Across the high frontier: a Big Gemini space TL

[Archibald]

April 1976

James Fletcher was recovering. The shuttle scar had been long to heal; the short tenure as NASA administrator was certainly a setback, but Fletcher credentials were strong enough he survived the ordeal. He had not been a member of the President Science Advisory Committee for nothing; and his experience at the head of the University of Utah during the troubled 60's spoke volumes.

As a space advisor, however, the shuttle failure evidently followed him whatever he did. He needed help to manage that issue, and he found it working with Tom Paine, his predecessor at the head of the agency. Paine stint had been no better than his; he had failed with Mars much like Fletcher had failed with the shuttle. Yet Paine remained popular with space enthusiasts.

In the end Fletcher, a mormon, stroke a deal with another mormon - Mo Udall, in his run for the democratic nomination.

Udall made Fletcher his space advisor on a number of thematics such as Space Based Solar Power, the space program as tool to improve life on Earth, and of course the space shuttle. Fletcher quietly worked on a report tentatively entitled Outlook for space.

Udall couldn't stand the Carter-Mondale ticket lack of enthusiasm for the space program; so they had an unwritten agreement. If elected President Udall would make Fletcher administrator of NASA again, and together they would bring the shuttle back to lower the cost of space transportation. He felt no bitterness - he was way above such feelings.

With Udall tacit approval Fletcher campaigned in favor of the defunct space shuttle. He had two major recruits: former Ames director Hans Mark (who had controversially resigned in 1976) and Werner von Braun himself. Together they toured the country, meeting aerospace workers and space enthusiast groups.

"In 1971 I led what was a very interesting exercise ... I said we have got make a choice, whether to do the space station first or the shuttle first. ... Technically the space station was easier but, we recognized that the shuttle was the pacing item in this thing and, therefore, we said look ... let's do the difficult thing first and the space station will follow. " Fletcher started.

"We felt the Station would be very expensive using expendable launch vehicles to build ... so it had to be deferred until the Shuttle was assured. Events so far have shown the rightness of our approach. We harvested the low hanging fruit first - only to kick the shuttle can down the road again and again."

Then von Braun took over. The great space advocate had aged a lot; he was terminally ill from cancer.

"John Fitzgerald Kennedy famously said - we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. According to this we should have picked the shuttle first !

"When we first began thinking about the Space Shuttle, we thought of it as a vehicle to serve a large space station in Earth orbit. But we ran into a dilemma: we found that we could not expect to get funding to build both a large space station and the Space Shuttle in this decade.
A space station would be of no use without the Shuttle. And at first we thought that the reverse was also true - that the Shuttle would be of little use without a space station to serve. But the more we looked at this, the clearer it became that no dilemma existed but rather an opportunity. The shuttle had much wider, and potentially much more revolutionary roles than a simple space station taxi - a role only good enough for capsules like Apollo or Helios."

"Fixing satellites in orbit. Deploying very large telescopes. Fly payloads repeatedly and at a very low cost. Flying ordinary citizens into orbit - and that was only a fraction of the possibilities - we had no time to explore the full potential of the shuttle."


"In the debate over the sequence between the space station and the space shuttle programs, I, Wernher von Braun was strongly in favor of doing the space shuttle first. I felt that the establishment of a space station without something like a large space shuttle made no sense. I felt, and still believe that a really effective space station would have to be assembled on orbit, and this is impossible to do effectively with expendable launch vehicles."

And then it fell to Hans Mark to deliver the final blow.

"Wernher also made two other points that remain valid today.

1. The space shuttle was and still is the technically more difficult part of the whole program — that is — it is harder to build the shuttle than a space station. Thus, the pace at which the shuttle program can be executed would eventually determine the time at which an efficient space station could be deployed.

2. Once the space shuttle built, the operations with the shuttle would attract considerable public attention, and this, in turn, would make it easier to persuade the political system to commit to a space station program. On this last point I have no doubt Doctor von Braun was and still is absolutely correct. There is no doubt that shuttle operations and the public attention they would have generated would be a decisive factor in an acceleration of the space station buildup. Instead the ongoing program is limping along."




Another incredible project from the early shuttle days: a 3 m diameter, ESA infrared telescope to be carried by spacelab !

 

[Archibald]

March 1976

WILL LOCKHEED BRIBERY SCANDAL TAINTS NASA AND OTHER SPACE AGENCIES ?

President of Lockheed Carl Kotchian has been sacked from the company this week. He was a key figure in what became one of the biggest bribery scandals ever. His testimony before a Senate committee last year contributed to sweeping reforms and passage of U.S. laws against Americans and U.S. firms paying off foreign government officials.

His admission had dramatic political reverberations overseas. So far it has led to the downfall of Japan's ruling government, discredited the Dutch monarchy and set off official inquiries in Colombia, Turkey, Italy, West Germany and Saudi Arabia.

The Senate probe eventually revealed that payoffs, bribes and kickbacks had been part of doing business overseas for American companies for decades. Although Lockheed and Kotchian received the brunt of the attention, more than 400 U.S. companies eventually admitted to paying foreign officials more than $700 million, or more than $2.5 billion in today's money.

After his dismissal Kotchian said Lockheed was a scapegoat and that the payoffs -- common throughout the 1960s and early 1970s -- were part of the way the "game" was played overseas. He maintained that no payoffs were made to American officials and no American laws were violated.

"If we were back in those times, I'd do it again," Kotchian said in an interview yesterday. "In present times, with the change in attitude and standards that are being applied now, I don't think that I would."

The scandal overshadowed a notable aviation career that spanned 35 years and paralleled Lockheed's rise to become one of the biggest aerospace companies in the world. Kotchian was named president of the firm in 1967 and until last week -- when forced to resign amid the bribery scandal -- helped oversee development of several notable aircraft, including the C-5 Galaxy military transport, the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane and the L-1011 TriStar passenger jet.

But it would be the L-1011 that would spell the end of Kotchian's aerospace career. It also almost killed the company, financially and politically.

After two prosperous decades from 1965 Lockheed new projects all failed to bring money to the company.

The SR-71 broad family total a maximum of 50 aircrafts, not much considering the sheer cost and complexity of the aircraft.

The AH-56 Cheyenne compound helicopter has been another failure - the Army cancelled the program in 1972.

The C-5A Galaxy giant transport plane has been a disaster - with a $2 billion overrun, cracks in the wings and a collapsing undercarriage, among other teething issues. The Air force cut orders to 80 aircrafts.

Lockheed bread and butter has been the F-104 Starfighter but that aircraft is now obsolete, and was tarred by an horrific accident rate. The German air force bought 900 Starfighters of which nearly 300 crashed, killing more than a hundred pilots. 32 German widows intented a class action against Lockheed and, after a ten-year battle, obtained 1.2 million of dollars of repairs.

Kotchian spearheaded the development of the L-1011 jet, which Lockheed began building without a firm commitment from a single airline, a risky move that eventually cost the company billions of dollars.

In 1971, the U.S. government bailed out the company with a $250-million loan as rising development costs for the L-1011 and other military programs were about to put the company out of business. Such move was rather unprecedented and the hidden reason was Lockheed involvment with submarine launch ballistic missiles like the Polaris and Trident.
Had Lockheed been dismantled, those key strategic weapons would have been setback by years.
Yet, only four years after that expensive bailout a government panel set up to oversee the bailout began investigating whether Lockheed had violated its obligations by not disclosing foreign payments.

In a Senate hearing last week, Kotchian said he had traveled to Japan in 1972 to try to interest the Japanese in the jetliner. He said he was approached twice within his first day in Tokyo for payoffs of 500 million yen, or $1.7 million.

He said he made payments to representatives who made "clear" the money would end up in the office of Japan's then Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. Another was made to a consultant who said it was needed to gain the interest of an intimate of Tanaka, who was later convicted and sentenced to four years in jail stemming from Kotchian's testimony.

In his memoir, Kotchian wrote that by the time the deal was completed, payments had been made to officials of the airline and six other politicians. Lockheed eventually sold 21 planes, worth $430 million at the time.
In all, Kotchian said he made $12 million in payments to Japanese politicians and businessmen.

"If Lockheed had not remained competitive by the rules of the games as then played, we would not have sold the TriStar's jumbo jet and would not have provided work for tens of thousands of our employees or contributed to the future of our corporation," he said.

During the Senate hearings, Kotchian also said Lockheed had bribed government officials in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands in the 1960s to sell military fighter jets. A central figure in the scandal is Frantz Joseph Strauss, the all powerfull German politician.
There are insisting rumours within the Luftwaffe that back in 1958 the French Mirage III was the prefered option but Starfighters were bought instead, with catastrophic results.
"We don't condone this but . . . it was the only way we could sell aircraft," Kotchian said.
Kotchian's son, Robert, said he never sensed that his father had any regrets or remorse about the payoffs.
"He felt he did the right thing for the good of the company," Kotchian said. "He felt that if he didn't do it, somebody else would. I think he was stuck between a rock and a hard place."

and now Lockheed scandal may reach even further – into space !

Four years ago Lockheed won a hard-fought bid for NASA space tug. Since then their Agena has become an ubiquitous space vehicle that was sold to many aspiring space powers.
What Lockheed did was to use the old Starfighter connections and networks to sell its space tug to Canada, Japan, and the European space agency that includes Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. All these countries bought F-104s for their air forces; all use the Agena space tug for varied missions.

The Church committee found Lockheed guilty of bribing governments to buy Starfighters and Hercules and Tristar transports. Quite inevitably the committee raised suspicion over that other Lockheed best-seller, that is, the Agena.
Senator William Proxmire made public his order for a congressional investigation into whether NASA Administrator James Beggs had violated conflict-of-interest rules when he awarded Lockheed the space tug contract in 1972. Beggs denied the charges, and they were dropped after a brief inquiry.

Morale at Lockheed has been low, particularly at the famed Skunk Works that imagined so many outstanding flying machines.

Ben Rich recently suceeded legendary Clarence Johnson that aparently resigned in disgust after the bribery scandals.

 

[Archibald]

Diagonal to space

July 4, 1976


"Jesus, this is like an idea out of a freakin' James Bond movie !" the American pilot shouted to his french copilot, covering the noise of the Tyne engines.

The French Air Force C-160 Transall had took of from Cayenne airport an hour earlier, and orbited a position out of the coast, trailing a cable between two poles sticking out of the back of the airplane. Their target now quietly swung under a large parachute. The Transall manoeuvered in a collision course trajectory, flew past the parachute, and snagged the payload. The parachute collapsed, with the heavy payload hanging hundreds of feet behind the plane.

"Be ready for the kick in the ass!" the pilot shouted.

"Quoi ? the what ?"

"Le coup de pied dans le cul !" he laughed. His french was improving, after all.

The Transall brutally jerked with the weight. A sergeant in the noisy open cargo bay of the plane started winching in the cable and the rocket bodyit trailed.

They landed the Transall at Cayenne airport without a glitch. The mission had been a success, a tremendous one.

DIAGONAL was the result of a cooperative venture between the French CNES and Lockheed, between Diamant L-17 press-fed stage 1 and Lockheed Agena space tug. Old Diamants had a couple of solid-fuel upper stages now replaced by the Agena. Specific impulse improved enormously, from a low 250 second to 325. Payload to orbit accordingly doubled, up to 500 kg.

Thanks to that superior performance it had been possible to integrate a recovery system within DIAGONAL first stage. As a pressure-fed rocket Diamant Amethyste was very strongly build, enough to withstand a spalshdown into the ocean under a parachute.

The alternative was to snatch the stage midair using a cargo plane. The CNES had been enthusiast about the project but funding was not coming – French President Giscard had made sure every penny flowed into Ariane.

That DIAGONAL second flight marked the end of the Diamant era. The launch pad was gone, and even the Kourou launch base was being mothballed until 1979 and Ariane first flight. There had been a program of job termination or freeze. Lockheed was ready to carry on DIAGONAL alone; their target was the all-solid SCOUT rocket.

