Well, that was some fun downtime. Everyone enjoy it? Me too. Here's the post that was going to go up today, and now is almost going up tomorrow. I hope you enjoy this, too!
Part 2: Taking Flight
The first launches of the modern Chinese space program came in 1972, with the first tests of the Feng Bao 1 rocket and the the first launch of an FSW capsule, used to begin testing of recovery systems and many of the shared avionics. As testing proceeded, followed closely by intelligence services around the world, China quietly worked on the selection and training of their first crews--a process notable for a heavy focus on political reliability and military service, compared to the preparations of the Americans to land a geologist on the moon on Apollo 18. The Dongfeng-derived carrier rockets and FSW encountered their share of teething issues: two back-to-back failures, one of the launcher and one of the unmanned spacecraft’s communications systems, caused intense worry among Chinese engineer before the first successful flight of FSW in August. However, one success wasn’t enough to erase the problem: engineers in China were under their own equivalent of Apollo’s famous “before this decade is out” deadline in the form of Mao’s four year goal for an orbital manned spaceflight. Mixed in with other launches for testing FSW were what Western intelligence agents failed to identify as Shuguang orbital tests. The Shuguang tractor abort tower was to prove its worth over Gemini’s ejection seats: in the second flight of the capsule, the abort tower successfully carried the unmanned capsule away from the disintegrating stack and fireball when the rocket engine’s turbopump disintegrated due to foreign object debris. In a way, this “successful failure” only augmented the political pressure on their engineers--hadn’t the flight proved that the capsule could save the crew from a failing rocket?
With just three additional capsule tests under their belt, autumn 1973 saw a command come down from the highest levels, one that smacked of valuing propaganda over human lives: engineers were pressured into approving Shuguang for flight to meet Mao’s deadline, which over the years had gone from somewhat arbitrary and aspirational to critical thanks to repetition and paranoia. Worse for the threadbare program, word had come down from no less than Chairman Mao himself that the program could expect no further funding increases without proven success, declaring that while demonstrating Chinese industrial might was important, the nation still must take care of its terrestrial problems first. Even with eight years of solid preparations, Chinese engineers internally estimated chances of a successful first manned flight in late 1973 at as little as three in four, but with internal pressure rising, there was no other option but to make the attempt.
After a frantic round of last-minute preparations, Shuguang 1 lifted off into the history books on October 14, 1973. Only one of the two seats was filled, and as the Long March 2’s engines ignited, pilot Fang Guojun was pressed back into his acceleration couch by the rocket’s power. Though roughly comparable in payload to the American Titan II, the Long March experienced far higher acceleration before burnout, subjecting Fang to as many as 5 Gs before stage separation, then almost 8 Gs during the second stage. FOr the final portion of the burn, the flight plan required the main engine to shut down entirely, with the burn completed on the comparatively weak vernier engines--to do otherwise would have required a paralyzing 13 Gs. [1] Even this level of force was impressive. As the stage vibrated below him and the second stage pushed towards main engine cutout, China’s first astronaut struggled as his vision narrowed, then suddenly the weight dropped to almost nothing for nearly another four minutes. Fang would later comment to ground engineers that, "It went from seeming like I might not survive to seeming as though I might not make orbit before I fell back." The shutdown of the second stage's engine was tense--a failure of this protocol could be deadly. As the moments passed on the expected vernier burn without a word from Fang, many engineers on the ground feared that they had witnessed the deaths of the pilot, the Chinese space program, and quite possibly themselves. However, a few interminable moments later, Fang adjusted to the dramatically lower acceleration and his voice came over the communications links. His first words, blinking to clear his vision, were bleary remarks on the beauty of the Earth seen through the window below: “I feel as though I am awakening to a dream of the world spread beneath.” However, over the long minutes of the terminal vernier burn, he had time to settle himself and begin verifying the capsule’s performance: systems were under control, the stack was stable, and the trajectory was within the acceptable error. When the vernier engines completed their long, slow burn and the second stage shut off entirely, China was, officially, the third nation to send a man to space. One orbit later, Shuguang 1’s retrorockets fired to return it under parachutes to a landing-bag-assisted recovery, and Fang Guojon was greeted with tremendous honors, including medals and a personal meeting with the Chairman.
It is largely true that the success of Shuguang 1 and the prestige it gained China on the world stage as an equal of other industrial powers was significant, and a factor in the ongoing support of the Chinese space program by high level officials on the Standing Committee. However, what is often lost in most popular histories and in Chinese official narratives is that the
level of this support was much more tentative in the years initially following Shuguang 1 than it would later grow to reach. While Fang Guojon became a national hero, and the success of the pilot and the engineers who had achieved the flight was much lauded in propaganda, the actual increases in Shuguang’s budgets were small, enough to enable ongoing Shuguang flights in the coming years and the beginnings of the long term planning which would later result in so much more, but not to actually begin such large projects. While the Chinese had achieved one goal which had eluded every nation save the superpowers, actually matching the United States or the Soviet Union would take far longer…
[1]
Didn't this used to say something different? Yeah, it did, nice catch. Also nice catch to
Shevek23, who found a critical fact in Long March's second stage function I'd overlooked: this whole business of cutting off the main engine and using the weaker verniers to complete the burn without hitting 13G. Before he linked me to
this data, I thought they were actually proposing to hit those G levels. Call it a
Critical Research Failure.
So, did you do any research for this TL beyond reading Astronautix?
Hey! I did...some. I also read wired, and I did a couple excel spreadsheets. That's at least two more excel spreadsheets than I bet more electoral TLiaW authors do!
Wonderful. It's no wonder you've never won a Turtledove...
I never claimed this would be scholarly! Anyway, the original text of this post and footnote are below:
Original text said:
Though roughly comparable in payload to the American Titan II, the Long March experienced far higher acceleration before burnout, subjecting Fang to as many as 13 Gs. [1] China’s first astronaut struggled as his vision narrowed. His heart pounded, his vision whited out, and he nearly lost consciousness. As the capsule entered orbit under programmed control and separated from the second stage without a word from Fang, many engineers on the ground feared that they had witnessed the deaths of the pilot, the Chinese space program, and quite possibly themselves. However, a few interminable moments later, Fang roused himself and his voice came over the communications links. His first words, blinking to clear his vision, were bleary remarks on the beauty of the Earth seen through the window below: “I feel as though I am awakening to a dream of the world spread beneath.” However, within minutes, he had regained himself enough to begin verifying the capsule’s performance: systems were under control, the capsule was stable, and the orbit was within the acceptable error. China was, officially, the third nation to send a man to space.
Original Footnote 1 said:
[1] What!? 13 Gs? Are they insane!? Yeah, I know, right? But that's what the numbers work out for a capsule on a 2-stage Long March 2/Feng Bao 1. I looked around a lot, though admittedly not any kind of scholarly search, just looking at other pages on Shuguang and Long March variants. I couldn't find any indication of the ~70% throttle-down capacity it'd take to reduce that to a reasonable level, nor of a third stage which would serve to ballast the ride (and maybe add a smidgen more LEO payload). But it's not completely impossible they hoped to just get by with it--13 Gs is high enough even many G-trained pilots will struggle to retain consciousness, but below the really serious health limits as far as I could find. With no better data, I went with the vision of Shuguang on Long March everyone seems to be aware of.