DBWI: What if the DynaSoar had been cancelled?

[Mysterion]

In late 1963, Secreatary of Defense MacNamara apparantly strongly considered scrapping the DynaSoar Program (then known as the X-20). What effect would this cancellation have had on the space program, or space exploration in general?

[Jello_Biafra]

Well, both the Air Force and NASA learned a whole lot from DynaSoar, particularly the larger DS-III. That experience played directly into the Space Transport System's design.

Centrally, they learned that reusable space-plane orbiters wouldn't significantly reduce launch prices, especially for heavy payloads. It was good for people, bad for cargo. With that in mind, they designed the STS to have a modular booster, able to either piggyback a disposable cargopod for heavy lifts or a shuttle for sat captures and personnel transit. (OOC: Like OTL's Energia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia)).

In particular, they learned that it wouldn't cut it to have disposable boosters and reusable orbiters. Which is why the later blocks of the STS boosters were capable of flyback.

[Lord Grattan]

When I first saw the title I read it as "WI the Dinah Shore Show had been cancelled". I have some fond memories of watching that show as a child on Sunday nights right after Bonanza with my parents and baby brother. I also remember running around singing the theme song, "See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet" ad nauzeaum. The quintessential variety show; thankfully it stayed on the air through the early 70s.

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Considering how the USAF Dyna-Soar program became a source of protest during the Vietnam War for the sub-orbital bombing raids, Florida would have certainly seen fewer of the student riots at Cape Canaveral and Fort Lauderdale during the 1960s and 1970s....

[Jello_Biafra]

Considering how the USAF Dyna-Soar program became a source of protest during the Vietnam War for the sub-orbital bombing raids, Florida would have certainly seen fewer of the student riots at Cape Canaveral and Fort Lauderdale during the 1960s and 1970s....
Those were really just propaganda exercises and saber rattling against the Soviets. Using the Dyna-Soar to deliver sub-orbital conventional munitions was a ridiculous waste of resources. It was a signal to the Soviets that we weren't going to take the Outer Space weapons treaty seriously

[freivolk]

Without the resources devoted to Dyna-Sonar, could there be a earlier landin on the Moon? Say more like 1968 instead of 1970? And if the Americans land so early on the Moon, will the Soviets cancel their Moon-project earlier, I mean before the Sojuz-Lunar-disaster?

[Polish Eagle]

Those were really just propaganda exercises and saber rattling against the Soviets. Using the Dyna-Soar to deliver sub-orbital conventional munitions was a ridiculous waste of resources. It was a signal to the Soviets that we weren't going to take the Outer Space weapons treaty seriously

Precisely. Why use an orbital booster to put a spaceplane up and risk a man's life to deliver a warhead, when you can use that same booster to deliver five warheads without risking a pilot?!

As for whether Project Apollo would succeed by 1968 rather than 1970, I don't think so. While NASA benefited from Dyna-Soar, the USAF funded most of it. At most, some more talented engineers might stay with the S-IC Program at Boeing (the Saturn first stage) rather than move to DynaSoar. But the S-IC was never a source of problems for the program; rather, the CSM was, from the start, a bloody lemon.

[Commissar]

Precisely. Why use an orbital booster to put a spaceplane up and risk a man's life to deliver a warhead, when you can use that same booster to deliver five warheads without risking a pilot?!

"Raises eyebrows"

The Dyno can maneuver. The MRV can't as it is on a tight Ballistic trajectory which allows ABM defenses to to plot its course and hit the bus before it deploys its warheads and destroy them all in one shot.

[neopeius]

I don't see how anyone can be questioning the merit of the Dynosaur after the Pegasus incident of 1970. It is not remarkable that Moryak IX was followed by an S-21 Cerberus; it was standing American policy to shadow Soviet flights, especially in the wake of the Soviet lunar landing in October 1969. What was remarkable is that Cosmonaut Pisarov, mission commander on the Soviet ship, would broadcast his distress in the clear when his capsule lost cabin pressure. What was absolutely fortuitous was that Artemis XII was set to launch that week, and an S-23 Pegasus was ready and standing by to rescue the Artemis crew in the event of an abort.