Diagonal Agena second stage reached orbit with little propellant left in the tanks but that was still enough for on orbit testing and manoeuvering of the European space tug.

As for Diamant first stage, it is the only operational pressure-fed rocket in the world - despite Robert Truax best efforts to develop that technology in the United States.

 

[Archibald]

Langley taking the helm - the shuttle dream ain't dead yet

"Advanced space transportation studies have been conducted at the Langley Research Center recently. The Orbit-on-Demand Vehicle Study focused on concepts capable of rapid launch. The Shuttle II study considered concepts with the potential to reduce the cost of transportation to orbit for payloads in the Titan III / 1971 Space Shuttle class.

Eleven design concepts for vertical (V) and horizontal (H) take-off launch-on-demand manned orbital vehicles were examined. Attention was given to up to three stages, Mach numbers, expendable boosters, drop tanks (DT), and storable (S) or cryogenic fuels. All the concepts featured lifting bodies with circular cross-section and most had a 7 ft diam, 15 ft long payload bay as well as a crew compartment.

Preliminary results study are used to identify major technology issues for development of a quick response vehicle. Baring a major technological breakthrough, reasonable vehicles are found to require significant advances in propulsion, structures, materials, and flight mechanics technology. Vehicle concepts using normal growth technology predicted for the 1990s are compromised by expendable hardware or by unmanageable size and complexity.

Operational analyses of the vertical-launch and horizontal-launch takeoff vehicles show that the latter have more inherent operational utility. The supply of liquid hydrogen propellant at alternate sites is a major issue; however, propane may be a viable option for at least one concept. Propellant for orbital maneuvering significantly increases gross weight for many of the concepts. This increase is greater for horizontal-takeoff systems because of their larger orbiters.

Performance requirements and design features of the next generation of manned launch vehicles are discussed. The vehicles will launch within minutes of demand and will have a several-day turnaround time. Launch and landing sites will have minimal facilities. Baseline requirements comprise carriage and return of a 5000 lb, 7 ft diam, 15 ft long payload, a 160 n. mi. polar orbit, a 200 fps on-orbit delt-V capability, provisions for two men for 24 hr, an 1100 n. mi. cross range option, 500 flights/vehicle, land on 10,000 ft runways, and be acceptable passing over populated areas.

A preliminary design study has also been completed for a larger, fully reusable, single-stage-to-orbit transatmospheric vehicle. The specified mission capability was to lift a 20,000 lb payload to low earth orbit. A ground accelerator-assisted horizontal take-off was chosen to increase operational flexibility. The multi-mode propulsion system included the use of air-turborocket, ramjet, scramjet and rocket engines. Weight and performance estimates were obtained for the vehicle. A computer package was developed to perform aerothermodynamic analyses of the propulsion modes throughout the flight environment from take-off to low earth orbit. Results are presented for a semi-optimized trajectory. The analysis indicates that a vehicle of this type has great potential for providing low cost, flexible access to space.
However significant advances are needed in propulsion and fuel systems, lightweight durable structures and airbreathing acceleration engines. Trade-offs have yet to be fully explored among the number of stages and horizontal or vertical take-off.

Single-stage vehicles simplify the logistics whether in H or V configuration. Expendable elements impose higher costs and in some cases reduce all-azimuth launch capabilities. A two-stage H vehicle offers launch offset for the desired orbital plane before firing the rocket engines after take-off and subsonic acceleration. A two-stage fully reusable V form has the second lowest weight of the vehicles studied and an all-azimuth launch capability. Better definition of the prospective mission requirements is needed before choosing among the alternatives.

Deleting hydrogen ?

Hydrogen has a high boil-off rate, an undesirable feature if a space plane is to be hold in a fueled alert status. It is expensive, difficult to store, and not readily available at most locations. For these reasons, some vehicles were designed to use no hydrogen - only systems that used a hydrocarbon fuel and liquid oxygen as an oxidizer were analyzed. The results indicate that hydrogen could be eliminated with a small increase in gross weight, and the dry weight might even decrease slightly.

The possibility of utilizing jet fuel (JP) stored primarily in the wings of hydrogen-fueled single stage to orbit has been evaluated and compared to the performance of all hydrogen-fueled vehicle. Results indicate improvements in performance for a wide range of potential payload sizes, particularly when in-flight refueling of the JP fuel is considered as a means of increasing range and mission flexibility."

 

[Archibald]

Maskirovka



January 1977

Moscow



Moscow, Queen of the Russian land

Built like a rock to stand, proud and devine

Moscow, your golden towers glow

Even through ice and snow, sparkling they shine

(Genghis Kahn – Moscow)



The Maskirovka is working nicely. Serguei Afanasyev smiled at the evident confusion of Western observers. Even their best experts - Charles Vick, Charles Sheldon - were aghast. To make a long story short, they knew very large rockets shot out of Baikonur, but they didn't had a single clue of what was going below the fairing. What Western observers could do was monitoring the payloads trajectories - and the Maskirovka had been set up just to confuse them on this matter.



According to the Western newspapers Afanasyev was reading delightfully, the Soviet had heavy spacecrafts on the Moon and on Mars, running in parallel with Salyut earth orbit platforms.



Missing from the reports was evidently the ongoing MKBS huge space station. And that was the other side of the Maskirovka: Salyut acted as a smoke mirror. Not only Salyut masked its Almaz military twin, it also somewhat hide the MKBS. Skylab heritage meant the future American space station would be send to a 51.6 degree inclination orbit, so Salyut and Almaz were send on a similar orbit, with some modules assembled one by one. The real space station, the MKBS, was to come only in the next decade and it would go into a polar orbit inclined by 98 degree over the equator (although that was not carved in stone yet - 51 degree was a strong possibility)



Western newspapers showed evident signs of anxiety; they described a Soviet space program provided with an unlimited number of N-1s, a program that included space stations in earth orbit and manned lunar landings and a vigorous automated Mars program starting with a big rover, then leapfrogging Viking with a sample return, the two evidently pathfinders to a manned trip to Mars before the end of the century. All this at a time when Ford and that Carter peanut farmer were cutting NASA and the military to the bones.



Welcome to space Potemkine village. Afanasyev thought bitterly.



Yes, they had more N-1s than they needed, but production had been curtailed to vehicle 14L – five giant boosters, no more. Work on them proceded at slow pace, giving the imperialists the illusion the production had never stopped, unlike their Saturn.

Potemkine rockets - how about that ?



And the fears about Moon andMars extended programs were equally laughable. The two camps had somewhat killed each other, taking Mishin with them. Afanasyev had strong doubts about some infernal machination from Ustinov to get ride of Korolev successor. It had been a pathetic scene, happened in the fall of 1973.



"Mishin wants a manned lunar Soyuz together with an automated landing - either an unmanned LK meeting Lunokhod 3, or the same Soyuz picking up samples from a Luna scooper. But the Americans are no longer going to the Moon. They are instead building a space station. And they are flying sophisticated robots to to seek life on Mars. We should use our N-1s for such missions."



In August 1974 the fifth N-1 flight test, the first N-1F, had been a success at least. Vehicle 8L had send an unmanned Soyuz with a LK lander in orbit around the Moon. The LK lander had gently touched down on the lunar surface near the Lunokhod 2 rover, which launch had been delayed by 18 months, swapping launches with the Luna 22 orbiter. All this carefully orchestrated to happen on August 9, 1974, the day when Nixon had left the White House in disgrace.



Lunokhod 2 had actually filmedthe LK descent and touchdown on the lunar surface, a major propaganda coup for the Soviet leadership. Meanwhile the Soyuz returned with high resolution pictures of the lunar surface.



The very successful mission had been the lunar program last gasp; the L3M had been buried with Mishin and the end of Apollo. The LK was good for nothing. After ten years and billions of rubbles spent the Soviet Union had now a manned lunar orbitcapability – for nothing. Worse, Afanasyev thought cynically, they even had enough N-1s left to launch a manned Mars shot. How about that. But if America retreated to low Earth orbit, so would the Soviet Union.



Glushko had been one element in Ustinov conspiracy to get ride of Mishin. The Lavotchkin bureau had been another. But the final nail in the coffin had come from Mishin owns deputies - bastards like Feoktistov had plotted against their own boss. And Mishin had been finally sacked, the L3 buried forever, and USSR had embarked into sampling Mars, with a rover to scout the surface first.



N-1 vehicle 9L had been expended into an automated Mars shot, Afanasyev pet project he had defended at all cost, again for an extremely mixed result. It was a two phases atempt at beating Viking, and another spinoff from the lunar program.



Lavotchkin automated robots had essentially saved Soviet honour against Apollo; some Lunashad brought back samples of lunar soil, others had dumped sophisticated Lunokhod rovers on the surface. In 1970 Afanasyev himself suggested Lavotchkin director Babakin to expend such mission to Mars - rover first, then soil sampling.



Mars, however, was many order of magnitude harder than the Moon. So the size and complexity of the robots grew exponentially, to the point it took a full N-1 to send them to their destination. At a time when every single modest probe the Soviet Union send to Mars failed miserably, trying a full scale sample return bordered on craziness, and Babakin simply refused to try the mission. His premature death in October 1971, however, removed that obstacle.



Arguing that Viking had to be leapfrogged, Afanasyev threw all his power behind the twin Mars missions and the rover was ultimately a go in 1972, with the launch coming five years later. The armada of probes to be send to Mars in 1973 was cut to a pair of landers, and that was not a bad thing since a close examination of the planned orbiters showed defective electronic chips unable to withstand interplanteray space harsh environment. And indeed both Mars 6 and Mars 7 landers failed.



The so-called 4NM was one hell of a monster spacecraft.

It was a huge 20 ton probe which divided into a 3.6 tons orbiter derived from the earlier Mars probe series, and a 16-ton lander - a mass higher than the Apollo lunar module ! Late December 1976 the 4NM entered the Martian atmosphere with an asymmetrical aerodynamic shield 6.5 meters in diameter during launch and deployed once in the space up to 11 m thanks to an ingenious design consisting of 30 petals. After atmospheric entry angle, the shield fell and the ship landed using just four liquid-fueled rockets. Parachutes had been discarded early on per lack of knowledge about Martian atmopshere density.



And then the Marsokhod would wheel down the martian surface thanks to an inclined ramp. It was a huge machine massing 2610 kg including 200 kg of scientific instruments, mostly located in a cylindrical container on a side. It was powered by an RTG with a thermal power of 5 kW.

Due to the enormous distance, Marsokhod could not piloted by remote control from Earth in near real time as Lunokhods had been, so only a communications session would take place as of one hour, for which it would use a high gain antenna of 1.5 meters in diameter. The average speed of Marsokhod was to be 0.5 to 1 km/h and it was expected that worked one year on the Martian surface, covering about 100 km and obtaining 110 photographic panoramas.



Project 5NM intended at Mars sample return was to follow in 1977, but difficulties had it postponed to the 1979 opportunity.



Late 1976 and after a string of failures touching many subsystems of the giant ship carrying it, the lander - somewhat miraculously - touched down on the surface just in time for the Marsokhodto die as it was wheeling down the ramp. It was not even knew if its wheels ever made contact with the martian dirt. The whole automated Mars program program then collapsed, sending the 5NM sample return into development hell. Most of the 5NM large robot had been build, but it wouldn't be launched and went into storage in a corner of the MIK-112 in Baikonur.



Once again a Soviet Mars probe had been doomed by defective microships. In order to save money they were plated in aluminium, not gold. In turn that make the chips extremely vulnerable to deep space coldness and radiations; the components usually died within six months, the exact time a probe needed to reach Mars. The end result was a bunch of probes dying just as they reached the Red Planet. The Soviet Union had lost many probes that way.



