Relaunched Moonshot "The Journeys of the Saturn"

[NHBL]

Speed of launch...

How quickly could the USA get a mission ready to land and retrieve the Soviets? And would the Soviets ask for help, or refuse to admit that there was a problem, and blame the demise of their astronauts on a freak accident.

Or--the USA might, in a spirit of cooperation and to honor fallen heroes (and get a good look at what they did, and perhaps retrieve anything they don't want the Soviets to have) send a special mission to retrieve the bodies.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

It is just barely doable, the Soviet's are taking things to the edge. The battery mass I had for re-chargeable was around 3,000 kg with 120 Wh/kg. Not sure if that was completely accurate for re-chargeable Silver-Oxide batteries for the time but I figured it would get me in the ball park. The key thing that helps is the LK-Habitat doesn't need to devote anything to ascent purposes. The Apollo LM Ascent stage had over 2500kg in just propellant. However power is a issue which is why the Soviet's are strongly looking at Nuclear unlike NASA. Probably something like the Soviet Topaz reactors for future missions. However that would have required another launch for just the nuclear power plant and the Soviet Leadership was putting pressure on the Space program to achieve a landing before the NASA Apollo LESA program started. So you had this temporary solution of batteries with solar panels.

Oh yes the keeping the lander heated is going to become a issue.

Oh. Good.

I wasn't sure you'd taken that into account. I'm glad to see you did.

 

[e of pi]

How quickly could the USA get a mission ready to land and retrieve the Soviets?

No less than about a month. In other words, unless it aeready was ready (and with their mission already in orbit that's unlikely), they can't help. Same for the Soviets. The moon isn't quite as bad as Mars in terms of "not a chance of help," but it's pretty close.

 

[brovane]

Apollo - Part 17


The success of the Apollo-20 mission, the first US mission with a female astronaut and the first EVA by a female astronaut had been completely over-shadowed by the first Soviet Moon landing and setup of a Soviet Lunar Base. NASA suspected the Soviet Union was pressing ahead dangerously with untested hardware. Engineers at NASA knew how much resources and money had been put into development of the LESA hardware and based on the capability of the N1F it didn’t seem possible that the Soviet space program could land a very much mass on the lunar surface. The N1F rocket by NASA Engineer calculations could maybe launch 25-30 tons to the moon and this would mean even less mass could then be landed on the surface for a lunar base. The N1F capability of launching 25-30 tons to the Moon seemed puny compared to the Saturn-VB that could launch 130 tons to the Moon. The Apollo-20 lunar mission-stack had a mass of over 120 tons when it headed toward the Moon for its Polar Orbit mission. Having 2 cosmonauts survive in such a small lunar base for 30-days seemed to be very aggressive and dangerous and the mission must have minimal or no margin for error. The Soviet’s didn’t even have a space station crew staying in orbit for 30-days yet they were trying to survive 30-days on the lunar surface. The entire effectiveness of the Apollo Lunar program was called into question by its opponents because the US was not first to set up a lunar base. Congress questioned why we had been spending billions and billions of dollars for over a decade for second place?

For NASA they didn’t see the Soviet lunar landing as victory over the US in the space race. The planned Apollo LESA mission’s where much more technically sophisticated than the Soviet Zvezda-2 landing. The LESA missions would greatly enhance the understanding of the moon by landing in different landing sites across the lunar surface. Using the MOLAB vehicle the astronauts would be able to explore hundreds of kilometers of lunar surface. This would allow a much more complete understanding of a lunar region that each mission would be landing at. The Apollo-J mission had explored more surface area of the moon than this recent Soviet Lunar mission, despite the difference in surface stay times. The addition of a vehicle was crucial to allowing a detailed geological survey of a large area. With the Apollo LESA missions, the surface stay time would be increased greatly, which would greatly increase the scientific return. A LESA mission that stayed for 3-months on the lunar surface would have over 8,000 man hours of lunar surface time compared to 144 man hours for a typical Apollo “J” mission. While a typical LESA mission cost 3-4 times an Apollo J mission it provided over 55 times more lunar surface time and a 6-month mission would have over 100 times the surface stay time of a Apollo J mission. Also the LESA missions would be bringing sophisticated hardware like a lunar core drilling rig that would allow core samples to be taken as deep as 100 meters into the lunar surface. However the enemies of NASA in Congress where circling and while they had been denied by John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson in 1967 the opportunity to cut back on NASA spending, they sensed a new opportunity to curtail all the money going to NASA.

