Space station Liberty (3)
Archibald
Banned
November 14, 1979
The late 70’s had been hard times for NASA, and latest news were not exactly encouraging. The closure of Marshall had opened a Pandora box,with many NASA facilities now threatened. The venerable aeronautical centers – Ames, Lewis, Langley, Dryden – were said to overlap each others. There were talks about closing one or even two of them, with the others taking over some of Goddard overwhelming workload. Wallops Island was threatened, too; future of the sounding rocket facility would probably be a merger with Goddard or Kennedy, or closure. The biggest blow, however, had been closure of Marshall Space flight Center, Alabama. It had hurt the space agency morale like hell.
From 1968 onward Marshall had rightly feared the inevitable Apollo draw-down. Their last hope - that the shuttle used the Saturn first stage as its booster - had vanished with Titan III and Helios . Eberhard Rees and even Werner von Braun himself had vehemently opposed any solid rocket motors on a manned rocket; if Helios was to replace the shuttle, Saturn IB offered a safer, smoother ride into orbit to its crew. But Nixon Bureau of the Budget endorsed the Titan, and never changed their minds.
Then Marshall frantically tried to push an uprated Saturn for unmanned missions, citing its very large diameter, superior lifting power and reliability. Their lobbying efforts had yield mixed results. They first staged a pyrrhic victory when the remaining Saturn IB was preferred to Titan as launchers of the space station modules.
But Marshall ultimate objective, which was to put an upgraded Saturn IB back into production, had failed. So had they diverse attempts at diversification, notably in the field of astronomy. And this had backfired violently, ultimately sealing the center fate.
The fate of Marshall should have made his arch-rival, Johnson, rather happy, but they were not. The lack of a low cost transportation system to orbit had forced to refrain their ambitions. There had been a very ambitious project, called the Space Operation Center - SOC - with a message that was crystal clear: fuck the science, long live the beauty of engineering. The SOC would be autonomous from the ground, it would have powerful space tugs that would be refilled with liquid hydrogen, and astronauts would build very large space structures to be flown in geostationary orbit, either comsats or powersats. All fine, except for the lack of shuttle; and that clearly made the engineering-driven JSC crazy.
Half a decade earlier Story England had successfully gone through the astronaut selection process – in some way humiliating. Every corner of his body had been checked out carefully – no place for intimacy.
Story had been selected in 1974 with nine men and women. They were all scientist astronauts, and were to fly to space station Liberty in the mid-80’s. They were the third group of scientists ever selected by NASA, and after two years at ascan school (astronaut candidates) their first assignment had been as capcoms for ASTP and early Helios missions. They had been highly encouraged to specialize in some aspects of the future space station, so Story had spent long hours in mockups at Johnson, McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell.
At Downey, California he had followed the build-up and test of Liberty and Destiny giant space station cores. The station base block was even larger than Skylab; at 33 feet wide, it matched the S-IC and S-II outer diameter, making its Saturn V look stubbier than usual. As if two S-II, not one, were stacked on top of the S-IC. At 30 meters tall the shroud enclosing the space station was as high as a small housing block.
Boeing, Rockwell and Marshall had had to evaluate the impact of such large fairing on the Saturn stack. A year earlier at NASA Lewis center Story had witnessed a capital event – a ground test of the shroud. The simulation had had to be made in a immense chamber pressure simulating near vacuum. It had been over in second: explosive bolts had split the giant cone into four quadrants. Later Story had been shown slow-motion videos where explosive pins and bolts severed the shroud, launching the huge quadrants across the room, into catch-nets. It was a fantastic sight, but only a mundane test in a myriad of checkouts leading to the Liberty launch.
Whatever misery had been inflicted to NASA over the last decade, today Liberty and its Saturn V carrier were ready to launch on Pad 39A. Pad 39B still featured the Eiffel-like milkstool used to make tiny Saturn IBs as tall as their bigger moonrocket siblings. The S-IC featured five engines; in the central position, the usual F-1 had been replaced by a F-1A. This provided extra payload and a unique opportunity for a flight test. Obviously such a test on a flight that carried a very expensive station core was risky. Saturn V however, had excellent engine-out capability, as demonstrated two times in the Apollo era. If the F-1A proved troublesome, it would be shut down with the F-1s firing longer and harder to fill the gap in performance.