Worse, there had been a very high price to pay. The troubled 4NM / 5NM program had caused a significant delay in Luna 24, the last Soviet mission to bring soil samples from the Moon, as well as contributed to a decision to cancel the launch of the Lunokhod-3 lunar rover and disrupted pre-flight tests of Venera-11 and Venera-12 landers.

In fact the 5NM had dragged on for so long it had put the Venus program in trouble. Roald Sagdyeev at the IKI was screaming like hell, because once again short-sighted political decisions (keep the N-1 flying) had prevailed over rational science planning.



Still, the Americans had been panicked enough to believe a “Mars rover race” had started. Afanasyev smiled at the vision of a pair of unmanned robots racing full bore across the martian landscape, sending rocks and dust flying everywhere. Yes, there had been a kind of mini-race, with the American hastily outfitting their third, backup Viking lander with tank-like tracks so that it could move. Even with the soviet failure, their project remained on track – a truly appropriate word – for a launch in the year 1979, heading for Mangala Vallis. The soviet were doing nothing to alleviate the American fears, clamouring their next step would be the sample mission.



A bitter irony of the Mars rover race was that, in order to tackle Marsokhod, the Viking-rover crash program had killed Pioneer-Venus. Venus, a planet where the Soviet Veneraruled !



We start a rover, they kill their Venus mission to fund another Viking against it; then we talk aloud about Mars sample return just to affraid them further... and in the end we beat them again to Venus, a planet they left to beat us at Mars.



We are making the American crazy.



It was just delightful.



Icing on the cake, to add a little more confusion the Pioneer Venus / Viking rover boondoggle had ultimately clashed with a third major, expensive project: the Space Telescope. The House of representative had starved the telescope first, in 1974; and the next year, as astronomers fought to bring the project back, it had been Pioneer Venus that had suffered the same fate. Needless to say, the planetary scientists and astronomers had been at each other throats. That had been the exact moment when Afanasyev had leaked the Mars 4M Marsokhod into the Pravda, thus to the world.



The Maskirovkawas over, but it had fulfilled it role nicely. All remaining N-1s were carefully mothballed with the pads in stealth mode - pending the launch of the MKBS in the middle of the next decade, of course.



Whoever in the White House at this moment will have one a hell of a surprise.



After years of immobilism, the soviet space program was rolling again, full steam.



Although there would be no new N-1s build, all three upper stages of it - themselves the smaller N-11 booster - would replace the Proton as soon as possible. Around the N-11 would be build a whole new, standardized family of modular rockets burning begnin propellants to replace Protonand Soyuzand Tsyklon. Engines would be a mix of Kuznetsov and Glushko, of small and large.



It suddenly occured to Afanasyev that they could in fact cut the last two N-1s, the 13L and 14L marks, into smaller N-11s. All they had to do was to junk the huge first stage, after removing all of the thirty engines on it. Engines that would go to the smaller rocket, by the way., since they were ground-started.



That way they could still confused the Americans over their superbooster while preparing to replace the Proton. It was one hell of an idea; it would make development of the N-11 smoother and faster altogether.



And if we ever churn N-11s like Soyuz or Protons, the Americans will have some heart attack. They will believe we are mass producing N-1 giant rockets – how funny.



Unfortunately Afanasyev boss Grechko had died a year before, leaving Ustinov sizing control of the military rocket aparatus, crushing both Afanasyev and Chelomei he hated so much. Yet before dying, Grechko had staged an ultimate coup against Ustinov he hated so much: he had managed to convince Glushko that he needed not to cancell Chelomei TKS, because that ship represented a true match to the American Big Gemini, unlike Soyuz that was too small.



Despite his friendship with Ustinov Glushko had happily complied, because the Soyuz belonged to the ennemy design bureau he had failed to control in 1974: the bureau of Korolev, Mishin and Chertok.



The TKS (an ungainly accronym he soon dropped in favor of Zarya) soon become Glushko weapon to control the manned spaceflight program and crush Soyuz. Even the space station program was schizophrenic: Glushko, again, had managed to save the Salyut and Almaz despite the MKBS, turning them into free fliers, backup core modules, and other applications.



Ferocious internal rivalries and confusing Americans: it was just an ordinary year in the Soviet space program.

Sergey Afanasyev, also known as The Big Hammer - you don't want to mess with that guy, don't you ?

 

[Archibald]

little update on planetary exploration

THE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
- A LOOK AT THE MURRAY YEARS

William Pickering had been the emblematic boss of JL for three decades. His successor was the ebulient Bruce Murray. Murray become boss in 1976 against a triumphant background. JPL had kicked Ames ass as the sole and only NASA center tasked with robotic exploration of the solar system. Voyager and Viking were unmitigated triumphs.

In 1977 a bumbling Murray disclosed what he called the purple pigeons, extremely ambitious robotic missions that would catch the public eyes just like Voyager and Viking did.

The Viking rover was seen as a precursor to Mars sample return, and this was bolstered by the Soviet similar Mars 4NM and 5NM program. The second purple pigeon was a mission to Halley comet in 1986, and there Murray thought big, too. To make a long story short, the Japanese, European and Soviet probes did a ballistic flyby of Halley. But Murray disliked ballistics. He strongly believed that ballistic flybys of Halley were not worth the money. They would just happen too fast – closing velocity was just too high.

A revolutionnary propulsion system was needed to slow done the Halley probe – either electric propulsion or, even better, a solar sail. That belief that ballistic flyby was unworthy become engrained in the JPL psyche, even if experience proved it to be totally wrong. The Euro-Soviet-Japanese Halley armada did a superb job. The JPL belief ultimately proved a disaster, since both electric propulsion and solar sails proved costly and unproven. In the end America send zero probe to Halley.

The combination of the costly Mars rover and the sterile Halley debate proved deadly. The biggest casualty was Venus. In 1974 the Viking rover killed Pioneer-Venus; in 1978 the overly ambitious Halley probe killed VOIR, the Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar.

Another collateral victim of the Viking rover was the Jupiter Orbiter with Probe – JOP, like VOIR, was postponed to the decade of the 80's. Much like the Voyagers and Pioneers before them, the Saturn and Jupiter orbiters Cassini and Galileo become twins. The sheer cost of the two flagships however wrecked the 80's and ensured VOIR was postponed again. Venus become a total loss, even bitter since the Soviet launched a bunch of successful Veneras there.

Then a much less glamourous project by contrast survived against all odds. A joint project between ESA and NASA, the solar probe was approved in 1978, pushing both VOIR and JOP into the 80's. The solar probe was approved in FY79 because ESA involvement made it less expensive at a time when the Mars rover and the overambitious Halley probe devoured NASA budget. Ulysses was launched in 1985 and flew out of the ecliptic. It was a very successfull, if unglamourous, mission.

 

[Archibald]

March 27, 1977

Music: The Byrds, Mr Tambourine man & Turn

America had circled Earth for two days, and now closed from its destination. Alan Bean had their target in visual – even kilometres away, Skylab was easy to sight, catching the sun like a giant heliograph. To Bean regrets, they would not dock nor enter the derelict station – it had been in space for too long . Their work would be limited to picking up some pieces of the old station; they would be analysed on Earth, and told NASA how hardware grew in age in space harsh environment. The legendary Maxime Faget had had an interesting idea. Back in spring 1971, he had suggested to test the Shuttle Manipulator using a modified Apollo CSM; amid the various targets envisaged was Skylab. After Shuttle cancellation the manipulator had been put on hold, then included within the future space station. The need for a test still existed, and Helios now represented the way forward.

So the manipulator demonstration had been included in Helios second flight and visit to Skylab. The manipulator would be used to pick some pieces from the workshop.

As he watched the Orbital Workshop and its lone solar array, Bean remembered how many projects had been drawn around the two Skylab since 1971 and Shuttle cancellation.

NASA had tried to use as much Skylab as possible in its future space station. Many projects included the two workshops – Skylab A in orbit, and the backup Skylab B on the ground. Basic idea was what can we dock to Skylab which could turn it into a larger or more useful station ?

Consideration had been given to a very large collection of varied hardware such as Soyuz, Salyut, surplus Apollos, European modules, spent S-II or S-IVB stages, and the backup Skylab. Soon, an agreement was found with the soviet soon thereafter, for a second joint flight late 1977, using their spare Apollo-Soyuz. This would join with Helios third flight, bumping the Skylab Revival Mission to the year after. Rendezvous with Skylab would have to happen on Helios third flight, or burst. The reason was that the 1978 flights were already bookmarked for others missions. The more the Skylab mission was postponed, the harder the docking would be, since Skylab would plundge deeper and deeper into the atmosphere; it may start tumbling, making a docking impossible. In the end NASA managers decided that docking so early in the flight program, particularly with the old workshop, was out of question so the Skylab Revival Mission was downgraded to a close flyby with the astronauts picking up some elements of the derelict workshop using the Canadarm.

Before the big Titan screamed out of Launch Complex forty-one, Alan Bean asked Marshall engineers what Skylab interior would look like after so much years.

“Alan, the long exposure to space has taken its toll. Be ready to find brittled hatch seals, low gas pressure and contamination all over - on windows, mirrors, and filters- including fungal spores on the walls and in the air. In addition, cosmic radiation and extreme temperature cycling probably degraded electronics and electrical parts. The station's attitude control system is close from dead. On the plus side, refrigeration, oxygen/nitrogen distribution, carbon dioxide control waste management, medical monitoring, trash disposal and ventilation should work. By the way microbiologists are excited at the prospect of studying microbes that have been reproducing in the trash for hundreds of generations in a spacecraft. Still tempted ?”

Looking at Skylab, Bean thought about Marshall, and Von Braun, who was dying of cancer. “Looks like the Apollo era is over”

The canadarm worked perfectly. Little bits of Skylab were tucked into a small bay on the side of America reentry module.

Nothing compares to the lost, immense payload bay of the shuttle, however. Bean thought. We could have brought a whole solar array back to Earth, or even the Apollo Telescope Mount. We could have reuse it, putting new intruments into the frame.

 

[Archibald]

The Maskirovka, part II

June 1977

It had been an unexpected side effect of that Proton disaster of April 1969. The toxic cloud of storable propellants had scared the military like hell, a threat they never forget. Many years later their Poisk commission tasked with the definition of future Soviet launch vehicles had been very clear: say goodbye to storable-but-toxic propellants.

Civilian rockets didn't need them, since unlike ballistic missiles, they didn't have to be stored for decades in underground silos nor fired in a fraction of second during a nuclear attack. Kerosene, liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen were begnin substances that would never contaminate a launch pad after a failure.

Consequences over the USSR space program were huge.

First, it meant civilian rockets could no long derive from ballistic missiles; their emancipation was now unavoidable.

Secondly, the Poisk recommandations seriously undermined Glushko position he had stubbornely held against the defunct Korolev, a position that had cost the Soviet Union the Moon.

Because the lunar rocket was huge - ten time bigger than the Proton that had caused so much damage in April 1969 - there was no way it could be loaded with toxic propellants. Glushko refused to admit that, and thus Korolev and its N-1 had to do without the best rocket engine designer in the Soviet Union.

Korolev had to hire aviation motorist Nikolai Kuznestov which NK-33 engines, although excellent, were too small. The N-1 took thirty of them to fly, and that kludge proved unworkable, at least in time to beat America to the Moon.

Only Glushko could have designed an engine big enough, and he actually did it, but the huge RD-270 logically used storable propellants. Had a RD-270 powered lunar rocket ever failed like the 1969 Proton, the consequences would have been far more dramatic; it would have released, not hundred but thousands of tons of extremely toxic propellants.

Glushko answer to that issue had been "Well, it will never fail in the first place, so your question is moot". The Proton disaster had proved him wrong, and he would pay the price for its stubborness.

Or would he ?

Glushko main quality was his faculty of adaptation. Back in 1974 the Poisk commission asked for a modular family of rockets to replace the Tsyklon, Soyuz and Proton. Competitors were Glushko (borrowing from Chelomei empire), Yangel (from Ukraine and another defunct rival of Korolev) and of course Chertok.