There was even calls in Congress to have hearings and bring in NASA administrator Paine to explain why the US space program was now behind the Soviet space program, despite all the money expended. All of this was very frustrating to NASA personnel who knew that the US had the better hardware and technology. The Saturn-VB was a monster of a rocket that had a lifting capability of over 4 times the N1F to the Moon and could put over ½ Million Pounds in Earth Orbit. The US industry had solved the problems of using Hydrogen as rocket fuel, unlike the Soviet Space program. With, the Skylab-B space station, US astronauts were spending over 6-months in space at a time compared to the several week stays in the Salyut program. Skylab-B had a mass in orbit of 180 tons and 25,000+ cu ft of pressurized volume. The Salyut space station massed around 19 tons and had a little over 3,000+ cu ft of pressurized volume. Compared to Skylab-B, the Salyut space station was a shack floating in orbit. The Apollo program so far had landed 16 US astronauts on the lunar surface and returned all of them safely and explored 8 different unique areas of the lunar surface while returning over 1,000lbs of lunar material. Listening to the press and NASA enemies it would seem that all of these accomplishments meant nothing. The single landing of an area already explored by Apollo-17 with two cosmonauts seemed to negate all of NASA’s accomplishments in space over the last decade in certain people’s eyes. This talk infuriated US astronauts and NASA employees who had worked so hard for so many years to get to this point. Paine was getting pressure to change Apollo-21 from an Earth Orbit test of the Lunar Landing Vehicle to a full scale lunar landing mission, even if it was a short duration mission. The United States had to respond to the successful setup of a Soviet lunar base. NASA head Administrator Paine forcibly made the case that they needed to stay the current course and rushing things could get somebody killed. The Apollo LESA program was on-track to land the first LESA base before the end of 1975 and this schedule shouldn’t be rushed. In 1967 NASA and the Kennedy Administration had made a calculated decision, to jump from the 3-day duration Apollo-J missions to the 3+ month Apollo LESA missions. This was a huge jump in technological capability and the development of the mission hardware to support this took time. NASA and President Kennedy made the correct decisions because the LESA missions would offer the greatest scientific return for the investment in money and resources by the United States.

While all of this was happening the two cosmonauts on the lunar surface, Popovich and Makarov were completely unaware of all the controversy their lunar landing had created for the US space program. The current flight plan had the two lunar residents, not lifting off from the lunar surface until November 28th. They had been growing bored being stuck in the cramped lunar base and passed time by writing in their journals. Makarov would spend time looking out at the lunar surface through one of the window’s and sketching pictures in his journal. At least they didn’t have to put up with 100 degree heat in the Lunar-base since the sun was no longer shining on this part of the lunar surface. A new problem however would arise for the lunar explorers. After a couple of days the temperature dropped so much that the cosmonauts had to start wearing the supplied cold weather gear inside the lander. The Lander had its batteries charged during the lunar day by Solar Panels but now these batteries had been draining at a faster than expected rate. There could be a short someplace in the batteries but the batteries were not accessible from inside the lander. The cosmonauts received instructions to minimize power use and even the LK-habitat heaters had to be used minimally. On November 15 they were both permitted to have a short radio conversation with their wives which cheered up both Cosmonauts greatly. Despite the cold, the two cosmonauts vowed to soldier on and complete the mission for the glory of the people of the Soviet Union. There hardships were minor compared to what a previous generation had to endure throwing the fascists out of mother Russia during the “Great Patriotic War”. Unknow to the Cosmonauts a debate was raging inside of the Soviet space program about cutting the mission short, the cosmonauts had already spent 2-weeks on the lunar surface and the living conditions were becoming more and more uncomfortable and dangerous. A 2-week lunar stay was enough, let’s get the cosmonauts home now. The Politburo when asked about giving permission to cut the mission short, gave a definitive answer of “nyet”, the cosmonauts will do their duty and complete the 30-day lunar stay. The Soviet Union had already committed to a 30-day lunar mission to the world and to bring the cosmonauts home now would be admitting defeat.

