special ability in communications, tracking, and data handling and processing.
The Chemical Industry
Unfortunately, in the short time that was available to write this paper it was not possible to obtain a great deal of information concerning the fifty-four companies constituting the chemical industry. However, in response to a request made to Mr. D. W. Emerson, editor of Chemistry in Canada, the publication of the Chemical Institute of Canada, asking for comments regarding the industry's potential in relation to astronautics, he replied as follows:
“Indications are that production by the chemical and allied products industry in 1958 were about 7 per cent above the previous record value in 1957 of 1.2 billion dollars. The business recession which started to affect the industry at the end of 1957 began to ease in the second quarter of 1958. Prospects point to this gain in production rate continuing into 1959.
“The chemistry and chemical engineering of explosives makes the field of chemical rockets an interesting one for the chemical industry and government research laboratories. Canadian chemists and chemical engineers are familiar with the problems involved, and industry either has most of the manufacturing facilities or could install them if necessary.
“Material involved would include the so-called conventional fuels such as the hydrocarbons; chemicals for making liquid propellant systems such as hydrogen, lithium, hydrazine, ammonia, fuming nitric acid, hydrogen peroxide, ethylene oxide, fluorine; chemicals for solid propellants such as nitro-cellulose, nitroglycerine, potassium perchlorate, and binders such as rubber, vinyl plastisols, polyurethane elastomers, polysulphides, polyesters, epoxy resins, etc. Nuclear propulsion too is a possibility for the long-term future.
“In all these systems, chemists and chemical engineers will be required also to solve problems in heat transfer, corrosion and heat resistance, and develop light-weight pressure vessels to name but a few items. In these many fields Canadian chemists and engineers can make a worthwhile contribution.”
Government Facilities
Canada is unique in having four rather than the usual three services within its Department of National Defence. The fourth service is called the Defence Research Board, and was an outgrowth of the National Research Council which now carries out research mainly in non military fields. D.R.B. was formed in 1947 to conduct research and preliminary development in scientific fields related to the military, and to act in a scientific advisory capacity to the three services.
Since its inception D.R.B. has grown until it now numbers nearly 700 scientists working in 26 major fields in 11 D.R.B. establishments strung across Canada from coast-to-coast, with a total D.R.B. staff of nearly 3000 persons. The scientific fields of endeavour include operational research, medicine and most of its ramifications, chemistry and chemical warfare, naval research, northern research, electronics, telecommunications and armament.
The largest of the D.R.B. establishments is the Canadian Armament Research & Development Establishment located at Valcartier Army camp near Quebec City. CARDE is responsible for most governmental armament development in Canada, and has exceptionally well equipped facilities in the fields of warhead development, rockets and solid rocket fuels, instrumentation, telemetry, aeroballistics, infrared research and missile guidance. CARDE employs about 150 scientists and has a total staff of about 800 persons together with nearly 10 attached military service personnel.
Although the work at CARDE spans many fields intimately related to astronautics, perhaps the most significant is the work in aerophysics currently under the direction of Dr. G.V. Bull. This group now has several sizes of light gas guns in various stages of completion which are capable of accelerating small “payloads” at speeds comparable to a re-entering ICBM or satellite in near-vacuum conditions. This facility will be invaluable in solving many of the outstanding problems associated with re-entry bodies, recoverable satellites and space vehicles.
A second significant DRB establishment as far as astronautics is concerned, is the Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment located in Ottawa. Canada has very particular reasons to be intensely interested in communications research which is partly military and partly civilian in nature. Canada covers nearly four million square miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, and from the North Pole to the U.S. border. Yet within this vast expanse, the Canadian people (about 17.5 million in number) are huddled together along Canada's southern border. For these reasons, communications are of primary importance, and radio is the most feasible for such an expanse.
With such an essential requirement for telecommunication, Canada is faced with two difficult phenomena which produce adverse effects. The North Magnetic Pole lies wholly within Canadian territory, and the Aurora Borealis seriously affects communication throughout most of the Dominion.
As a consequence, D.R.T.E. directs a large part of its efforts into research on auroral phenomena and studies of the ionosphere. D.R.T.E. pioneered in the development of meteoric communications, known as JANET (mentioned earlier), which makes possible economic and relatively secure communications in the 30-50 megacycle band up to a range of about 1,000 miles.