Glushko entered the competition with the Proton itself (a rocket he had stolen from Chelomei, courtesy of Ustinov), although logically modified to burn something better than the toxic propellants that scared the military.

Mishin successor Chertok proposed to cut the pyramid-shaped, four-stage N-1 (made of, from bottom to tip, the block -A, -B, -V and -G, respectively with -30, -8, -4 and -1 engines) into shorter and shorter launch vehicles. Western observers would have talked about a Lego booster; the Soviets saw it as the Matryoshka doll rocket.

A N-1 cut of its huge first stage, the B-V-G booster was the N-11 and it would replace the Proton, launching 25 tons to earth orbit.

The V-G rocket called the N-111 was the Soyuz successor with a 10 ton payload.

That, of course, was the plan of paper, that worked perfectly. Reality was harder, notably for the smaller rockets in the family.

N-111 proved to be too weak, and fell by the wayside, and the Soyuz rocket survived the onslaught.

There was even a -G alone diminutive launch vehicle to replace the Tsyklon, with a single ton send into space. Tsyklon had been Yangel brainchild, and his Poisk proposal derived from that rocket, with the same issue faced by Glushko: dirty propellants. That rocket however was too small and it was the N-111 that replaced the Ukrainian launcher.

Rather unsuprisingly Chertok N-1 offsprings ended too powerful and the plan had to be tweaked. The N-11 thirteen engines made it overpowered, so a pair was cut of the first and second stages, resulting in the nine-engines, less powerful N-11M. The two pairs of engines could be easily reintroduced if the need ever arose.

To complicate matter further it was at that very moment that names were given to the new launch vehicles. The N-11 become Groza (thunderstorm) and the N-11M, Grom (thunder). The N-111 was named Uragan Consideration was given to rename the N-1 itself, with the names Energia, Vulkan or Kvant aparently suggested, but the proposal went nowhere.

As for Glushko, once again he went to see Ustinov.

"You gave me the best of Chelomei empire to rebuild my kingdom, and that was much appreciated. You gave me OKB-52 and with it I recovered Almaz, the TKS, and Proton - a space station, a manned ship, and the rocket to launch them. All fine, but at the root I'm a motorist."

"Hmm ?"

"I mean, all Poisk projects use Kuznestov NK-33."

"Yes, because they are superb engines even the Americans can't match."

"The Proton engines are nearly as good, you know."

"You mean, the RD-253 you designed a decade ago ?" Ustinov was a little fed up with Glushko continual whinning.

"You said it, not me." Glushko wrinkled.

"But your engines are burning what the military hate - toxic storable propellants."

"Of course, but I can tweak them to burn liquid oxygen and kerosene, like the NK-33. A backup to Kuznetsov would be quite desirable; unlike the N-1 many failures, the Proton flew a lot with my RD-253s... and I have previous experience changing engines from storable to kerolox via the RD-270 to RD-116 conversion. Please, let me run a trio of modified RD-253 on the bench."

What Glushko did not said Ustinov was that he intended to keep the Proton alive. Even if Chertok N-11 won the day he would have the engines to fly the Proton with liquid kerosene / oxygen, and then he would play all the flight experience amassed since 1965 against the N-11 paper project status. Much like the UR-700 and its RD-270 had been some years before, Proton and its RD-253 were Glushko tools to kill the N-1 and its offspring - tools he had *borrowed* from Chelomei, but it didn't mattered.

Glushko reached his objectives even better than in his wildest dreams. Such was the bad reputation of the N-1 that it somewhat tarnished its siblings; lack of confidence in Grom and Groza meant that Glushko modified Proton was held as a backup. In an overt mockery of Chertok Grom, Groza and Uragan meteorological monikers, Glushko had his own rocket renamed from the Russian word for snowstorm - Buran. He reasonned that in any given year the Soviet Union had more snowstorms than hurricanes or thunderstorms altogether.

He also squeezed another new program out of Ustinov. The anti-satellite weapon he had inherited from Chelomei, the Istrebitel Sputnik, was being upgraded for interception into geostationnary orbit. Its propulsion system had a truly outstanding performance, a necessity since the weapon had to make large maneuvers to catch its targets. In fact the performance was so good that a rocket upper stage called the Briz had been build from the propulsion system.

And now Glushko foresaw another possible use for the I.S / Briz. They could build a space tug out of it, a system similar to the American Agena; a vehicle able to shuttle between the space station and a low parking orbit. Any rocket in the world - from the tiny Soyuz to the huge N-1 - could launch a package on that parking orbit; and then the tug - Parom - would catch the package and bring it back to the space station, or perhaps much higher.

Building that Parom would be rather straightforward; it was just a matter of matching I.S / Briz propulsion to Soyuz Igla and/or Kurs navigation, rendezvous and docking system. Glushko had heard that Keldysh and his math institute were repeating the same paranoid mistake they had done with the Shuttle. Keldysh saw the space tug as a possible anti-satellite weapon; and indeed the Agena could perform extremely large plane changes and climb to cislunar space or even dive into the atmosphere as a height of only 100 miles.

Fueling Keldysh paranoia were spies Christopher Boyce and Daulton Lee, who leaked data on TRW spy satellites; and that disgruntled CIA employee, Kampiles, who had stolen, and sold the Soviets a KH-11 manual. More leaks were coming through the civilian Agena program, which shed a limited light on the hundreds of Agena spy satellites launched over the years - the Corona and Gambit. That, and President Carter new under-secretary of defense (also the NRO boss) Hans Mark was a former NASA center director. Both the NRO and NASA used large numbers of Agenas, a fact that had not escaped Mark - nor Ustinov and Keldysh. In their view, the civilian space tug was only a cover for more KH-8 Gambits.

So Glushko, for all his whinning, never lacked work to keep his design bureau busy. As he left Ustinov office, the soviet rocket scientist briefly thought about an abandoned field of the space program: reusable space vehicles. Main effort there was limited to Chelomei reusable Merkur capsule of the TKS ferry ship. And that was it, or so.

MiG continued working on its Spiral at snail pace, with very little funding. The hypersonic aircraft first stage was gone, replaced by a mix and match of An-124 and rocket stages (or drop tanks) burning kerosene for density and hydrogen for pure energy, or perhaps a mix of the two to optimize performance - three propellants, if oxygen oxidizer was included. There was some American engineer with similar ideas, Robert Salkeld. Variant of the Spiral space planes had also been proposed for launch by classic rockets, with little success since the TKS and Soyuz already filled the space station ferry role pretty well.

Meanwhile Myasishchev was working on something even crazier, the M(G)-19 Gurkolyot, a nuclear ramjet hypersonic aircraft with some rocket engines to reach orbit. Myasishchev and Gurko (the veteran rocket scientist behind the M-19) answered critics about wiseness of flying a nuclear pile aboard an hypersonic machine by citing a new type of reactor, the Molten Salt, as safer than the usual solid core. The two engineers had jumped on a joint US-USSR nuclear cooperation program initiated in 1974. The international aspect helped making the M-19 more visible, a bold aplication of nuclear technology to the aerospace world. Good for them. The lack of American shuttle, which already made Spiral future bleak, should have buried the even-crazier M-19. Instead it stubbornely refused to die, and Glushko knew why.

Both projects were supported by Ministry of aviation Dementyev, which had ambiguous feelings to them. He supported these space planes in order to return space designs bureau to the aviation word (in his days, Krushchev had raided and looted aviation branches in favor of rocketry); accordingly, Dementyev did not wanted his aviation department to be overloaded with space works. He has been lucky the American cancelled their shuttle, Glushko thought. Incidentally, Dementyev own son was deputy of Spiral program !

All this made Dementyev an ennemy of Greshko and Afanasyev, and de facto an ally of Ustinov - and himself, for that matter. It was the usual infighting between factions, the habitual, never ending business of Soviet matters. Oh well.

The M(G)-19 Gurkolyot by talented artist Sentinel Chicken

 

[Archibald]

ATL space program so far (ITTL October 1977, six years after the POD)

Spaceplanes

- space shuttle = dead and buried (although it still haunts NASA)
- Hermes = aborted (CNES moves in a different direction past 1977)
- Buran = obviously aborted
- MiG Spiral: continuing at a very low pace just (further than OTL since no Buran) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-105
- HOTOL / Skylon: the saga started in spring 1982, so it is still in the future (as of 1977 Alan Bond is working on Daedalus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus)

Space stations

- Skylab A: proceed as per OTL (until 1977 at least. 1978-1979 will be markedly different)
- Skylab B: grounded as per OTL, but not in NASM yet (still property of Mc Donnell Douglas)
- Salyut DOS-1 to DOS-4: as per OTL (1971 - 1974, Soyuz 11 disaster included)
- Almaz: OPS-1 & OPS-2 as per OTL, but OPS-3 grounded just like OPS-4 .
- So Salyut 5 is actually a Salyut (a DOS) and not an Almaz in disguise (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut_5)
- MOL: cancelled in June 1969 as per OTL, BUT will be revived in a different shape
- U.S / Soviet large diameter space stations in the 80's (no Proton/ Salyut or Shuttle 15ft constraint)

Manned ships & capsules

- Soyuz: as per OTL
- Apollo: as per OTL (last flight ASTP 1975) but with a better legacy
Apollo lunar missions: as per OTL (shuttle cancellation date of October 1971 is too late to change
anything to the 1970 cancellations)
- Big Gemini: the great winner of the shuttle death
- TKS: an obvious counterpart to Big Gemini
- Corona - tied to the Agena because of the KH spysats.

People

- Elon Musk: born just before the POD (June 1971) Currently a very unhappy child in apartheid South Africa
(bullied to near death)
He will find a very different space program ITTL 2001, and this will change SpaceX saga entirely

- Robert Zubrin: graduated with a PhD in mathematics from Rochester University, 1974.
Life already changed from OTL:
the shuttle death late 1971 impacted Viking positively, which impacted life of Carl Sagan friend Wolf Vishniac...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_V._Vishniac
a space scientist at (Zubrin !) Rochester University whose experiment was dropped out of Viking on cost ground
(not happening ITTL).
Young Zubrin (born in 1952 thus aged 21) met Vishniac, and later Sagan, and landed a
job at Martin Marietta in 1977 - a decade earlier than OTL (OTL Zubrin created Mars Direct in 1989 while at Martin
Marietta since the year before)
There will be no Mars Direct ITTL, but I'm confident Zubrin's genius can take different shapes.

- Vasily Mishin: although kicked out of (Korolev) OKB-1 as per OTL in May 1974, yet a happier man:
his N-1 rocket will live on, making Glushko furious.

- Boris Chertok: the faithfull OKB-1 deputy since the 50's, now in charge of OKB-1 (he outsmarted Glushko) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Chertok

- Valentin Glusko - a big change compared with OTL: he failed in his takeover of the Soviet space program in June
1974. Because some Saturn V were mothballed, the N-1 had to survive, too, and Glushko couldn't stomach that.
No Energia big rocket, no Buran, no Zenit. Horrified because N-1 is not cancelled (he hates Mishin large
lunar rocket)
Per lack of OKB-1, Glushko take over Chelomei rocket shop instead.

