The Truman's satellite.

[lounge60]

What if Harry Truman in late 1948 had ordered to the Army (and to Von Braun and his equipe at Fort Bliss) of put in orbit a satellite by 1954?
would be technically possible?

[BlackWave]

I severely doubt it. They could try, but I'm not sure what the impetus would be, nor of the degree of success.

[Bearcat]

Technically, yes, it could be done. But why would Truman do this? What value would Truman see in a satellite? Unless you lock him in an elevator with Arthur C. Clarke, I can't see it happening.

[alt_historian]

The impression I get is that the Army were playing around with rockets for a long time, until the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 and the race was on...

Yes, it could have been done a lot earlier - but as the others have said, there'd need to be a good reason.

I like the idea of him being locked in a lift with Clarke

Maybe if someone like Robert Goddard was more popular / respected?

[discovery1]

Originally Posted by alt_historian

Maybe if someone like Robert Goddard was more popular / respected?

That could be done with the right person at the New York Times having an elementary grasp of newtons laws. Actually I think there is a timeline around here that has such a premise, can't remember the name though.

[Michel Van]

is Possible

Von Braun had redesgin the V-2 in to Redstone rocket
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/redstone.htm

it had launch a satellite like "Explorer One" already in 1954/55
(Redstone and cluster of Sergeant rockets as upper stage)

next to that was the U.S. NAVY Project HATV, but it was cancelled in 1948
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/hatv.htm

and Convair orginal 5 engine version of Atlas ICBM in 1947
but cutback in USAF budget alost cancelled the Program
and only 1953 they USAF restart the Atlas Program
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/atlas.htm

with out the cutback or cancell
there were in 1954 HATV or Atlas ready to test launch a satellite

[Snowman23]

Originally Posted by discovery1

That could be done with the right person at the New York Times having an elementary grasp of newtons laws. Actually I think there is a timeline around here that has such a premise, can't remember the name though.

Catboy's Three Seconds Late

[Cook]

Replace Von Braun the head of rocket research in America with Eugen Sanger.
The Satellite is launched using a Rocket sled for initial boost past Mach 1, then a reusable winged second stage to half orbital velocity and 200km altitude. Second stage is a small solid booster to deploy a small radio beacon.
The launch site is above 6000 feet and has a 4 mile track for the rocket sled with an additional 1 mile of track for braking the sled after the booster has launched.
All further space activity follows on with improvements to this initial concept and avoids the dead end of single shot rockets.
There is no massive single government department called NASA, new launchers and space hardware is purchased by the Government and businesses AFTER their development by airospace companies and they have demonstrated their usefulness against operating cost.
America deploys it's first semi permanent space station in low Earth orbit by 1960 and reaches the Moon by 1965 at less than a third the cost of Apollo.
The luna transfer vehicle is launched from a space station in low Earth Orbit, there no massive Saturn V throw away type vehicle is ever built.
The computing demands of space navigation generate a revolution in computers with the first personal computers reaching the market in time for Christmas 1969.
The Movie Alien directed by Ridley Scott wins the award for best special Effects in 1979.

[truth is life]

Originally Posted by Cook

Replace Von Braun the head of rocket research in America with Eugen Sanger.
The Satellite is launched using a Rocket sled for initial boost past Mach 1, then a reusable winged second stage to half orbital velocity and 200km altitude. Second stage is a small solid booster to deploy a small radio beacon.
The launch site is above 6000 feet and has a 4 mile track for the rocket sled with an additional 1 mile of track for braking the sled after the booster has launched.
All further space activity follows on with improvements to this initial concept and avoids the dead end of single shot rockets.
There is no massive single government department called NASA, new launchers and space hardware is purchased by the Government and businesses AFTER their development by airospace companies and they have demonstrated their usefulness against operating cost.
America deploys it's first semi permanent space station in low Earth orbit by 1960 and reaches the Moon by 1965 at less than a third the cost of Apollo.
The luna transfer vehicle is launched from a space station in low Earth Orbit, there no massive Saturn V throw away type vehicle is ever built.
The computing demands of space navigation generate a revolution in computers with the first personal computers reaching the market in time for Christmas 1969.
The Movie Alien directed by Ridley Scott wins the award for best special Effects in 1979.

