Education
University of Toronto.
University of Toronto.
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Etkin was a graduate of the University of Toronto and was Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the university in the 1970s. Most recently, he was a Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. As an expert in aeronautics and astronautics, he contributed to the design and production of two glider aircraft, including the de Havilland Sparrow, and a number of Avro Canada aircraft, including the Avro Arrow.
During the emergency, United States. contractor Grumman Aerospace Corporation, which built the lunar module for National Aeronautics and Space Administration, asked the University of Toronto for help specifically in how to jettison the lunar module just prior to re-entry.
A team of six engineers at the university was formed - led by Etkin as the senior scientist - to solve the problem in one day using nothing more than slide rules and collective expertize. (Besides Etkin, the team also consisted of Rod Tennyson, Barry French, Philip Sullivan, Peter Hughes, a specialist in orbital mechanics, and another senior scientist, Irvine Glass, a specialist in shock waves) Given that a small tunnel connected the lunar module to the command module, the team concluded that if they closed the tunnel hatch and pressurized the tunnel, the astronauts could explosively separate the lunar module and blow it away from the command module just prior to re-entry.
The scientists had 6 hours to compute the pressure required using slide-rules. They needed a precise calculation as too high a pressure might damage the hatch and its seal causing the astronauts to burn up.
Too low, and the lunar module would not separate from the command module.
The resulting calculation was relayed by Grumman to National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and from there to the astronauts who implemented the solution. In 2010, forty years after the flight, the U of T scientific team was publicly honoured with medals presented to surviving members by the Canadian Air and Space Museum for their role in the incident.