D.R.T.E. also played a very important role in the development of the electronic early warning line used to detect, any penetration of Canadian territory by hostile aircraft. This valuable contribution to the art of detection and tracking was carried out on a co-operative effort between D.R.B., N.R.C., McGill University at Montreal, and the R.C.A. Victor Company.
D.R.T.E. has developed a 20- and a 28-ft radio telescope for use at 500 megacycles. These are used to study ionospheric disturbances and their relation to solar activity. In addition, there are several smaller equipments at D.R.T.E. for use in the 50-megacycle range using interferometer antennae.
The Electronics Laboratory of D.R.T.E. is equipped to carry out research on proximity fusing, radar, navigation systems and detection systems, as well as solid state-devices and miniature electronic components.
Very recently D.R.B. together with the U.S.A.F. have installed an 84-ft diameter radar installation at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. It has an estimated range of 4,000 miles for observing satellites and other vehicles, and is based on the design of the Millstone Hill radar at Westford, Mass. The facility will be used for auroral studies.
A third D.R.B. establishment of importance to astronautics is the Defence Research Medical Laboratories located at Downsview, Ontario. This establishment conducts research in the fields of aerospace medicine and has facilities which include nutritional and bacteriological laboratories; hot rooms, decompression chamber, cold chamber, an accelerator, a sonics laboratory, a motion sickness swing as well a centrifuge.
The D.R.B. also maintains an establishment at Fort Churchill Manitoba known as the Defence Research Northern Laboratories. This facility has been used as a far north laboratory for cold-weather trials and arctic research. However, recently it has gained a new significance of greater importance to astronautics. A rocket-launching base has been constructed for firing high-altitude test vehicles used to study the ionosphere, cosmic radiation and the aurora. This was used extensively during the International Geophysical Year and D.R.B. has recently fired a series of Nike-Cajun rockets at Churchill as the D.R.E upper atmosphere studies continue.
The seven other D.R.B. establishments deal mainly with naval biological chemical atomic and operations research.
The National Research Council located in Ottawa is a second governmental agency and devotes its efforts mainly to non-military research. It was formed in 1916 and has now grown to employ 613 scientific research personnel, 900 technical personnel and a total staff of 2,380 persons. The NRC has a current annual budget, of about 30 million dollars.
The NRC provides more than four million dollars to support pure research in the universities across Canada. It currently operates eleven divisions covering a large number of scientific fields including laboratories in the fields of applied biology, applied chemistry, pure chemistry, aeronautics, applied physics, and pure physics; and engineering establishments covering building research, mechanical engineering and radio and electrical engineering as well as two regional laboratories, one in Halifax and the other in Saskatoon. The following paragraphs outline only five of the NRC divisions whose activities have application to astronautics.
The Mechanical Engineering Division, which operates on a current annual budget of about 2.3 million dollars maintains laboratories in the field of hydraulics, ship design, gas dynamics, engines, low temperature fuels and lubricants, structures and instruments. This division has a staff of 345 persons including 60 scientific research personnel.
The National Aeronautical Establishment, now a separate division of NRC operating on a current annual budget of 0.9 million dollars has a staff of 45 scientists and a total of 147 persons. Within the facility are a 6 ft by 10 ft low-speed wind tunnel and a 16 inch by 30 inch high speed wind tunnel which are used to test models for Canadian industry. In addition N.A.E. is constructing a 5 ft supersonic blowdown wind tunnel which will soon be available for research and industrial use.
The Applied Physics Division of N.R.C. employs 64 scientists and has a total staff of 142 persons with a current budget of 1.3 million dollars. This division maintains facilities and carries out research in the fields of acoustics, electricity and mechanics, heat and solid-state physics, interferometry, photometry and optical instruments, X-rays and nuclear radiation, photogrammetry as well as special problems in kinetic friction and thermodynamics.
The Pure Physics Division of N.R.C. employs 56 scientists, with a total staff of 109 persons and has a current annual budget of 1.3 million dollars. Under the direction of Dr. G. Herzberg, this division carries out research and maintains facilities in the fields of cosmic rays, low temperature and solid-state physics, spectroscopy, theoretical physics and X-ray diffraction.