- Vladimir Chelomei: still the perenial loser, with Glushko taking over his little empire (earlier than OTL, and more completely)

Rockets

- space shuttle: dead and buried
- Saturn V and Saturn IB: two and five left after Apollo,stored, six of them later used to build a large space
station of Skylab legacy (one Saturn V held in reserve)
- Energia, Zenit: dead on Glushko drawing board, 1974
- N-1 : alive and kicking, fifth flight involving vehicle 8L suceeded in August 1974 putting a complete,
unmanned lunar stack to the surface. Vehicles 9L to 14L on the pipeline for varied missions. Also to be declined in
cut-off variants - N-11, N-111, a universal family of boosters to replace Proton and Soyuz
- Titan III: the great winner of the Shuttle debacle. Forced on NASA by Nixon OMB.
- Atlas and Delta: Agena variants touted as space tug launchers (Thorad kills the Delta 1000-7000 series)
- Lockheed Agena: the other great winner
Currently flies on Delta (Thorad) Atlas and Titan. As a space tug it will ferry space station modules from
injection into orbit to docking with the space station core.
As a space tug it will be integrated into a lot of other ELVs - Diamant, Blue Streak, Saturn IB, Ariane,
NASDA N-1
- Proton: doomed by its toxic propellants, to be replaced by the N-11
- Soyuz: still the great workhorse, but to be replaced by the N-111 ASAP
- Diamant: ESA Agena space tug testbed (three flights from Kourou, then CNES give it to Lockheed at bargain price
- Blue Streak: another Agena space tug carrier, to Canada thanks to General Dynamics - Canadair connexion.
- Ariane 1 to 4: well on track as per OTL, although the lack of shuttle mean that Atlas-Centaur remains a big roadblock on the way to Intelsat launches. Ariane will certainly have a thougher time than OTL breaking out on the communication satellite market.
- Ariane 5: preliminary studies are still two years in the future, but the lack of Hermes and Shuttle mean it will be definitively different than OTL oversized, overpowered and unflexible beast.

Planetary exploration

- Pioneer 10 & 11: mostly untouched (with a small twist)
- Voyager: untouched
- Viking 1& 2: mostly untouched but they slightly benefited from shuttle cancellation, Vishniac life experiment
still onboard (leading to a very different controversy over life-seeking experiment results post 1976)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_lander_biological_experiments
- Mars 4NM and 5NM: Soviet monster robotic probes to Mars, launched by N-1 rockets http://www.astronautix.com/craft/mars5nm.htm
(OTL killed with the N-1, they were a serious project in the sense they had very strong political supporters)
- Pioneer Venus: dead and buried (1978)
- Venera 11 & 12: dead and buried (1978)
- VOIR - Magellan: dead and buried (1980)
- Exploration of Venus: ITTL great loser, although the Soviets will carry on. As of 1977: in shambles for at least a decade.
- Viking 3: lander mounted on ELMS tracks, (NASA answer to the 4NM large rover) http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=17804.0
- Bruce Murray push for MSR (NASA answer to 5NM)
- Galileo & Cassini: twin Jupiter and Saturn orbiter spacecrafts in the 80's with entry probes (mostly ESA)

Hope this help !

 

[Archibald]

Wikipedia page on (OTL of course) U.S military spy satellites, the Keyholes. It is a fascinating program - as big as Apollo, but it ran much longer, and was hidden. And of course ITTL it will be impacted, because of the Agena connection - and Big Gemini.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Hole

Gambit versus Dorian: the NRO quixotic choice.

The KH-11 Kennan, first flown in 1976, marked the beginning of a conceptual revolution for the National Reconnaissance Office. Unlike all the spysats before it, the KH-11 beamed pictures electronically to the ground, real-time. All previous spysats had dropped rolls of film into reentry capsules snatched over the Pacific and brought back to the NRO headquarters, a cumbersome process that took days of time. Among those earlier satellites was the KH-8 Gambit.

As of 1971 the initial plan was for KH-8 to remain in service for years even after the KH-11 became operational in 1976. The reason was Gambit still provided high resolution photos of a quality that the KH-11 could not achieve from its higher orbit even with its bigger mirror.
But the KH-11 could provide photographs of fairly high quality nearly instantaneously. It was used to cover many more of the GAMBIT’s targets, and the KH-8 was then used much more carefully to photograph only those targets where its high resolution could be of greatest value.

But the Gambit had a major issue: it was based on an Agena.

In 1972 NASA picked up two major projects. One was Big Gemini for crew transportation. The other was to use Lockheed Agena as a versatile space tug.

Unbestknown to the civilian world, these two decisions had a major impact on the National Reconnaissance Office.
The NRO already massively used the Agena long before NASA. All Key Hole satellites from KH-1 to KH-8 were designed around an Agena bus. No less than 144 Coronas were launched, plus 82 Gambits and a handful of KH-5 and KH-6, for a grand total of 240 Agenas.
Corona was tasked with broad mapping at medium resolution. Gambit by contrast focused on the highest resolution, as small as a couple of inches.

Interestingly, NASA decision of using the Agena as a civilian space tug happened at a time when the NRO gave up the Agena bus for its future spy satellites. The KH-9, KH-10 and KH-11 were entirely different beasts.

Even with hindsight it is hard to guess what impact the civilian Agenas had on the KH-8 Gambit. Perhaps the massive production of civilian Agenas made KH-8 cheaper to build. But the civilian missions also inevitably attracted attention on the military Agenas, making the NRO bosses very nervous.

There was however another area where the civilian and NRO programs clashed.

The KH-10 Dorian, or Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) concept was that two Air Force astronauts would look through the viewfinder and if they saw something interesting, like a Soviet X-plane on an airfield, they would press a shutter button and take a picture. In the mid-1960s, an American reconnaissance satellite overflew the Soviet submarine construction facility at Severodvinsk and got lucky: a Soviet submarine was out of the water, up on rails, and in plain sight, providing a rare view of its propeller. Normally when submarines are in the water their propellers are not visible, and knowing the number of blades on a propeller is useful information for knowing how fast a submarine is moving. Sonar operators on ships or other submarines can count the number of times the blades beat the water and estimate a vessel’s speed. So this photo was a real coup. Not too long after it was taken, it was used by an instructor who was then training Air Force astronauts. He showed it to them as an example of the kind of opportunities that they might find as they orbited the Earth, peering down on the Soviet Union.

MOL therefore had two acquisition optical systems, one per astronaut. The astronauts would work side by side, with their backs towards Earth. Each could peer through his own eyepiece that showed the terrain coming up ahead, as well as through another eyepiece that showed what the KH-10 optical system was seeing at that precise moment. These acquisition optics essentially looked over the astronauts’ shoulders to the ground below. The KH-10 had a primary and secondary eyepiece so that each astronaut could see the powerful view of the ground, good enough to see people walking on a city street.

Right from its beginning in 1964 the manned MOL clashed with the unmanned KH-8 for the high resolution missions. The KH-8 was a straight development of the KH-7 that flew since 1963, the year MOL was started. The first KH-8 was flown in 1966. By contrast with that very fast development, the MOL lagged behind, plagued by delays and cost overruns.

So one may ask, why was the KH-10 pursued for so long – until 1969, with a first flight in 1972 – when the KH-8 was doing the very same job since 1966, and at a much lower cost ?

One reason why MOL was pursued after the KH-8 went into service was simply a paradigm thing.

According to former NRO boss Alexander Flax "The Air Force generals were stuck on the idea that they could have an asset where a reconnaissance of any given location under the groundtrack could be ordered up on the basis of "Hey, guys, we think something odd is happening at Site Whatever, take a look and take shots of anything you find interesting." The way the MOL paradigm worked, you didn't take pictures of everything, you had human judgment deciding what merited the high-res imagery. When you get into a paradigm that, whatever else happens, it is always best to have a trained person selecting your imaging targets real-time, you pursue MOL even when it doesn't make sense.

So as early as 1966 the KH-8 and KH-10 clashed over the very high resolution mission. The battle was over in 1969, when the KH-10 was canned.

But in 1972 a chain of events brought back the old rivalry.

The MOL was reborn from the ashes in the shape of a military Big Gemini. Incredibly, a lot of MOL hardware had already been build at the time of its cancellation in 1969, and it went into storage in Area 51. among hardware build were a handful of extremely powerful cameras, with a 1.8 m diameter mirror.

What the Air Force wanted was to fly MOL hardware on Big Gemini ships borrowed from NASA and called Blue Helios. That would be much less expensive than building MOL from a clean sheet of paper.

As we saw earlier the initial plan was for KH-8 to remain in service for some years even after the KH-11 became operational in 1976. The reason was Gambit still provided high resolution photos of a quality that the KH-11 could not achieve from its higher orbit even with its bigger mirror. But the KH-11 could provide photographs of fairly high quality nearly instantaneously. It was used to cover many more of the GAMBIT’s targets, and the KH-8 was then used much more carefully to photograph only those targets where its high resolution could be of greatest value.

But that reasonning also applied to Blue Helios. Just like the KH-8, the KH-10 camera system provided very high resolution photos of a quality that the KH-11 could not achieve from its higher orbit even with its bigger mirror.

So the NRO had to chose between the two systems. On paper the KH-8 had many advantages over Blue Helios – it was much less expensive and worked fine. But there was a major drawback with the system. NASA and civilian space companies were using Agena massively in the space tug role. Inevitably that drew attention to the military Agenas, making the NRO extremely nervous. Relations with NASA and Lockheed were extremely tensed. At the end of the day the NRO preferred to remove the Agena-based Gambit from service and fly a handful of Blue Helios missions instead. Blue Helios missions were flown at slow rate – one every 18 months, and worked in tandem with KH-11 satellites.

 

[Archibald]

THE COSMOS 929 ENIGMA

ON July 17 this year the Soviet Union launched Cosmos 929, believed by Western observers at the time to be an unmanned Soyuz precursor to the next space station, Salyut 6, the appearance of which had been expected by the middle of the year. Russia made a routine announcement that a new Cosmos had been launched but since then nothing has been said about the craft. It is now clear from visual observations by tracking groups in Britain and America that Cosmos 929 is about the same size as a Salyut. Its 51-6° orbit is also identical with that employed (though not exclusively) by manned flights in the Salyut and Soyuz series, and its telemetry has the same format.

There is however evidence that Cosmos 929 is no ordinary Salyut, but perhaps a modification or a completely new vehicle. Jim Oberg of the Texas tracking group tells Flight that the telemetry initially consisted of two separate signals, perhaps indicating the presence of two vehicles. On August 17, the 32nd day of the mission, one set of signals ceased, suggesting that one vehicle had returned to Earth.

The satellite has made a number of orbital changes, also uncharacteristic of the Salyut programme. Cosmos 929 initially followed a 227km X 275km path. On July 27, 30 and August 7 it was raised by 3km, 3-5km and 7-5km respectively. By August 17 the orbit had decayed to 193km X 224km, and on that day it was raised to 222km X 235km. On the following day a major manoeuvre occurred, the satellite being boosted into a 306km X 330km path. More small manoeuvres followed

on August 22, 26 and 31, and the orbit last week measured 317km X 332km.

There are some similarities between the behaviour of Cosmos 929 and that of Cosmos 881 and 882, launched by single rocket on December 15 last year and recovered on the same day.

Salyut to dock with Salyut?

Cosmos 929, launched on July 17, had the brilliance of a Salyut-sized spacecraft and transmitted two sets of signals until August 17. It was speculated that a portion of the spacecraft detached and re-entered at this time. It then manoeuvred to circularise its orbit at an altitude of about 330km. On December 19 the big satellite stopped its slow decay with a manoeuvre which raised its apogee to 440km, the first time that this altitude had been achieved by a Salyut-type spacecraft. During this time Salyut 6 was inhabited by the Soyuz 26 crew (Grechko and Romanenko). It is thought that Cosmos 929 was manoeuvred for simultaneous operations with Salyut 6. I believe that Cosmos 929 represents a test of a manoeuvring Salyut station capable of making large orbital changes and of docking with another Salyut. Salyut 7 might be launched within the next few weeks to dock at the front port of Salyut 6. Like the "military" Salyuts 3 and 5, Cosmos 929 was equipped with a recoverable capsule for the transportation of experimental and observation results. The Soyuz spacecraft is used principally for the transportation of cosmonauts to and from Salyuts, and only the small descent cone comes down to the ground. This module is limited in volume, leaving little room for experiments and their results. The solution is the utilisation of recoverable parts on the Salyut structure. Cosmos 929 also represents a test of the recovery of such a system.