The value of the detente following Col. Armstrong's much-ballyhooed rescue of the two Soviet spacemen can hardly be overstated. It is hard to imagine that the joint Soviet (now Russian)/American lunar base would have been possible without it.

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Those were really just propaganda exercises and saber rattling against the Soviets. Using the Dyna-Soar to deliver sub-orbital conventional munitions was a ridiculous waste of resources. It was a signal to the Soviets that we weren't going to take the Outer Space weapons treaty seriously But the effect on the political landscape can't be understated. Just consider how the presidential elections have been altered with Florida being considered a "safe Democratic" state since 1972. With the 1980s you had the "sanctuary cities" established in Miami, Pensacola, and Fort Lauderdale.

[Puget Sound]

But the effect on the political landscape can't be understated. Just consider how the presidential elections have been altered with Florida being considered a "safe Democratic" state since 1972. With the 1980s you had the "sanctuary cities" established in Miami, Pensacola, and Fort Lauderdale.

Florida is only a safe Democratic state because of the state's huge population of old people and a certain wing of the Republican Part that keeps threatening to mess with Social Security. And the sanctuary cities were established because of pressure from the large Cuban and Latino population to keep immigrations from Latin America safe. Take those two issues out, and Florida is a socially conservative state, even with all the new liberals moving in in South Florida.

"Raises eyebrows"

The Dyno can maneuver. The MRV can't as it is on a tight Ballistic trajectory which allows ABM defenses to to plot its course and hit the bus before it deploys its warheads and destroy them all in one shot.

Dynasoar can only maneuver slightly on reentry- it was based on a flying wing, for goodness' sake! If you're looking for something that can maneuver in an actual way and is fast, you could just use a hypersonic bomber with a scramjet...

[Cook]

Dynasoar can only maneuver slightly...If you're looking for something that can maneuver in an actual way and is fast, you could just use a hypersonic bomber with a scramjet...
X-20 was a simple evolutionary step on from the X-15 while a hypersonic scramjet still can’t be done. It would be like the RAF cancelling the contract for the Spitfire in 1938 because someone showed them his ideas for a Harrier Jet.

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Florida is only a safe Democratic state because of the state's huge population of old people and a certain wing of the Republican Part that keeps threatening to mess with Social Security. And the sanctuary cities were established because of pressure from the large Cuban and Latino population to keep immigrations from Latin America safe. Take those two issues out, and Florida is a socially conservative state, even with all the new liberals moving in in South Florida...

That maybe true but it has certainly made the "Republican Southern strategy" under Nixon, a lot less effective than it could have been. Just consider that almost every Democratic President since 1972 has also been able to use NASA and the USAF to receive money for pork barrel products.....

[modelcitizen]

I don't see how anyone can be questioning the merit of the Dynosaur after the Pegasus incident of 1970. It is not remarkable that Moryak IX was followed by an S-21 Cerberus; it was standing American policy to shadow Soviet flights, especially in the wake of the Soviet lunar landing in October 1969. What was remarkable is that Cosmonaut Pisarov, mission commander on the Soviet ship, would broadcast his distress in the clear when his capsule lost cabin pressure. What was absolutely fortuitous was that Artemis XII was set to launch that week, and an S-23 Pegasus was ready and standing by to rescue the Artemis crew in the event of an abort.

The value of the detente following Col. Armstrong's much-ballyhooed rescue of the two Soviet spacemen can hardly be overstated. It is hard to imagine that the joint Soviet (now Russian)/American lunar base would have been possible without it.


Nixon was a genius in how he handled that and the aftermath.

It's incredible how one vehicle could be such a profoundly dramatic force both in war and in peace.

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Nixon was a genius in how he handled that and the aftermath.

It's incredible how one vehicle could be such a profoundly dramatic force both in war and in peace. But before we congratulate Nixon on his political abilities, remember that Nixon was responsible for the deployment of the Dyna-Soar weapons over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Even to this day, most of the nations of Southeast Asia have a very strained relationship with the United States.

Also the deployment of the Dyna-Soar throughout the 1980s over Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia served to strain U.S./ Middle East served only to fuel anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiment in the region. And we have still yet to see the deployment of the solar-power satellites that were promised since the 1960s...