The Radio and Electrical Engineering Division, with an annual budget of 2.6 million dollars, employs 104 scientists and a total staff of 348 persons. A large part of the work of this division is in defence projects; however, the work is divided into sections which include radar, development, upper atmosphere research, instruments and engineering design, microwaves and electrical engineering. This division has designed and constructed four complete auroral radar units and nine all-sky cameras for use in upper atmosphere research and in co-operation with the Dominion Observatory. Daily observations of radio emissions from the sun at 10.7 cm have continued for ten years at the Radio Astronomy Laboratory operated by this division, and are published in the Quarterly Bulletin of Solar Activity, copies of which are distributed to scientists throughout the world.
Much of the work done in the N.R.C. laboratories is of a type that would be too expensive to be undertaken by any one industry. A good example of this is the development of Atomic Energy of Canada, Limited, which, for the first ten years of its existence was sponsored by the N.R.C. but which is now a Crown Company.
Another Crown Company that is a significant government facility is Canadian Arsenals, Limited. This organization maintains production facilities in a wide variety of fields associated with ammunition, guns and small arms, chemicals and explosives, instruments and electronics and engineering design services.
The Dominion Observatories Branch of the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys carries out work in the fields of seismology, positional astronomy, stellar physics, geophysics, geomagnetics and gravitation.
In June, 1959, an Associate Committee on Space Research was formed by the N.R.C. jointly with the D.R.B. This group will have co-ordination duties and will advise on international co-operation. Scientific subjects to be studied include geomagnetism, the aurora, meteorological, cosmic rays, radiation from the sun and the chemical composition of the upper atmosphere. The committee is chaired by Dr. D. C. Rose of NRC.
Quite recently the N.A.S.A. accepted proposals by the D.R.B. for joint rocket vehicle and satellite experiments. U.S. rockets and satellites will be instrumented by scientists from D.R.T.E. The satellite is to be launched sometime after 1960 at Vandenberg Air Force Base California, and will permit probing by radio pulses of the ionosphere upper side. The vehicle will pursue a polar orbit, and will direct the pulse downward. This will be reflected back to the satellite and the information will be telemetered to ground stations.
In addition to this satellite, D.R.T.E. will develop instrumentation for two high-altitude research rockets to be launched by N.A.S.A. this year. The experiments will be designed to study the electron densities in the ionosphere.
The Universities
The vital part played by the universities of those countries supporting missile and astronautical developments is well known, especially in the case of the United States where one may easily perceive that the contributions are of major importance to the various technical programmes. Besides the fundamental research work traditionally carried out at the universities they have also been responsible for vital technical breakthroughs, and the extraordinary refinement of inertial navigation techniques under the direction of Dr. C. S. Draper of M.I.T. may be quoted by way of example. Many other well-known universities including the famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology, have combined forces with other agencies, including industry to become partners in actual missile and space research programmes. The general inference that may be drawn is that a vigorous and well equipped university complex is a vitally necessary part of any national astronautical programme. Two reasons for this are immediately apparent: in the short term, the university research staff and facilities can be applied directly to the space research programme itself, and in the long term, the universities must produce graduates able to contribute to such programmes in the future. A brief survey of Canada's extensive university capacity shows her to be fully capable of meeting both of these requirements; indeed, to a large extent, these are being fulfilled at the present time. Let us consider for a moment a few statistics and then take a quick glance at a few examples of the Canadian university facilities.
There are in Canada more than 300 institutions offering facilities for study leading toward a university degree. Most of them, however, are colleges or schools affiliated to the 36 universities which have and exercise the right to grant degrees, not counting those which award degrees exclusively in theology. The universities are staffed by some 7,000 professors and the 1958 figure for the number of full-time students enrolled exceeded 102,000. Over the last few years, 100 million dollars have been spent on university extensions and by 1963 the figure will be in the region of half a billion. Financial support is provided by provincial and federal agencies, the latter setting up two 50-million dollar funds for university expansion quite recently. Industry also contributes to the universities at a level of around 100 million dollars annually.
A growing number of Commonwealth students come to Canada to study for their degree, over 6,000 being enrolled in 1958 including some 400 from the United Kingdom. Approximately the same numbers of Canadian students were enrolled in British universities, this "exchange" being a desirable situation conducive to furthering Commonwealth co-operation.