On December 15, 1976, the dual Cosmos 881/882 launch and recovery, following a Soyuz trajectory, tested the development of recoverable sections which will be used with the next Salyut stations. In the future we can expect to see the docking of two Salyuts, and their provisioning by Cosmos 929-like vehicles. One of the two Salyuts will be equipped with several recoverable sections.

http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/histind/Almprog/tksalm.htm

 

[Archibald]

July 25, 1977

LOCKHEED WINS SPACE TELESCOPE

Lockheed Missiles and Space has beaten Boeing and Martin-Marietta in the competition to build Nasa's Space Telescope. For this major venture, the most important of half-adozen new space programmes begun this year by the space agency, the company will receive $72-8 million for initial financing. At the same time Perkin-Elmer has been chosen to build the optics, principally the 94-inch diameter primary mirror. Initially the mirror was to be 120-inch, but that was cut in 1975.

NASA did address the Space Telescope mirror size in the March 1975 hearings, at which time they were studying three options, the 3.0 meter, the 2.4, meter and the 1.8 meter telescopes. At that time NASA indicated that they were probably going to home in on 2.4 meter. It is less complex and looks to be a lower cost option than the 3.0 meter, but still is capable of good scientific observing in space. The 1.8 meter telescope did not appear to represent a significant step forward over what scientists are capable of doing from ground-based observatories, and other space observatories.While a 2.4-meter mirror reduces the light collecting area by 36 percent when compared to a 3-meter system, a further reduction to a 1.8- meter size reduces this capability by 64 percent or, stated differently, a 3-meter mirror has almost three times the light collecting area of a 1.8-meter mirror.

Central to Lockheed victorious space telescope bid has been Maxwell Hunter, one of the brighest aerospace engineer in the United States.

Hunter joined Douglas Aircraft in 1944. As chief missile design engineer, he was responsible for the design of the Thor, Nike-Zeus and other missiles. And as chief engineer of space systems, he was responsible for all Douglas space efforts, including the Delta launch vehicle and the Saturn S-IV stage of the Apollo moon rocket program.

In 1962, Hunter joined the staff of the National Aeronautics and Space Council in Washington, D.C., which was created at the same time as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration four years earlier to coordinate interagency air and space activities. As an advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, he offered insight into future space programs and the creation of the National Space Policy.

Returning to designing in 1965, Hunter began his association with Lockheed Missiles and SpaceCo. in Sunnyvale, Calif., where he worked in several areas, including the astronautics (rocket) division and the advanced development section. At Lockheed, he was responsible for the design of the Advanced Space Transportation Vehicles - StarClipper and Shuttle, and he originated the concept of using large expendable tanks in shuttle designs, a move that drastically cut costs although it was not enough to save the program.

After he led the proposal that won the Hubble Space Telescope for Lockheed, the company said that Hunter will now manage another important space asset – the Agena space tug, in collaboration with NASA Lee Scherer and (very probably) the military. Over the last years it has been realized that the Agena potential far exceeded the original space tug role, that is, ferrying space station modules from orbital insertion to docking with the space station core module. Although very busy with Lockheed space telescope bid Maxwell Hunter has published a couple of studies over the space tug and the DIAGONAL launch vehicle. Hunter has said that Agena potential is so great it may change the way we are making things in space.

 

[Archibald]

Document title: James T. McIntyre, Jr., Acting Director, Office of Management and Budget, to Robert A. Frosch, Administrator, NASA, December 23, 1977.

Source: Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta, Georgia.

DECEMBER 23, 1977

Honorable George Low

Deputy Administrator,

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Washington, D.C. 20546



Dear George:

The interpretation in your December 21 letter that “The President decided that an option for the Apollo space station lifeboat should be negotiated now . . .,” is not a correct reading of the President’s decision. Two decisions would have to be made in the outyears: 1) a decision in the context of the FY 1981 budget on whether to provide additional funds for the option; and 2) a decision then or later to exercise that option.

The President stated his explicit concern that no action be taken that might be interpreted as a possible commitment now by the Government to build Apollo space station lifeboat. The option for a lifeboat should be kept open for future Presidential consideration and it is NASA’s obligation to assure that no actions, contractual or otherwise, are taken that might tend to pre-empt the President’s future decision on Apollo rescue vehicles.

Sincerely,

James T. McIntyre, Jr.

Acting Director

 

[Archibald]

In 1978 the Italian Space Agency (ASI), NASA and McDonnell Douglas had an agreement over the Multi-Purpose Logistic Module (MPLM).

The MPLM was a truncated Big Gemini cargo module, light enough to be boosted by an Ariane 3 rocket. The MPLM was to give the Agena a pressurised module. That way the Liberty space station would have another pressurised logistic vehicle beside Big Gemini.

President Carter had just cancelled the Apollo Rescue Vehicle (ARV). This meant that mission duration to Liberty was limited to Big Gemini in orbit endurance, that is, two months when docked to Liberty. In order to cover an entire year, seven Big Gemini would have to be launched every year, but that bursted Titan III safe flight rate. NASA found itself in a quandary, since the Soviets had no such issue with Soyuz. They were breaking flight duration records on Salyut. With the Apollo rescue vehicle canned, NASA sought alternatives to keep Liberty permanently occupied. One of these alternative used the MPLM as an "on orbit lifeboat".

If Liberty was to fail, the crew would jump into the MPLM, detach it from Liberty and sail into orbit. Then they would have to wait for a Big Gemini rescue flight.

Whatever, the MPLM initiative come from the ASI alone, and not from ESA. It was cheap enough that the ASI could fund it by themselve. That avoided the extremely cumbersome ESA funding process where the agreement of every country had to be bargained.

The NASA-ASI deal gave Rockwell ideas. They tried to negociate a similar agreement with Germany DLR (again, not ESA) and the French CNES. Rockwell tried to sell these space agencies its Apollo lifeboat, a capsule that could also be used as a return vehicle for automated platforms.

The MPLM was in fact part of the so-called Space Tug Follow-On Development (FOD). Because that was considered a mere extension of the tug, funding was easier to obtain than for a new start program. Among FOD considered the main two evolutions were

• adjunction of a pressurised module to the space tug
  
  
• turning the tug into a robotic platform
  

Rockwell in fact hoped for a third possible extension of the tug capabilities, that was the addition of a return vehicle. Could Europe takeover from the U.S government, fund and build the Apollo lifeboat ? Rockwell was ready to transfer CSM-119, the very last Apollo build. Rockwell offer was heard with enthusiasm by the French space agency, the CNES.

 

[Archibald]

Last year Lockheed has taken over the abandonned DIAGONAL small launch vehicle, a derivative of France national launcher Diamant. The only launcher on the small satellite market is the SCOUT. The G1 variant can place up to 200 kg in orbit. Most SCOUT launches relate to the TRANSIT navigation system.

The TRANSIT system is primarily used by the U.S. Navy to provide accurate location information to its Polaris ballistic missile submarines, and it was also used as a navigation system by the Navy's surface ships, as well as for hydrographic survey and geodetic surveying. Development of the TRANSIT system began in 1958. The first successful tests of the system were made in 1960, and the system entered Naval service in 1964.

The Chance Vought/LTV Scout rocket was selected as the dedicated launch vehicle for the program because it delivered a payload into orbit for the lowest cost per pound. However, the Scout decision imposed two design constraints.

First, the weights of the earlier satellites were about 300 lb each, but the Scout launch capacity to the Transit orbit was about 120 lb (it was later increased significantly). A satellite mass reduction had to be achieved despite a demand for more power than APL had previously designed into a satellite.

The second problem concerned the increased vibration that affected the payload during launching because the Scout used solid rocket motors. Thus, electronic equipment that was smaller than before and rugged enough to withstand the increased vibration of launch had to be produced. Meeting the new demands was more difficult than expected, but it was accomplished. The first prototype operational satellite (Transit 5A-1) was launched into a polar orbit by a Scout rocket on 18 December 1962. Since then the constellation has been replenished on a regular basis. SCOUT rockets are launched at a rate of two to three a year, and Lockheed really hopes to tap into this market.

Lockheed however realizes that the small satellite market isn't big enough and as such they intend to create more flight opportunities by flying DIAGONAL boosters to space station Liberty. “This might become a big market and boost our flight rate up to reuse of the L-17 first stage make sense.”

ECONOMICS OF ROCKET REUSE

Lockheed aerospace engineer Maxwell Hunter recently gave a lecture about reusability to a gathering of the AIAA - the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Reflight of a previously used rocket stage on a subsequent flight is dependent on the condition of the landed stage, and is a technique that would have been used on the cancelled Space Shuttle. Maxwell Hunter projects that the reflight step of the DIAGONAL program will be straightforward, because of the multiple full duration firings of the engines that have been done on the ground, and the multiple engine restarts that have already been demonstrated, with no significant degradation seen. DIAGONAL is a simple vehicle - the engines, some structure and the plumbing - but rocket engines, even pressure-fed, are high performance machines with little margin for error. Several industry analysts continue to see potential problems that could prevent economic reuse because costs to refurbish and relaunch the stage are not yet demonstrated. Moreover, the economic case for reuse will be highly dependent on launching frequently, and that is simply unknown. The inherent simplicity of DIAGONAL pressure-fed Valois engine greatly helps, but a major caveat is, could it be scaled-up ? Ariane's Viking is the Valois true heir (with twice the power) but the French gave up pressure-fed technology in favor of a classic turbopump.

Maxwell Hunter recognizes he knows little about pressure-fed rocketry, so he hired America best specialist in the field, the legendary Robert Truax of Sea Dragon fame. "At first the Lockheed hierarchy ordered me to hire Truax, but he refused. He only accepted to be paid as a consultant". This is typical Truax – the man is fiercely independant and refuses to work for either the Government or what he calls "lumbering aerospace giants".

Truax defines himself as a backyard rocketeer churning out rockets out of his home garage. Lockheed reputation did not exactly helped, with the decade-long fuss about their bailout followed by the bribery scandal. Hunter insisted that the space branch of Lockheed had not been tainted by the scandals.

According to Hunter "I learned a lot from Truax. This man and I both pursue the same holy grail, that is, lowering the cost of space transportation. But the similarities stop there – just compare Sea Dragon with my Starclipper shuttle of 1968. I think winged space plane, he thinks big dumb ballistic rocket.

It was Truax that convinced me of DIAGONAL enormous potential. Together we realized that Diagonal might be a very interesting vehicle in the sense that the lower stage was reusable, and the upper Agena a space tug connected to the space station."

If Lockheed is successful in developing the reusable technology, it is expected to significantly reduce the cost of access to space, and change the increasingly competitive market in space launch services. Reusable DIAGONAL could drop the price by an order of magnitude, sparking more space-based enterprise, which in turn would drop the cost of access to space still further through economies of scale.

As of 1978 launch service providers who compete with Lockheed – notably Vought's Scout, but also Atlas, Delta and Titan builders - are not planning to develop similar technology or offer competing reusable launcher options. Lockheed is the only competitor that projected a sufficiently elastic market on the demand side to justify the costly development of reusable rocket technology and the expenditure of private capital to develop options for that theoretical market opportunity. Lockheed is espcifically targeting Vought new Scout-G small launch vehicle.

In order to achieve the full economic benefit of the reusable technology, it is necessary that the reuse be both rapid and complete—without a long and costly refurbishment period. Lockheed Agena (and DIAGONAL) manager Maxwell Hunter gave a realistic appraisal of the potential savings of a reused launch - a 30% saving.

Hunter said that the ability to examine the stage after it has survived the stresses of flight, to put it through qualification and flight acceptance tests to verify and gain confidence in its condition, is the first step toward economical re-use of the launch vehicle. The key to reusability, and lower launch costs, will be quick turnarounds and low refurbishment costs. And that will depend on how the boosters are affected by the stresses of launch, re-entry and landing. The key is how much work is required to return a used rocket to launch readiness.

