No Apollo 13 Incident

[Victor Hatherley]

What would be the ramifications for the future of spaceflight if the Apollo 13 mission had gone as planned?

[truth is life]

I suppose it's possible (though unlikely) that a similar incident might occur during later missions. Lovell, of course, finally gets his walk on the Moon. Apollo 14 will presumably land somewhere else, since the Fra Mauro formation (where it landed historically) was already reached by Apollo 13. Skylab's rescue will become the defining moment of NASA's "can-do"ism, not Apollo 13.

That's...about it, really. The broader sweep of things won't be particularly affected by the success or failure of any given mission (although it is sensitive to the overall success or failure rate). It's unlikely that this means a continuation to Apollo 18, for example, or a paring back to just one or two J-class missions. It's very very unlikely that it changes anything about the Shuttle, which was already conceptually rather advanced by 1970, and firmly enshrined as NASA's "next logical step".

[Bureaucromancer]

Agreed. The long term implications of 13 really weren't all that big.

[tiggerfan]

The only two ways you eliminate Apollo 13 incident is to either eliminate the damage to the tank (say by having a proper thermostat) or removing the tank from 13.

If you do the former, no incident at all, the latter and it could happen.

One interesting twist, have it happen on Apollo-Soyuz mission ?

[Mike Stearns]

Originally Posted by tiggerfan

The only two ways you eliminate Apollo 13 incident is to either eliminate the damage to the tank (say by having a proper thermostat) or removing the tank from 13.

If you do the former, no incident at all, the latter and it could happen.

One interesting twist, have it happen on Apollo-Soyuz mission ?

That would be interesting to watch. The first co-operative space venture between the United States and the Soviet Union becomes the first international space rescue mission.

[Devolved]

Originally Posted by Victor Hatherley

What would be the ramifications for the future of spaceflight if the Apollo 13 mission had gone as planned?

No real ramifications. Two extra men would have walked on the moon but the Apollo programme itself would still end with Apollo 17.

Also Tom Hanks would have to star in a different movie in 1995.

[WCDouglas]

If A13 is a normal mission... if is very possible that the moon landings get stopped earlier, maybe even at 14.

There was a strong and vocal opposition in Congress to the moon program (and the space program in great, research Mondale and Proxmire's postion from the period).

And...there were those in NASA, who having landed by JFK's deadline, and proven they could land where they wanted too (AS12) and return safely wanted to end the moon landings before there was an accident. Read Gene Krantz, and Chris Kraft's books. They wanted to move on to Skylab and the next generation of spacecraft (safer!) not end manned flight.

So with a "boring AS13" but successfull and another boring but sucessful AS14, an end to landings and moving direct to Skylab (likely manned earth orbit missions until 73) is a strong possiblity, especially since that allows the Nixon adminstration to keep a manned space program (Nixon liked heros!) and undercut the "wasted money for a few pounds of rock) arguement.

[Bureaucromancer]

You might get CALLS to cancel to the program, but stopping after 14 leaves a hell of a lot of paid for and un-flown equipment, and not stuff that can easily be transferred to Skylab.

[WCDouglas]

Originally Posted by Bureaucromancer

You might get CALLS to cancel to the program, but stopping after 14 leaves a hell of a lot of paid for and un-flown equipment, and not stuff that can easily be transferred to Skylab.

There were calls after AS11 to completely shutdown the program from members of Congress. Also even with AS17 flown, we left alot of hardware (2x complete ASV & 2x ASIas , plus 1x CSM, and 2xSIVs). Alot the money was actaully flying them.

Trivia note, by 73-74 Congress oppositon was strong enough to actually put a line in the budgets forbidding NASA to mothball the remaining hardware for future use.

So don't under estimate both the opposition to the space program, and the lack of interest amongest the majority of the public post landing.

[truth is life]

Originally Posted by WCDouglas

There were calls after AS11 to completely shutdown the program from members of Congress. Also even with AS17 flown, we left alot of hardware (2x complete ASV & 2x ASIas , plus 1x CSM, and 2xSIVs). Alot the money was actaully flying them.

I'm not sure what an ASV or an ASI is supposed to be. That aside, note that OTL Apollos 15, 19, and 20 were canceled. Apollo 20 was canceled to free up a Saturn V for Skylab; Apollos 15 and 19 were canceled for budget savings (which were quite nominal, since all of the expensive procurement had already been done). Apollos 16, 17, and 18 then flew as 15, 16, and 17. So I agree that there certainly was some opposition to further lunar missions. However, it's worth noting here that there's a somewhat famous memo written about this time from Caspar Weinberger (head of the OMB at that time) to Nixon which essentially advocates not canceling missions past those OTL canceled, and which Nixon responded to by writing "I agree with Cap". Given that Congressional opposition to further lunar missions was relatively diffuse and weak, and Executive support was relatively concentrated and strong, it seems unlikely that further cuts would happen. The success or failure of Apollo 13 really has little to do with it, if anything IOTL made moon missions look riskier and more likely to fail. Sure, NASA pulled a rabbit out of their hat...this time. What about next time?

In my opinion, the pressure from the scientific lobby would have been enough to ensure that at least one J-class mission with Harrison Schmitt on board would have flown by the end of the Apollo program (they already managed to get Apollo 15 canceled instead of one of the J-class missions, and moreover got Joe Engle kicked off Apollo 17; not to mention forcing the intake of the Scientific Seven and Excess Eleven), and that means continuing to at least Apollo 15 (all earlier missions were H or G class, which were much less scientifically capable). The savings from canceling two more Apollo missions would have been quite small, as noted above, since the hardware procurement had been completed and paid for already, and would have caused a roughly two year gap between the end of Apollo and the beginning of Skylab flights, so there is then a reasonable basis for continuing those missions in that time (recall that in 1973, when they chose not to continue Apollo past ASTP, that Shuttle was being projected to fly as early as 1977, so the existence of the later long gap is not evidence that the earlier short gap would have been ignored).

Originally Posted by WCDouglas

Trivia note, by 73-74 Congress oppositon was strong enough to actually put a line in the budgets forbidding NASA to mothball the remaining hardware for future use.

That's certainly not true, since Apollo hardware was maintained in storage (ie., in mothball) until mid-1976. What is true is that in 1973 all hope of flying Skylab B ended because of the projected cost of doing so, the successful launch and rescue of Skylab A, and the beginning of serious Shuttle design work. This had very little to do with Congressional opposition to spaceflight, except insofar as that had led to the demise of the more expansive post-Apollo program plans (which would have kept Apollo production lines open) and budget limitations that prevented using Skylab/Apollo and Shuttle hardware at the same time. Skylab was also somewhat technically incompatible with the Shuttle system (in particular, it used a 5 psi 80% oxygen/20% nitrogen mix instead of the sea-level atmosphere aboard Shuttle), so there were perfectly good reasons not to launch a space station with a limited lifetime and utility at any rate, budgets or no.

Originally Posted by WCDouglas

So don't under estimate both the opposition to the space program, and the lack of interest amongest the majority of the public post landing.

But what effect did Apollo 13 have on that? That's the question that's being asked, and to me it looks like the answer is: Very little. Sure, Nixon and Mondale and Proxmire and the rest will pare down NASA's ambitions, they're going to want to cancel some Apollo missions. But what basis is there for asserting that a successful Apollo 13 will either avert or accelerate those moves?