The engineers of the LK-Habitat had become increasingly concerned during the planning for the long duration mission, about the impact of repeated pressurization and depressurization on the structural integrity. While the habitat had been tested through multiple cycles it had never been fully tested through so much temperature extremes and then having two cosmonauts inside for so many days, also had a effect the vehicle. However the engineers thought that the greatest concern around habitat structural integrity was just after pressurization. On November 16 as the two Cosmonauts slept the worse fears of the Engineers would be realized. A valve that controlled depressurization of the lunar base had become weakened by repeated pressurization and depressurization. You then added in the extreme cold the valve was exposed to including the earlier humid environment, the valve failed catastrophically. The first clue the control room had to the impending disaster was a sudden and unexpected rapid drop in the pressure reading. At first the control room thought it was instrumentation and asked the cosmonauts to verify the readings. The cosmonauts who were drowsy and tired from the cold were slow to react. The pressure was continuing to drop and nobody in the control room back on Earth knew why. Compounding the seriousness of the problem was that the control room was not properly staffed at the time. After all the excitement of the lunar EVA’s the control room was now minimally staffed during the long lunar night, for what was considered boring shifts that became extremely routine as the mission dragged on day after day with no activity. The experts in the systems had been replaced by staff that was much less experienced. There was a transmission from Popovich that he was trying to identify the leak location and Makarov was getting his spacesuit on. The pressure readings were now showing dangerously low levels and continuing to drop. The next transmission was from Popovich that the leak seemed to be near one of the depressurization valves and he was trying to reach the location. Seconds later Popovich reported that Makarov had just collapsed. Popovich then keyed his radio for what would be the final time “I think I found t……”. That would be last transmission from the Zvezda-2 crew. The control room personnel were stunned by what had happened. In less than 90 seconds the lunar habitat had lost pressurization and two Cosmonauts were now dead on the lunar surface. They activated the Lunar-23 camera and it could only show a picture of the outside of the LK-Habitat with a light showing through a window. The Soviet space program had just lost 2 cosmonauts on the lunar surface and nobody was sure what to do next. As Soviet space program officials quickly arrived at the control room the disaster that had just occurred was becoming fully apparent. Just a couple of weeks earlier the Soviet Space program was being toasted for its success in upstaging the United States on the Moon. Now the Soviet’s had another first they never wanted, the program had just suffered the first deaths on the lunar surface.

The program leader for the Soviet Lunar program Vasili Mishin entered the control room with bloodshot eyes and smelling of alcohol. He had been at a party earlier the night and as usual had over indulged in alcohol. After being informed of the disaster he collapsed into a chair and started weeping and mumbling incoherently, completely incapable of comprehending what had just happened. A little over 15 minutes later, Kerim Kerimov calmly entered the room. He was the chairman of the State Commission on Pilot Flights and was in charge of the Soviet space program. Kerimov asked details of what happened to the controllers and wrote down several notes. He looked over at Mishin who had collapsed and was muttering to himself. Kerimov ordered the security personnel to remove Mishin from the room and take him into custody. He then informed everyone in the room that they would remain at their posts until relieved of duty and nobody was to talk about what just happened. Kerimov left the room to call General Secretary Brezhnev and inform him was to what happened. About 20 minutes later Kerimov re-entered the control room and informed everyone that anyone that talked about what just happened to unauthorized personnel would be tried for treason and shot and not necessarily in that order. Over the next 24-hours the Soviet space program had to make several critical decisions as to how to best handle the situation it found itself in. Kerimov knew the Soviet lunar program was a mess and it needed to be cleaned up but with all the pressure to land on the lunar surface he wasn’t given that power. He now hoped that he would be given the power to clean house, and he would start with that drunken fool Mishin. The Politburo wanted to try and keep the incident a secret and use body doubles back on Earth for official ceremonies with the immediate family of the deceased cosmonauts sworn to secrecy about the deaths. Later the crew could be killed in an aircraft accident and nobody would know. Kerimov informed them that this was impossible considering that Apollo-22 was due to land in this area in the next 12-18 months and would certainly discover the bodies, let alone the LK-lander still resting on the surface. The Soviet Union needed to announce the tragedy and that the two cosmonauts died as heroes and did their duty to the State to the very end. They were deserving the respect and admiration of every Soviet citizen. The Politburo reluctantly agreed with Kerimov’s recommendation and gave permission for the cosmonaut deaths to be announced.