And that's an unknown, Hunter conceded, adding “I think the business case depends on launching frequently. There has to be costs of refurbishment. Our long-range goal is just to have to pay for the fuel for the second flight.”

“Why is reusing DIAGONAL first stage such a big deal?” Hunter asked “Until now, most of the enormous expense of spaceflight has stemmed from the fact that the rockets carrying payloads to orbit have been thrown away after every flight. Each of these discarded launch vehicles costs many tens of millions of dollars, or more, for just one flight. Imagine how expensive air travel would be if each Boeing or Douglas airliner were used only for one flight and then sent to the junk heap. That absurd waste is the equivalent of what we have been doing in spaceflight since the 1950s. Just recovering only the first stage for reuse on multiple flights would allow us to significantly lower the price of launches for satellites and crewed spacecraft to a level far below what its competitors charge. Our long term goal is to be able to achieve launch costs for around one hundredth of what they currently are.

« If we successfully meet this ultimate challenge, then we are on the verge of the first true Space Age, with all of the spaceflights that have occurred before amounting to an expensive, decades-long process of baby steps leading to this new capability. » Hunter concluded.

 

[Archibald]

"Several people have aspired to lead the modern American pro-space movement at one time or another, and there have been suggestions that the right individual could have brought it together. The names usually put forward are Wernher von Braun, whose background was controversial and who died before the pro-space phenomenon really blossomed; Gerard K. O'Neill, who many believe does not have the political skills required; and Carl Sagan, whose liberal political stance alienates him from many pro-space people and whose criticisms of the manned space program have not endeared him to groups such as the L-5 Society.

As for organizations, the National Space Institute and the L-5 Society each may have had the chance to become the nexus of a pro-space movement, but none succeeded so far. Pro-space citizens groups have not yet coordinated successfully with other parts of the space interest constituency, such as the Aerospace Industries Association. Today the pro-space community remains without a joint organization, a single dominant leader, or a universally agreed platform.

The National Space Institute was created in 1975 but soon Von Braun's declining health prevented him from devoting his full energies to the new organization; the next year he had to gave up the presidency. Von Braun's death in June 1977 was a serious blow for the institute, whose fund raising had never reached the critical mass necessary for exponential growth.

Meanwhile, astronomer Carl Sagan was approached to see if he would be willing to join the board. Sagan reportedly expressed interest but only on the conditions that more scientists be put on the board and that NSI take a broader view of space than the manned spaceflight program. This did not happened, and Sagan went away.

It was hardly a surprise Sagan didn't fit too well into von Braun vision.

According to Sagan himself there can be no doubt regarding von Braun's significance:

"Wernher von Braun played an absolutely essential role in the history of rocketry and the development of spaceflight — equally on the inspirational as on the technical sideHis Collier's articles and his popular books — especially the Conquest of the Moon and the Conquest of Mars — were influential in shaping my teenage view about the feasibility and nature of interplanetary flight. Much later, his 'Mars Project' and I'm sure affected my later view of Martian exploration."

There is little doubt that von Braun's example also encouraged the planetary scientist in his secondary career as a science popularizer and celebrity. However, as an academic scientist with little patience for the military-industrial complex that fostered von Braun's working life, Sagan also found the engineer's smooth compliance with the militarism and racist ideology of Nazi Germany deeply disturbing. The moral that Sagan draws from von Braun's apparent complaisance under the Nazi regime is that

"it is the responsibility of the scientist or engineer to hold back and even, if necessary, to refuse to participate in technological development no matter how 'sweet' — when the auspices or objectives are sufficiently sinister.

While Sagan spent a good portion of his public career working for the scientific exploration of space, he is no fan of von Braun's single-minded devotion to the dream. Despite von Braun's eminence, Sagan can not sanction his predecessor's willing[ness] to use any argument and accept any sponsorship as long as it could get us into space.

In the end Sagan, Von Braun and their respective followers were too different to work together.

At the end of the day Sagan felt much closer from the third major space advocate of the time - Gerad O'Neill.

The argument that cultural diversity would be a highly desirable result of space colonies persuaded many astrofuturists on the left. Sagan himself began revising a long-held skepticism about the human exploration of space because O'Neill's grand idea offered the possibility of utopian experiments on the space frontier. With an eye toward the relevance of space colonization to contemporary concerns, Sagan substituted the term space city for space colony, arguing,

"I think Space Colonies conveys an unpleasant sense of colonialism which is not, I think the spirit behind the idea."

With this gesture toward eschewing the imperialist traditions of astrofuturism, Sagan registers his belief that

"The idea of independent cities in space — each perhaps built on differing social, economic or political assumptions, or having different ethnic antecedents — is appealing, an opportunity for those deeply disenchanted with terrestrial civilizations to strike out on their own somewhere else. In its earlier history, America provided such an opportunity for the restless, ambitious and adventurous. Space cities could be a kind of America in the skies. They also would greatly enhance the survival potential of the human species."

Both Sagan and O'Neill embraced the space frontier as the arena in which the American experience as Utopian experiment could be replayed and vindicated.

It is thus no surprise that Sagan ultimately threw his weight behind the L-5 society rather than the National Space Institute. His move has had the unfortunate result of more isolation on the von Braun side of space advocacy. Many saw this as a missed opportunity to build a single, general pro-space organization. They were right and wrong at the same time. Sagan fame was welcomed at the L-5 society; it helped the movement to survive the collapse of the early dream that happened after 1977. With the help of former JPL director Bruce Murray and planetary scientist Lou Friedman Sagan lost no time changing the orientation of the L-5 society to more down-to-ground objectives. Surviving L-5 advocates balanced the trio views and ensured the society remained in good terms with the human spaceflight community, including the NSI. Sagan tolerated this only because the long term goal of human colonization of space was a valuable, noble concept. After some years the declining National Space Institute merged with the L-5 society and thus was born the Space Settlement Society (also known as 3S)

After the Space Colonies hype faded, the nascent 3S threw its suport behind NASA space station Liberty. They funded a lot of experiments that were flew aboard Agenas or to the space station. A good example is the mini-centrifuge were mammals were tested against different gravity levels.

Then the 3S leadership made a major discovery: that in-space settlement is nowhere present within the NASA charter. They realized that the reason for that absence is that, well, the US governement has no urgent need to send its citizens living on the Moon or Mars or anywhere else. Meanwhile article VI of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty made clear that governments should issues licence to private companies wanting to sell space infinite resources. Sagan, O'Neil, Vishniac and Robin Zubert struggled to define the role of the Space Settlement Society. The society new mission would be first, to smooth the relation between NASA and private companies by working on article VI of the OST. The 3S second mission would be to take the helm from NASA once exploration would be replaced by colonisation and resource exploitation – somewhere in an unimaginable future. The 3S members also started a long term reflexion about the future of space stations. Clearly there was a gap between NASA Earth orbit space stations and O'Neil L5 colonies. At some point the 3S leadership was split between Moon-first and Mars-first partisans. It was Wolf Vishniac that noted that, if emplaced at the right position, a space station could be useful to Moon, Mars, but also asteroid missions. There was a healthy debate about the next space station emplacement – shall it be LEO or further, either in cislunar space or at the edge of Earth sphere of influence ?

 

[Archibald]

And now... a little Alt pop culture entry, with butterflies flapping their wings for a better future (I told you I disliked dystopia !)

------------------------


In 1973 Michael Crichton debut film, called Westworld, was a major critical and financial success. Westworld story is that of an android amusement park going awol –with the robots killing the visitors.

According to Crichton himself what inspired him to write it were two different experiences, as it turns out.

"I’d visited Kennedy Space Center and seen how astronauts were being trained – and I realized that they were really machines. Those guys were working very hard to make their responses, and even their heartbeats, as machine-like and predictable as possible. At the other extreme, one can go to Disneyland and see Abraham Lincoln standing up every 15 minutes to deliver the Gettysburg Address. That’s the case of a machine that has been made to look, talk and act like a person. I think it was that sort of a notion that got the picture started."

Westworld rapidly earned a cult classic as a film and later as a serie. Then although Crichton himself disagreed a sequel was planned for realese in 1976 or 1977.

Tentatively called Futureworld the movie was to felt as if it were shot on location at an industrial theme park - thanks to extensive shooting at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Paul Lazarus “We needed NASA because in the Futureworld scenario when at the resort, guests choose from a range of theme parks: Medievalworld, Romanworld, and Futureworld. The latter actually simulates an orbiting space station, and that explains why we needed NASA so badly.

Prominent as "sets" were to be such distinctive sights as the giant circular latch of the Space Environment Simulator Laboratory, and one of the Mission Operations Control Rooms, with its familiar rows of computer monitors facing a large bank of tracking screens.

The Space Environment Simulation Laboratory (SESL) in Building 32 at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center was built in 1965. It initially was used to test Apollo Program spacecraft and equipment in a space environment. It can simulate the vacuum and thermal environments that would be encountered. It consists of two human-rated chambers: A (larger) and B. It is an immense room, large enough to swallow entire moonships .

So Futureworld scenario was written in a way that made it highly dependant from NASA infrastructures.

And there according to Lazarus –
“we hit a brickwall. That NASA huge facility we were to film in was overcrowded. As of 1975 NASA was very busy testing Big Geminis and Agenas and space station modules. The SESL churned manned spaceships one after another at an accelerated pace. There was a lot of testing going on that used the SESL... so NASA was unwilling to have a movie filmed there.

"They just didn't have any spare time left. Together with Crichton disaproval that completely sunk Futureworld even before production started. AFAIK the scenario still languish in development hell, and considering Crichton hatred for it, I can't see it being done anytime soon.

"Our failure to obtain NASA cooperation was to be felt again a year later.
Another movie project was to fall by the wayside.
It all started with that poor Peter Hyams, which had just get carbonised by its box-office bomb Peepers. What a disaster that movie had been. Yet Hyams still had plenty of projects, and they somewhat involved NASA. It makes for an interesting, if not sad, story.

The story developed years before, in 1972, when Peter Hyams, then working at CBS's Boston office, was helping to cover the Apollo moon shots. While working there, Hyams witnessed the NASA-constructed simulations to be aired on network news, showing the world what was happening with the craft in space as it flew to its destination. As Hyams watched, he began to notice just how real the simulations looked.

'I grew up with parents who believed if it was in newspapers, it was true,' says Hyams.

'I was part of the generation that believed if it was on television, it was true.

"I remember while working at CBS one day, looking at the monitor and thinking, 'Wait a minute! Everybody is looking at the simulation. Suppose you did a really good simulation?' The NASA moon program was a story with only one camera. Normally, all big stories have tons and tons of cameras for thorough coverage. Not so with the moon shots. It all had to be done from the studio. That raised questions in my mind about how the story could be presented. The whole Watergate backlash kicked in. I once said that I owe my career to H.R. Haldemann.'

Due to the nature of his work at CBS, Hyams had accessibility to vast amounts of NASA research, such as mission books and command module schematics from which to draw inspiration. He began writing the script around 1974-1975, with plans of developing a feature film that he would direct himself.

By that time, Hyams was established in television and feature films as a writer, director and producer. But in the mid-1970s, he directed Fat Chance with Natalie Wood and Michael Caine, a movie considered so bad that it was barely released under the title Peepers, and nearly put Hyams out of business as a filmmaker of any kind.

So Hyams come in my room, and tell me "Gosh, I have a couple of scripts, but nobody will read them. I read them, they were called Capricorn One and Hanover Street. The Capricorn script was kind of space Watergate, with NASA in the ingrate role of Nixon, faking a Mars shot, lying to the public, and ultimately killing reluctant astronauts !

We decided to try and produce the Capricorn One scenario and soon realized that, once again, we would need NASA cooperation. Yet for obvious reasons this was a highly unlikely film to get NASA cooperation, because they were the bad guys in the movie.

