Karl Doetsch Full Interview

Aeronautical engineer Dr. Karl Doetsch did an apprenticeship with English Electric, an aeronautic company in the UK, before starting his university studies at Imperial College in London. Within months of starting there he worked on the development of the TSR2 aircraft, which was similar to the Avro Arrow, particularly wind tunnel testing to assess its behaviour at low speeds. He completed his PhD on supersonic aerodynamics, but the British government lost interest in the field so he joined the flight research laboratory at the National Research Council of Canada, specializing in control systems and automated control. He was responsible for the software and simulation aspects in the development of the Canadarm – which was developed between 1975 and 1981 in collaboration with Spar Aerospace, NASA, Rockwell International, and various subcontractors. He describes use of the Canadarm to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, and removing a stalactite of waste from the outside of the shuttle. He describes Canada's contribution to the International Space Station program, and the initiation of the Canadian astronaut program, where they whittled down the list of 4500 applicants to 2000, then 75, then 20, and then the final six. Part of the learning experience included addressing the physiological things that happen to people in space. The Space Station project was quite demanding politically as well as technically.