On November 17, 1974 the Soviet Union announced that LK-habitat had lost pressurization and the two cosmonauts were unable to get into their spacesuits in time and were killed. The cause of the loss of pressure was unknown and it was still being investigated by Soviet engineers. The announcement came as a shock to the United States and the rest of the world. The criticism of the last couple of weeks of NASA’s more methodical approach was quickly forgotten. The talk of Congressional hearings and NASA wasting money by its focus on safety, quickly stopped and would be forgotten. The people of the United States and all over the world looked up at the Moon and thought about the two Cosmonauts that were killed on the lunar surface and the bodies lying inside the LK-Habitat. The failure of Zvezda-2 was what a sobering reminder to every one of the dangers of space flight and the dangers in lunar exploration. It also brought up question, was space exploration worth the cost in human lives?

“Today we all grieve with the Soviet Union and the World over the loss of life of on the lunar surface. Space flight has always been a hazardous endeavor and will always be hazardous. We can’t explore space without the acknowledgement that there will be casualties along the journey. The crew of Zvezda-2 did not return safely to Earth but their memory and their courage live on with all of us.” Head of the Astronaut Corps, Rear Admiral-James A. Lovell

With the announcement of the crew’s passing was a tremendous shock to everyone at NASA and especially everyone on the Apollo program. NASA administrator Paine would remind everyone at NASA that the astronaut’s lives where in the hands of everyone that was part of the US space program, from the men in Mission Control to the ladies that sewed the spacesuits so perfectly in Delaware. Once again NASA was faced with the task of preparing a delegation to send to the Soviet Union to represent the US space program at another state funeral for deceased Cosmonauts. The crew of Apollo-20 that talked to the Zvezda-2 crew several times would journey to the Soviet Union for the funeral along with James Lovell to represent NASA. While in the Soviet Union, Lovell sought out Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov. During the training for ASTP-1, Leonov and Lovell had become friends and respected each other. Lovell quietly floated the proposal to Leonov that Paine had proposed to him before he had left for the Soviet Union. Within the next 12-months, Apollo-22 would be landing in this same area where Zvezda-2 crew perished. The proposal was that the crew of Apollo-22 would hold a memorial to the Zvezda-2 crew on the lunar surface and with the permission of the Soviet Space program place memorial items that the families or the Soviet Union wished to be placed either inside or outside the Soviet lunar base. The crew of Apollo-22 would also examine the Soviet lunar base to gather information as to what caused the failure. The crew could also remove any lunar samples, film that the Zvezda-2 crew had gathered from the lunar base and would bring those items back to Earth, to be turned over to the Soviet Union. Lovell told Leonov that officially this proposal was off the record but if this proposal was received favorably, the discussions could then continue through more official channels. The US space program and the Apollo-22 crew would also respect any decision by the Soviet Union and the cosmonaut’s family to leave Zvezda-2 lunar base undisturbed. Leonov told Lovell that he would carry this message to the leaders of the Soviet Space program personally. He was also proud to have Lovell’s friendship in such a difficult time for the Soviet space program.