This isn't going to work.

First, single-shot rockets have the major advantage that they are cheaper and easier to develop, and more obviously useful for a military role (especially after the use of the V2 and the development of light nuclear weapons) than any number of rocket sleds or antipode bombers (which wouldn't have worked, BTW; the heating was too intense). High-speed "aircraft" like Thande's aptly-named "Never-go" Navaho were developed after the war, even before the development of ballistic missiles, for precisely the reason that they used a more familiar metaphor and seemed to be technically easier. They all failed, as it was just too hard to build a long range cruise missile at the time, especially if it was to be supersonic as well.

Second, your idea of avoiding NASA is enormously flawed. IOTL, companies did compete to win contracts for NASA launchers, built them, and sold them to the organization. They were NOT going to do that with their own money then demonstrate them to government buyers, partly because developing and building space launchers is silly expensive, particularly early on when, you know, no one knows how to build them, and partly because the market for space launchers is first going to consist only of the government, which is certainly too small to support any companies only building space launchers (leading us right back to giant aerospace conglomerates I assume you want to avoid), and is probably not lucrative enough to attract the attention of those giant aerospace companies, either (without up-front contracts and funding, at least). Besides all that, the idea is ludicrously radical and out of place for the early '50s to '60s; remember, Truman proposed universal health care, and Johnson actually did it (for seniors, sort of). I doubt even Goldwater or Nixon would have done it.

Finally, Von Braun really did want a giant space station and a multi-launch plan; LOR was cooked up by some guys at Langley to cut costs and speed the TL for landing. Having someone else be the chief engineer or the other changes you've proposed (which I have shown above are unlikely) will not alter the fundamental cost/time pressures on Apollo-type programs significantly, rendering your ideas...unlikely.

IOTL, the computing demands of Apollo were themselves quite a bit, but the real driver of computing tech was probably the military, especially the development of miniaturized transistorized computers for Minuteman ballistic missiles. So, more space development (which I really don't think is going to happen, as above) will probably not drive the computing revolution any faster. Besides, it was already going pretty fast with (I believe) exponential growth. It was growing from nothing 20 years earlier. You have to give it a little time.

[Cook]

Verticle launch rockets use 40% or their fuel to reach Mach 1 and 10 000 feet.
If you launch your vehicle already doing Mach 1 and at altitude and suddenly Single Stage to Orbit becomes realistic.

I didn't propose anything that wasn't being discussed at the time.

Look at Eugen Sanger's work as well as the X-20 Dinsa-Soar and you'll see what I mean.

As for NASA being more of a problem then a solution, I suggest you look at Jerry Pournelle's website; http://www.jerrypournelle.com/

In the Book 2001 A Space Odessey, Arthur C. Clarke has Space Plane taking off in exactly this method.

[discovery1]

Originally Posted by Cook

Verticle launch rockets use 40% or their fuel to reach Mach 1 and 10 000 feet.
If you launch your vehicle already doing Mach 1 and at altitude and suddenly Single Stage to Orbit becomes realistic.

I didn't propose anything that wasn't being discussed at the time.

Look at Eugen Sanger's work as well as the X-20 Dinsa-Soar and you'll see what I mean.

As for NASA being more of a problem then a solution, I suggest you look at Jerry Pournelle's website; http://www.jerrypournelle.com/

In the Book 2001 A Space Odessey, Arthur C. Clarke has Space Plane taking off in exactly this method.

Sanger's work was complete fantasy. The materials he wanted to use, nickel alloys for instance, would have been too heavy to be practical.

His technical report from 44:
http://www.astronautix.com/data/saenger.pdf



The X-20 was to be launched on a titan, like the gemini capsule.