The Saturn took its time - seeming to barely move while billowing immense tongs of fire. It seemed to take forever to clear the tower- seconds during which Story mind and heart were on the edge wondering if the whole thing could fall back into those flames.
And then the sound arrived.
It was like continuous thunder - every time Story felt it couldn't get any louder, it get. Vibration seemed to pass into his bones. He remembered how, twelve years earlier, Walter Cronkite had its press van metal roof turned into a sledge hammer. The bird rose, the flames spew and the thunder continued- rising in pitch as the Saturn climbed, finally dissipating into a sound like a billion sheets of heavy paper being torn lengthwise for a whole minute.
Story found himself wowing.
The irony was this launch may have been one in the row of assembly of a Mars mission in low Earth orbit. Liberty may well have been the mission module of an Ares stack heading to the red planet.
“With a stretched S-II stage to depart Earth, plus an Apollo to ferry the crew through Earth atmosphere at both end of the trip” Story thought, “the only new start in this Mars program would have been the Mars Excursion Module” – the MEM, NASA acronym for Rockwell manned Mars lander. Story had seen North American glossy 1967 brochure, which fixed MEM development costs at $4 billion “cheaper than any shuttle proposal. If only…”
Far above Cap Canaveral the crew of Enterprise – the fly-alone module to be joined at Liberty the next year – had witnessed a tremendous show: the launch of a mighty Saturn V, as seen from orbit. While Apollo 17 had lifted-off at night Skylab lift-off in a clouded sky had prevented tracking cameras to record the solar array mishap. So, to the Enterprise crew regret, they wouldn't see a night launch of Saturn V from orbit. They couldn't helped thinking it would make one hell of a light show; Apollo 17 night launch had been seen hundreds of miles around. The crew jokingly said they might eye an N-1 launch someday, and that would be equally spectacular.
Explorers: Saturn V to launch a space station, and a Titan III to carry a crew.
The late 70’s had been hard times for NASA, and latest news were not exactly encouraging. The closure of Marshall had opened a Pandora box,with many NASA facilities now threatened. The venerable aeronautical centers – Ames, Lewis, Langley, Dryden – were said to overlap each others. There were talks about closing one or even two of them, with the others taking over some of Goddard overwhelming workload. Wallops Island was threatened, too; future of the sounding rocket facility would probably be a merger with Goddard or Kennedy, or closure. The biggest blow, however, had been closure of Marshall Space flight Center, Alabama. It had hurt the space agency morale like hell.
From 1968 onward Marshall had rightly feared the inevitable Apollo draw-down. Their last hope - that the shuttle used the Saturn first stage as its booster - had vanished with Titan III and Helios . Eberhard Rees and even Werner von Braun himself had vehemently opposed any solid rocket motors on a manned rocket; if Helios was to replace the shuttle, Saturn IB offered a safer, smoother ride into orbit to its crew. But Nixon Bureau of the Budget endorsed the Titan, and never changed their minds.
Then Marshall frantically tried to push an uprated Saturn for unmanned missions, citing its very large diameter, superior lifting power and reliability. Their lobbying efforts had yield mixed results. They first staged a pyrrhic victory when the remaining Saturn IB was preferred to Titan as launchers of the space station modules.
But Marshall ultimate objective, which was to put an upgraded Saturn IB back into production, had failed. So had they diverse attempts at diversification, notably in the field of astronomy. And this had backfired violently, ultimately sealing the center fate.
The fate of Marshall should have made his arch-rival, Johnson, rather happy, but they were not. The lack of a low cost transportation system to orbit had forced to refrain their ambitions. There had been a very ambitious project, called the Space Operation Center - SOC - with a message that was crystal clear: fuck the science, long live the beauty of engineering. The SOC would be autonomous from the ground, it would have powerful space tugs that would be refilled with liquid hydrogen, and astronauts would build very large space structures to be flown in geostationary orbit, either comsats or powersats. All fine, except for the lack of shuttle; and that clearly made the engineering-driven JSC crazy.