[Commissar]

Dynasoar can only maneuver slightly on reentry- it was based on a flying wing, for goodness' sake! If you're looking for something that can maneuver in an actual way and is fast, you could just use a hypersonic bomber with a scramjet...

Altering course in orbit, moving up and down in space, is not maneuvering?

ICBMs can't do that.

Also Flying Wings are quite maneuverable, especially at higher altitudes where lift is everything. Fighter jocks know not to piss off our flying wing bombers in exercises as they'll run them over and chase them.

[GBurch]

Actually, IIRC, the third X-20 flight demonstrated significant orbital PLANE change with skip-gliding and reboost. But the original X-20 had so little on-board Delta-V that major orbital ALTITUDE changes were beyond it.

At any rate, there seems to be little question that the decision to go ahead with the X-20 program was a major turning point in the US space program, for the reasons pointed out above: by providing a contrast to what the Saturn Ib and Saturn V and their later derivatives could do, it demonstrated that putting things into space and putting people into space require very different kinds of systems.

Without the Dyna-Soar program, we might have wasted decades and tens of billions of dollars by putting all of our eggs into one big launch basket. Once the Apollo Phase One program was finished after Apollo 16, given the pressure to reduce NASA's budget, it's possible the agency would have pushed for another Big Program for political reasons.

[MattII]

Without the Dyna-Soar program, we might have wasted decades and tens of billions of dollars by putting all of our eggs into one big launch basket. Once the Apollo Phase One program was finished after Apollo 16, given the pressure to reduce NASA's budget, it's possible the agency would have pushed for another Big Program for political reasons.Isn't that pretty much what the shuttle was, a big, expensive, complex launch basket?

[GBurch]

Isn't that pretty much what the shuttle was, a big, expensive, complex launch basket?

... I was playing the game. Now you've gone and ruined it! :p

[Prince Charon]

... I was playing the game. Now you've gone and ruined it! :p
He does that. Created a fair bit of fuss in a thread on the ASB forum.

[modelcitizen]

Isn't that pretty much what the shuttle was, a big, expensive, complex launch basket?


"DBWI" in a thread title means "Double-Blind What If," that is, you are writing as if what is depicted in the scenario is reality, and that's the perspective you would write from. (Sigh. I feel so pedantic.)

so, remember that the default perspective/point-of-view of someone posting in a thread is to adopt that of someone "inside" the scenario/timeline/"world" as it unrolls/is revealed.


this means that if you are going to say something um...


basically, if you say anything that isn't "playing in character" from the POV of being in the depicted world/timeline/scenario (gosh I feel like a freaking geek),

remember to add, "ooc" for "out of character" preceding the text in such posts.


for example,

OOC: Hey, Fred, your concept is marvelous, and, by the way, your "Maximum Leader" seems like a combination of John Corzine and Elizabeth Taylor! How droll!

IC: Naturally, we must overthrow Maximum Leader, and then feed her entrails to her Royal Turtles. Then I would be able to laugh as in old days.



I think there's a FAQ or three around the site that'll explain this much more clearly.

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Back to the TL. While it is certainly true that France, Germany and Great Britain have created their own analogues to the Dyna-Soar, we also live in a world wherein China, Russia, and possibly North Korea have the capability to launch their versions of Dyna-Soar. Any thoughts?

[Gray Antarctica]

I don't see what's so bad about the Russians having a Dyna-Soar analog- we did give them some of the old X-20 technology after the fall of the USSR and when they asked us for help with their space program.

Also, if North Korea tried something with the Chinese X-20 copy they have and one of their nukes, a Russian SSp-23 or US Nike-Titan ABM/ASaM site could take it out before it could do it's attack run. The Nike-Titan is a very good heavy SAM system with it's ability to be switched to perform anti-aircraft, anti-ballistic missile, or anti-satellite roles, with fragmentation or nuclear warheads. Mobile units can only carry one missile, but it's still got very good accuracy, and Patriots can give it cover.