2001 is really more tale of what could be with enough sweat, blood, tears, and cash.



Woah, launch from 6000 feet? Where would this be? Colorado? Where you get to fly a ship filled with volatile chemicals over the continental united states?

Also does this make up for the need to launch from a higher attitude? And the fact that air at 6000 feet is pretty close to the same pressure and density so you are still going to have tons of drag losses.

Wings? Wings add a lot of dead mass, and this being the 50s I'd guess you'd either have to have a crew on board to fly the thing, or have some very very heavy guidance equipment. In either case, you make the system heavier and more complicated then it needs to be.

Three stage to orbit? Sure it can save on the mass a little bit, but it adds alot to the technical complexity. Course launching from this space plane changes things a bit, or makes them alot harder. Super sonic deployment, for instance.

Also if you're interested in the history of reusable SSTO's, and why they have always fallen flat on their face, I'd suggest Facing the Heat Barrier: A history of Hypersonics

http://history.nasa.gov/sp4232-part1.pdf
http://history.nasa.gov/sp4232-part2.pdf
http://history.nasa.gov/sp4232-part3.pdf

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Originally Posted by Cook

Verticle launch rockets use 40% or their fuel to reach Mach 1 and 10 000 feet.
If you launch your vehicle already doing Mach 1 and at altitude and suddenly Single Stage to Orbit becomes realistic.

I didn't propose anything that wasn't being discussed at the time.

Look at Eugen Sanger's work as well as the X-20 Dinsa-Soar and you'll see what I mean.

As for NASA being more of a problem then a solution, I suggest you look at Jerry Pournelle's website; http://www.jerrypournelle.com/

In the Book 2001 A Space Odessey, Arthur C. Clarke has Space Plane taking off in exactly this method.

In addition to what Truthislife and Discovery1 said:
If you launch rocket from a sled going ~Mach 1 you have some really nasty other problems to deal with.
1) a sled carrying 10s of tonnes rocket. Travelling at ~Mach1. That's going to be VERY expensive, hard to engineer,and take how long to develop?

2) once the sled releases the rocket, the rocket is now traveling HORIZONTALLY through the lower atmosphere. You know, the dense part you want to go UP through as fast as possible. There's a reason that modern launchers go almost straight up for a while and then angle sideways. Launching sideways and then angling up might very well lose you all you gained by going Mach 1 at release.

3) So. You have this nifty (multi-?) billion dollar mach 1 track and sled to launch rockets. INTO A SINGLE ORBIT! It's probably going to be straight east, for interplanetary, and geosynchronous orbits, but most military sats, for instance, are in difference orbits - sun-synchronous polar for many spy sats, and various other inclined orbits for other satellites.

4) you've also got the issue of extra weight and bracing in the launch vehicle for taking horizontal loads, not just vertical. Although that's probably not nearly as much of a problem.

If you really want something like this, try air-launching from a large cargo plane. Then, instead of ~Mach 1 at 6000' in a single direction, you can do ~Mach 1 at 40,000', in any direction. And at 40,000' (or higher) the air density is enough lower to actually make a difference.

Of course, your rockets are limited by the size of the plane, but your early rockets (if not government developed) are going to be a lot smaller than today's Ariane, Proton and Deltas.

[Cook]

http://www.project1947.com/gfb/antiplofer.htm

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/hypnssto.htm

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/hypnssto.htm

http://www.g2mil.com/skyramp.htm

So what if Sanger's proposed materials were too heavy?
That's why you do research and development.
Launching from above 6000ft isn't all that difficult. There are a large number of mountains above that with ocean down range.
The point being that in OTL the space program is an offshoot of ICBM development.
We are meant to be looking at how Truman could get a satellite into orbit during his Presidency.
And while we are about it let's skip 40 years of dead end development of disposable rockets and put the modern space race (spaceship 1 etc) into the 1950's.
We are after the path not taken aren't we?