Half a decade earlier Story England had successfully gone through the astronaut selection process – in some way humiliating. Every corner of his body had been checked out carefully – no place for intimacy.
Story had been selected in 1974 with nine men and women. They were all scientist astronauts, and were to fly to space station Liberty in the mid-80’s. They were the third group of scientists ever selected by NASA, and after two years at ascan school (astronaut candidates) their first assignment had been as capcoms for ASTP and early Helios missions. They had been highly encouraged to specialize in some aspects of the future space station, so Story had spent long hours in mockups at Johnson, McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell.
At Downey, California he had followed the build-up and test of Liberty and Destiny giant space station cores. The station base block was even larger than Skylab; at 33 feet wide, it matched the S-IC and S-II outer diameter, making its Saturn V look stubbier than usual. As if two S-II, not one, were stacked on top of the S-IC. At 30 meters tall the shroud enclosing the space station was as high as a small housing block.
Boeing, Rockwell and Marshall had had to evaluate the impact of such large fairing on the Saturn stack. A year earlier at NASA Lewis center Story had witnessed a capital event – a ground test of the shroud. The simulation had had to be made in a immense chamber pressure simulating near vacuum. It had been over in second: explosive bolts had split the giant cone into four quadrants. Later Story had been shown slow-motion videos where explosive pins and bolts severed the shroud, launching the huge quadrants across the room, into catch-nets. It was a fantastic sight, but only a mundane test in a myriad of checkouts leading to the Liberty launch.
Whatever misery had been inflicted to NASA over the last decade, today Liberty and its Saturn V carrier were ready to launch on Pad 39A. Pad 39B still featured the Eiffel-like milkstool used to make tiny Saturn IBs as tall as their bigger moonrocket siblings. The S-IC featured five engines; in the central position, the usual F-1 had been replaced by a F-1A. This provided extra payload and a unique opportunity for a flight test. Obviously such a test on a flight that carried a very expensive station core was risky. Saturn V however, had excellent engine-out capability, as demonstrated two times in the Apollo era. If the F-1A proved troublesome, it would be shut down with the F-1s firing longer and harder to fill the gap in performance.
The Saturn took its time - seeming to barely move while billowing immense tongs of fire. It seemed to take forever to clear the tower- seconds during which Story mind and heart were on the edge wondering if the whole thing could fall back into those flames.
And then the sound arrived.
It was like continuous thunder - every time Story felt it couldn't get any louder, it get. Vibration seemed to pass into his bones. He remembered how, twelve years earlier, Walter Cronkite had its press van metal roof turned into a sledge hammer. The bird rose, the flames spew and the thunder continued- rising in pitch as the Saturn climbed, finally dissipating into a sound like a billion sheets of heavy paper being torn lengthwise for a whole minute.
Story found himself wowing.
The irony was this launch may have been one in the row of assembly of a Mars mission in low Earth orbit. Liberty may well have been the mission module of an Ares stack heading to the red planet.
“With a stretched S-II stage to depart Earth, plus an Apollo to ferry the crew through Earth atmosphere at both end of the trip” Story thought, “the only new start in this Mars program would have been the Mars Excursion Module” – the MEM, NASA acronym for Rockwell manned Mars lander. Story had seen North American glossy 1967 brochure, which fixed MEM development costs at $4 billion “cheaper than any shuttle proposal. If only…”
Far above Cap Canaveral the crew of Enterprise – the fly-alone module to be joined at Liberty the next year – had witnessed a tremendous show: the launch of a mighty Saturn V, as seen from orbit. While Apollo 17 had lifted-off at night Skylab lift-off in a clouded sky had prevented tracking cameras to record the solar array mishap. So, to the Enterprise crew regret, they wouldn't see a night launch of Saturn V from orbit. They couldn't helped thinking it would make one hell of a light show; Apollo 17 night launch had been seen hundreds of miles around. The crew jokingly said they might eye an N-1 launch someday, and that would be equally spectacular.
Explorers: Saturn V to launch a space station, and a Titan III to carry a crew.