I do love how they have improved the static Nike sites so much since the Nike Hercules. Missiles get to the launch deck far quicker, SPY-1 radar on site, and excellent crew quarters, for the more remote sites. Those SPY-1 radars can burn stuff real easy when pointed at the ground. My launch crew once tried our own redneck fishing with the AEGIS radar while doing some adjustments, since our site is close to a lake. Pointed it at the lake, then turned it off and headed down. There was quite a few fish on the surface. We found several dead animals in the woods too. Most of it we weren't going to eat........didn't know what they had.

[f1b0nacc1]

Of course one other thing about the DynaSoar is that is broke the monopoly on manned space flight that NASA (remember them?) had. Once DOD had its own ticket, some of the more ambitious aerospace firms started sniffing around as well. OK, their early efforts weren't too impressive, but by the late 70s and early 80s, there were real alternatives to the government for getting people into space. Without DynaSoar and its follow-ons, just exactly how would manned spaceflight have continued after Apollo wound down? After all, NASA really had no ideas other than repeating Apollo over and over again, and the Nixon administration had less than no interesting in providing any further funding for manned space flight unless the military was going to sign on.

If there had been no DynaSoar, then NASA might have been able to monopolize manned spaceflight well into the 80s or even longer. The various administrators at NASA had a well-known skill in protecting their bureaucratic turf, and the various aerospace firms would have been devastated by the post-Apollo wind-down in the early 70s. Given the empire building that NASA was famous for, we could have easily gotten pushed into some sort of ridiculous one-size-fits-all reusable system (I believe that was what was in vogue at the time, though even more idiotic concepts were being discussed), and spent decades running up a blind alley.

[Jello_Biafra]

Of course one other thing about the DynaSoar is that is broke the monopoly on manned space flight that NASA (remember them?) had. Once DOD had its own ticket, some of the more ambitious aerospace firms started sniffing around as well. OK, their early efforts weren't too impressive, but by the late 70s and early 80s, there were real alternatives to the government for getting people into space. Without DynaSoar and its follow-ons, just exactly how would manned spaceflight have continued after Apollo wound down? After all, NASA really had no ideas other than repeating Apollo over and over again, and the Nixon administration had less than no interesting in providing any further funding for manned space flight unless the military was going to sign on.

If there had been no DynaSoar, then NASA might have been able to monopolize manned spaceflight well into the 80s or even longer. The various administrators at NASA had a well-known skill in protecting their bureaucratic turf, and the various aerospace firms would have been devastated by the post-Apollo wind-down in the early 70s. Given the empire building that NASA was famous for, we could have easily gotten pushed into some sort of ridiculous one-size-fits-all reusable system (I believe that was what was in vogue at the time, though even more idiotic concepts were being discussed), and spent decades running up a blind alley.
OOC: This contradicts earlier posts. I had already established that NASA learned a lot of from the Air Force on Dyna-Soar, and it led to increased cooperation between the two, and the building of an Energia style Space Transport System

[Mr_ Bondoc]

I don't see what's so bad about the Russians having a Dyna-Soar analog- we did give them some of the old X-20 technology after the fall of the USSR and when they asked us for help with their space program.

Also, if North Korea tried something with the Chinese X-20 copy they have and one of their nukes, a Russian SSp-23 or US Nike-Titan ABM/ASaM site could take it out before it could do it's attack run. The Nike-Titan is a very good heavy SAM system with it's ability to be switched to perform anti-aircraft, anti-ballistic missile, or anti-satellite roles, with fragmentation or nuclear warheads. Mobile units can only carry one missile, but it's still got very good accuracy, and Patriots can give it cover.

I do love how they have improved the static Nike sites so much since the Nike Hercules. Missiles get to the launch deck far quicker, SPY-1 radar on site, and excellent crew quarters, for the more remote sites. Those SPY-1 radars can burn stuff real easy when pointed at the ground. My launch crew once tried our own redneck fishing with the AEGIS radar while doing some adjustments, since our site is close to a lake. Pointed it at the lake, then turned it off and headed down. There was quite a few fish on the surface. We found several dead animals in the woods too. Most of it we weren't going to eat........didn't know what they had.

