Mr. Speaker on April 13, 1970, an explosion on Apollo 13 halted its moon landing mission, placing the lives of its astronauts in danger and forcing astronaut Jack Swigert to send one of the most famous messages in space history, his actual words being slightly different from the movie version, “Houston, we've had a problem here”.
What most people do not know is that a team of engineers from the University of Toronto's Institute for Aerospace Studies had a solution in helping Apollo 13 get back to earth, determining the precise pressure necessary to provide an explosive charge that would spring the spacecraft into its re-entry.
The institute in my riding has also assisted in the design of Canadarm2.
Recently the institute and the members of its engineering team, Dr. Ben Etkin, Dr. Barry French, Dr. Phil Sullivan, the late Dr. Irvine Glass, Professor Peter Hughes and Dr. Rod Tennyson were awarded the Canadian Air and Space Museum's Pioneer Award for its involvement in the Apollo 13 return. Congratulations to all of them.