It happened that I had a excellent connection in Houston, a nice guy that had helped us for the aborted Futureworld project. The guy had been very sorry when the movie had been canned per lack of time. He had nonetheless told me to stay in touch, that maybe NASA schedule might slow in the years to come, allowing movie maker to use their infrastructures as movie sets.

So I red Hymas Capricorn scenario and called that Houston relation, and he said he would have to see a script. I said to Peter, 'We're dead.'

I sent the script and to my great surprise my contact said, "Oh, it's a good story! We'll be happy to give you our prototype landing module." I was stunned. "Wait, how will you have that script approved by your superiors ?' He said, "If it has to go to NASA Headquarters Washington, you will be finished. Yet even if didn't do Futureworld I really appreciated you, so I'll do it on my own initiative.”

Alas, some weeks later did the shit hit the fan. My Houston connection called back and told me that, although he had loved Hyams scenario, once again NASA busy schedule meant that the scenario would have to go through their Washington headquarters.

Needless to say, when they heard of Hyams scenario NASA top brass hit the roof and my connection in Houston had its head cut short – he was sacked. I had to tell Peter Hyams that Capricorn was dead - and we made Hanover street instead. Even with a post Star Wars Harrison Ford that movie bombed at the box office and definitively buried Peter Hymas career as a film maker.

It happened that O.J Simpson had had a minor role in the Cassandra crossings, and Grade liked his performance.

Even before his retirement from football and in the NFL, O. J Simpson embarked on a successful film career with parts in films such as the television mini-series Roots (1977), and the dramatic motion pictures The Klansman (1974), The Towering Inferno (1974), The Cassandra Crossing (1976). The same year Paul Lazarus started pre-production of Peter Hyams Capricorn One.

O.J. Simpson was one of the first cast, not particularly because of his acting abilities, but because he was represented by the agent who had introduced Lazarus to Grade in the first place, and the agent wanted his client, a recognizable personality who had appeared in Grade's The Cassandra Crossing, to be in the picture. Thus cancellation of Capricorn One was a blown for O.J Simpson, who had been casted as one of the three NASA astronauts faking the Mars landing.

On June 24, 1967, Simpson had married Marguerite L. Whitley at age nineteen. Together they had three children: Arnelle, Jason and Aaren.

Simpson met Nicole Brown in 1977 while she was working as a waitress at the nightclub "The Daisy". Although still married to his first wife, Simpson began dating Brown. Simpson and Marguerite divorced in March 1979.

In August 1979, five months after the couple divorced, Aaren nearly drowned in the family's swimming pool a month before her second birthday. O.J barely come in time to save her. This story somewhat leaked in the press and made Simpson a hero.

Simpson told his friend (and advocate) Robert Kardashian the event forever changed his life. Before the incident he planned to create his own film production company, Orenthal Productions, which dealt mostly in made-for-TV fares. Instead after ending his football career in the early 80's Simpson went into a quiet retirement.

 

[Archibald]

October 1977

Bean, Evans and Lousma eyed the incoming Soyuz.

"The reds are coming" Lousma said.

"Houston, this is Mankind, hum, the Soviets have jettisoned their Soyuz, hijacked our ship and are now asking for political asylum. Waiting your instructions." Alan Bean laughed loud. "Imagine their faces in Mission Control."

The hatch opened. Anotoli Filipchenko head appeared; as he warmly shaked hand of the soviet commander, Evans had a brief glance within Soyuz 22 cramped orbital module. Early on there had been talks about repeating Apollo-Soyuz, or to bring Salyut back into the bargaining. When both proved impossible, and with Big Gemini maturing quite well, the Soyuz-Helios solution become a natural winner.

So a large pressurised module had been handpicked on McDonnell Douglas production line, and half of it outfitted as a makeshift American laboratory of obvious Skylab and Enterprise heritage. There was a strong European participation, notably from Germany – it was a consolation prize after the sortie lab had been withdrawn in favor of the Agena Space Tug.

Then the Helios cargo module had been shiped to the Soviet Union; at a plant near Moscow the module had been given a Salyut treatment, and then, once ready, it had been shipped back to the United States and mated to both the crew module and to the Titan that would carry the whole thing into orbit.

By contrast with that messy, two years process the docking and crew entry had been a rather straightforward affair. It had been much simple than the previous joint flight, since, rather ironically, the American side had now an atmosphere similar to the Soyuz. Or Salyut, by the way. What a mission that would have been - had Helios docked to a soviet space station. But NASA had missed again a rendezvous with the Soviet station.

The Soviets had given the same reasons they had given five years earlier. That Salyut was still not ready was hard to believe. Whatever the reasons, Big Gemini had been more than a backup to the lost station: the pressurised module by itself was nearly as big as a Salyut. The cargo section had been outfitted as a so-called International Space Platform, and filled with Skylab and Salyut experiments. Over the course of the mission, 72 scientific experiments were carried out, spanning the fields of atmospheric and plasma physics, astronomy, solar physics, material sciences, technology, astrobiology and Earth observations. The mission would be twice as long as the first shot, and the crews even exchanged positions within their respective cockpits - although only in orbit, of course. The time had not come yet for a true crew exchange, where astronauts would come down in Kazakhstan and cosmonauts at the Cape. The defection of Viktor Belenko to Japan aboard its MiG-25 had evidently made both sides nervous.

Nikolai Rukavishnikov joined the party. The atmosphere was cordial, the five men shared their meals: tubes of bortsch filled with bortsch, tubes of bortsch labelled vodka which contained bortsch, and, unknown to the ground, tubes of bortsch that contained vodka - unlike Apollo-Soyuz, this time the vodka was for real.

The next day the ground awoke them with the Beach Boys hit Wouldn't it be nice and, as result, all day long Bean couldn't got the damn song out of his head.

They posed for a memorable photo. Bean sat ackwardly in the Soyuz cockpit, running into the walls every time he moved a finger. He couldn't believe the Soviet didn't have, somewhere, a roomier and more advanced ship. There was not much room for cargo, for food and clothes and water and other goodies that made a station a liveable place. Whether or not the Soviets were developing an Agena or a Big Gemini remained an unsolved mystery. Even Soyuz toilet didn't stood a chance against Helios bathroom, a welcome change from those horrible bags they used in Apollo... well worth seven years in bathroom hell, Bean though. During his lunar flight, he had prefered a massive dose of imodium, so huge he had not shit for the whole trip. Now he happily noticed how the Soviet crew settled for the American toilet rather than their own Soyuz gear. Shitting in the same orbital poo-hole; long live detente. He smiled.

Down on planet Earth Glushko monitored the mission progress. He had not realized it before, but it actually was a boost for his own plans. Big Gemini had made the Soyuz look pathetic, and that would help the TKS, which by pure coincidence was very similar to the American manned ship.

 

[Archibald]

And now a little entry about the space program influencing politics...

December 1977

George Low had been a loyal NASA deputy administrator to Paine, during Fletcher brief stint, and ultimately to James Beggs. Now it was time to leave, to return to Rensselaer, the technical institute that had given him so much in his youth, before the NASA days.

He and Beggs were leaving on a triumphant note - the success of the second joint-flight with the Soviets.

They were not the only to leave the sapce arena.

That day George Low paid a last visit to Olin "Tiger" Teague, a staunch supporter of the space program whose fast declining health was cuting into his political career.

Thirty years before Teague had fought in WWII, from Overlord Utah beach to the Siegfried line were he had ran out of luck - some shrapnel had literally blown his ankle, and he had been shot, and barely survived. Teague famously saif about his landing in Utah " I saw piles of dead bodies and wondered how such things happened. I felt it was the fault of government, so I would embrace a political career."

And now the old battle wounds had awoken, forcing Tiger Teague into retirement. A WWII highly decorated hero, Teague had fought teeth and nails for the veterans rights. And, incidentally, for NASA: he had been one of those congressman – generously - holding the purse of the space agency budget. That, and the fact that Texas was a key state benefitting a lot from the space program.

That time was gone, however, and Teague now focused on his succession, about who would succeed him as Texas 6th district representative in the House.

The battle promised to be epic. On the Democratic side only were three candidates. There was some TV anchor, Ron Godbey, facing two favourites of Teague - Chet Edwards and Phil Gramm.

Two years before Godbey had seriously challenged Teague, and now others concerns had arosed. Olin Teague had made Gramm his logical successor... until Gramm proved to be an asshole that tried to backstab him, pushing him by the wayside. And by the way, Gramm looked more and more like a Republican lost on the Democratic side. He's speaking like Reagan, damn him. Deregulation all day long.

Ultimately Teague affect went to a young student of Gramm himself, Chet Edwards. The strategy ultimately worked, although by an extremely thin margin. Edwards bet Gramm only a mere 80 votes, and ultimately won the runoff against Godbey... and he was only twenty-six !

Low made sure Teague thoroughly briefed his successor over the necessity of a healthy, well-funded space program.

Low has been invited to the party celebrating Chet Edwards victory. Teague and Low shared a drink, and Teague noted "That was a razor thin margin for Chet. Who knows, if I had funded a different manned space program , here in Texas, maybe that Phil Gram could have won that election. How about that, George. The space program changing the face of politics. It says here !”

http://www.historyforsale.com/olin-e-teague-photograph-signed/dc315689

Olin "Tiger" Teague.

Post scriptum: just browse "Phil Gramm" on Google and see by yourself how much damage he has done. America (and the world) would be better place if he had not been elected, ever.

 

[Archibald]

...Back in '72 the X-27 was rumoured to be Lockheed CL-1200, a much uprated F-104 Starfighter. Johnson wanted to build a pair of experimental aircrafts (hence the X-plane) and then sell its machine as a lightweight fighter to complement the F-15.

But the next year, in 1973 Lockheed dropped the scheme and the CL-1200, to concentrate on their Agena space tug bid. Thus the X-27 slot was not attributed to this project.

(the X-27 that never was)

Instead the X-27 moniker was given to the Subscale Shuttle Program (SSP). It was an atempt at salvaging something valuable out of the Space Shuttle fiasco. Over the last five years the X-27 program proceded as follow.

First was the X-27A - Vehicle 101 flown in 1974 as an unpowered glider. It was first dropped from an helicopter and later on by NASA NB-52A.

X-27B are piloted vehicles 102 and 103. They are powered by the plain old XLR-11 rocket engine that reach as far back as the Bell X-1 of 1946. The XLR-11 also powered all three lifting bodies, and was used for early flights of the X-15. The piloted X-27Bs are 9 meter long with a span of 6 meters and a weight of 20 000 pounds. Top speed is around mach 2. Much like the X-planes that preceded them the subscale shuttles are air dropped from NASA NB-52B aircraft. In '73 a battle raged about the vehicle wing shape. Maxime Faget wanted a straight wing with a classic tail. The delta-wing however had strong supporters. A compromise was found with short, medium-mounted delta wing complete with a V-tail.

The following X-27C and X-27D didn't go anywhere. An hypersonic variant proposed in 1975-76, the piloted X-27C with the XLR-99 might be build at a later date, but its future remain very uncertain.

The unpiloted, unpowered X-27D might be send into suborbital flight test, probably by a Titan II.

A logical follow-on to the X-27D as proponed by North American Rockwell is the X-27E - a space station rescue vehicle and a more sophisticated alternative to their own Apollo capsule. Rockwell touts horizontal landings and glided reentry as major advantages in the case of bringing back a badly hurt astronaut.

According to Harrison Storms "With wings you can ride the atmosphere instead of brutally sinking through it. G-forces are accordingly much lower, a mere 1.5 G, so low that an astronaut might stand on his feet during reentry.

Finally, the X-27F is an orbital, operational, military variant of the X-27D – still unmanned, and launched by an augmented Titan II into orbit for weeks at a time. Despite the Air Force best efforts, it has not been funded yet. President Carter is dead set against any militarization of space, and thus doesn't want the X-27F to ever fly. At the end of the day only three X-27s have flown so far, the single X-27A glider and the piloted, powered X-27Bs.