But the problem is that there are quite a few copies that are entering into the hands of some dangerous people. I certainly remember in 1986-1989, there was even talk that the Libyans were trying to get their hands on a French copy of the Dyna-Soar. In 1995, there was also the case of the Aum Shirinkyo using one purchased from Russia to attack cities on the American West Coast...

The terrorists organizations are not stupid, nor do they exist in a pre-Industrial Revolution state. Many of them are educated in the United States or Western Europe. Some are even home-grown nutjobs. Imagine one of them using a Dyna-Soar to deliver a weapon into the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. or Wall Street in New York... There won't be enough time to react...

[f1b0nacc1]

OOC: This contradicts earlier posts. I had already established that NASA learned a lot of from the Air Force on Dyna-Soar, and it led to increased cooperation between the two, and the building of an Energia style Space Transport System

OOC: I wasn't aware that prior comments locked an observation as 'canon'...seems inconsistent with other comments in this thread.

In any event, just because NASA survives, doesn't mean it remains relevant in manned spaceflight as anything other than a technology consultant, and a bad one at that. One can always assume an functional NASA still happily launching planetary probes (not that they were particularly good at that, but still they are better than the competition) well into the 1990s. Dream on regarding Energia...

[GBurch]

OOC: I think there's too much emphasis on the X-20 as a weapon here. The X-20's payload was VERY small. Big enough to carry perhaps a single mid-60s nuke, yes (I haven't checked the numbers, but I'm pretty sure I'm right), but that's about all. As I've read the X-20 material that's available (I've got a book about it, but it's at the office and I'm working from home today ...), having a cross-range capable "orbital bomber" was one very long-term rationale for the program, but only one, and was viewed as a very long-term development goal. ISR was a much-much more real and present "benefit" touted for the X-20. But, really, the X-20 was seen as an R&D project to just push the envelope out from the next stage after the X-15. Anyway, that's my perception ...

[Commissar]

OOC: I think there's too much emphasis on the X-20 as a weapon here. The X-20's payload was VERY small. Big enough to carry perhaps a single mid-60s nuke, yes (I haven't checked the numbers, but I'm pretty sure I'm right), but that's about all. As I've read the X-20 material that's available (I've got a book about it, but it's at the office and I'm working from home today ...), having a cross-range capable "orbital bomber" was one very long-term rationale for the program, but only one, and was viewed as a very long-term development goal. ISR was a much-much more real and present "benefit" touted for the X-20. But, really, the X-20 was seen as an R&D project to just push the envelope out from the next stage after the X-15. Anyway, that's my perception ...

OOC: Well of course as a conventional bomber it would have been useless outside of show, but as a nuclear bomber, very useful for quickly hitting high priority targets in a multi-layered nuclear response.

A true successor...

IC: But enough with the Dynosoar, its main purpose as we all know was as a test bed for the bigger B-4 Dragon Nuclear Bomber, and the C-9 Hacker (Who came up with that nickname?!) Transport, a SSTO design capable of lifting 200 Tons into space in one go.

Hey isn't one of our members a loadmaster for one of those brutes. Maybe he can tell us where the Hacker nickname came from and his experience on flight runs.

[Cook]

IC: But enough with the Dynosoar, its main purpose as we all know was as a test bed for the bigger B-4 Dragon Nuclear Bomber, and the C-9 Hacker (Who came up with that nickname?!) Transport, a SSTO design capable of lifting 200 Tons into space in one go.

Bloody waste money the lot of them; they should have built the Seadragon instead.

[Commissar]

Bloody waste money the lot of them; they should have built the Seadragon instead.

:confused:

B-4 Dragons launch from the Sea and ground which gives them more runways to operate from.

Seadragons are the Navy's B-4 Dragons.

[Cook]

:confused:.
I mean Robert Traux’s Seadragon: Two stage, sea launched rocket that would have put 550 tonnes into orbit in a single shot.

[Commissar]

I mean Robert Traux’s Seadragon: Two stage, sea launched rocket that would have put 550 tonnes into orbit in a single shot.

Which was made obsolete by the NOVA which put the 1,200 Ton ISS into Orbit.

Nothing can beat NOVA. Unless you are Perry the Platypus and deflect Dr. Doofenshmirtz's shrinkinator beam at it. ;)