Complete degree courses are offered by 16 universities in the fields of applied science and engineering, and in 1958 a total of some 12,000 students were registered for these courses. In the same year, the various graduate schools awarded nearly 700 masters' degrees and doctorates in the fields of pure and applied science.
Turning to facilities, many of the universities (e.g. those particularly active in the applied sciences) are equipping themselves with extensive electronic computer facilities both of the digital and analogue type. The University of Toronto, for example, plans to install in its Physics Department, by the end of 1960, computer equipment to a value of over 1.2 million dollars. Equipments such as mass spectrometers, electron microscopes, ultra-violet spectrometers, and similar elaborate research tools are finding their way into university laboratories in ever-increasing numbers. Major research items are also well represented in the universities, Toronto having a nuclear reactor, a cyclotron at McGill, a Cockcroft-Walton particle accelerator at the University of Montreal, a synchrotron at Saskatchewan, a betatron at Queens University, and a Van der Graaf generator at the University of British Columbia.
In addition, several universities maintain elaborately equipped specialized research departments in fields such as astronomy, radio astronomy, gas dynamics, etc.
One particularly valuable facility in relation to advanced space research techniques is the Institute of Astrophysics of the University of Toronto and under the direction of Professor G. N. Patterson. This institute includes two laboratories: one equipped with shock tubes, plasma generators and related apparatus for work in the field of magneto hydrodynamics; the other, a hypersonic research laboratory with a 16-in. tunnel working in conjunction with a 40-ft diameter vacuum sphere, and much other apparatus. Research carried out includes studies in boundary layers and heat transfer in supersonic flows, interferometric investigations of shock-wave diffraction and various other hypersonic studies.
A second specialized university research centre whose activities are also directly applicable to astronautics is the Institute of Upper Atmospheric Research of the University of Saskatchewan. The institute responsible for many new techniques has made major contributions to the field of auroral physics.
In summary, Canada's vigorous university pattern, with enrollment now up 40 per cent on 1955 and doubled by 1964, the many modern and well-equipped buildings, and significant increase in teaching staff, research activities show Canada to be well placed in those fields of advanced pure and applied science upon which space research programmes must be drawn.
Conclusion
Before concluding, mention should be made of an aspect of what one might call Canada's geographical facilities. It has been found that the intensity of the recently discovered Van Allen radiation belts decreases considerably in the region of the Earth's magnetic poles and for this reason it may be inferred that a launching site for manned space journeys located in Canada's remote northlands might prove to be very advantageous. As a corollary to this, the vast territories in the north of the country, far away from population centres would seem to favour the location of a large launching complex from a safety point of view. A near-polar site could be of great importance to astronautics and the matter seems worth careful examination.
In this paper we have glanced at some of the country's diverse facilities and have seen ample evidence of a strong capability in the sciences and fields of advanced technology. The authors have interpreted all this as a latent capability in astronautics upon the premise that the latter is in essence a particular orientation of the former. However the orientation of even a small part of a country's technological power towards space research involves the expenditure of what one might expect to be considerable sums of money, and while other national requirements happen to be of relatively much greater importance, technologically advanced countries, such as Canada, must of necessity refrain from entering elaborate space programmes on their own. On the other hand, a partnership with other countries offers new possibilities which must be explored and brings in its wake the very desirable factor of international co-operation in space research. Since the British Commonwealth already exists as a freely co-operating group of countries with common interests and traditions, one might suppose that a reasonable measure of success should attend a Commonwealth space research venture. If it could be shown that this would not be the case then the outlook is indeed bleak for the completely international co-operation in space research so keenly sought by the I.A.F. and the C.O.S.P.A.R. agency of the United Nations. It seems to be imperative that the nations of the world come to a common agreement on the conquest of space, and surely the Commonwealth has a part to play in bringing this about.
Acknowledgments
Circumstances dictated that only a short time was available to the authors for the preparation of this paper and they wish to thank sincerely the various agencies and individuals who supplied very helpful information at short notice. Agencies include N.R.C., (of D.R.B.), The Canadian Universities Foundation (especially Dr. E. F. Sheffield of this organization). Valuable help was also provided by Mr. D. W. Emerson of the Chemical Institute of Canada, Mr. H. Price, editor of Canadian Electronics Engineering, and Mr. E. H. Emphill, editor of Canadian Aviation, both of the Maclean-Hunter Publishing Company.