The proposal by Lovell was well received by Kerimov and he hoped it would bring closure to everyone involved in the flight. Importantly it would also give the Soviet space program some answers as to what caused the failure. The engineers had been trying to pin-point exactly the cause of the depressurization and why it occurred. The prospect of possibly having first hand information from a person inspecting the LK-Habitat on the lunar surface. Even a US astronaut would help answer a lot of questions as to what happened. The Soviet space program was in turmoil and Kerimov was working to restructure the lunar program as quickly as possible. He had been told by General secretary Brezhnev that there could be no retreat from the Soviet lunar program as long as the US also had a lunar program. To retreat now would admit failure and that was un-acceptable to the Politburo. Kerimov asked for and was given a free hand to clean house in the Soviet space program. He would be expected to come back quickly with a plan to get the Soviet Lunar program on-track. It was also hinted that the Politburo wouldn’t look kindly on any failure on his part. Kerimov told Brezhnev bluntly that he and the Politburo needed to remove themselves from second guessing of the space program leaders. They needed to let the engineers do their work properly so we can stop burying cosmonauts. Brezhnev, uncharacteristically told him that he would have a free hand if he delivered results for the Soviet space program.

 

[CANMAN]

RIP Zvezda-2 crew. I am actually surprised that the Russians agreed to letting US inspect the crash site(unless I am mistaken) as I would thought they would be paranoid of the Americans inspecting any Soviet-style equipment(since the same technology has military application).

 

[JamesHunter]

RIP Zvezda-2 crew. I am actually surprised that the Russians agreed to letting US inspect the crash site(unless I am mistaken) as I would thought they would be paranoid of the Americans inspecting any Soviet-style equipment(since the same technology has military application).

Well it's not as if they could exactly stop them, and with a foul up of this magnitude they have to know what happened. Also respect for the dead, which might have to include burying the poor sods bodies. I guess this timeline just had its Apollo 1 or Challenger, that dark moment when you have to realise just how dangerous space travel is...also that it's a bloody good idea to make sure the ships up to scratch before you launch.

I guess the Politburo is seeing sense for once they have a couple of dead heroes on their hands and seem to have got the point that keeping up what they have been doing is just gonna make more corpses.

 

[brovane]

RIP Zvezda-2 crew. I am actually surprised that the Russians agreed to letting US inspect the crash site(unless I am mistaken) as I would thought they would be paranoid of the Americans inspecting any Soviet-style equipment(since the same technology has military application).

NASA already has some fair amount of knowledge from the Apollo Soyuz Test Project-1 mission that happened earlier in the year in this ATL. For the ASTP-1 missions both the Soviets and the US had to share a lot of knowledge about their space capsule designs. The goodwill from this mission has carried over into this offer from the US. Also there isn't really any dual use technology that has military application in the LK-Habitat. Actually several chapters earlier when NASA proposed to do missions aboard each other Space Stations this actually sent more of a panic because the Salyut Space Station program is providing cover for the military Almaz space station program!!!

As James pointed out, there is no way to prevent the US from inspecting the actual LK-Habitat if they wanted to. Just to be clear, it isn't a crash site. The Habitat just depressurized on the lunar surface killing the Cosmonauts.

 

[CANMAN]

Thanks for the reply. I guess using "crash site" wasn't the best word. Anyhow, its good to see more international corporation in space(even if it is over this sad incident).

 

[brovane]

Thanks for the reply. I guess using "crash site" wasn't the best word. Anyhow, its good to see more international corporation in space(even if it is over this sad incident).

I had given some thought about exactly what should be done. From a practical side of things 3 of the crewman for Apollo-22 are US navy. They are going to be working extensively in the area around the Habitat because of how close it is to the Marius Hills hole. They want to give the Cosmonaut bodies the proper respect and closure for everyone so people can move past the incident. There is going to be questions about a US lunar mission bringing home lunar material, film etc to be turned over to the Soviet Union. Not even mentioning spending the surface time dealing with the situation. The ASTP-1 mission already laid the ground work for this increased corporation between the two Superpowers in the area of space.

 

[Astronomo2010]

Another great chapter, its good that the Soviet union,has accepted The help of the US. maybe buried the corpses of the Soviets Cosmonaut , And return all the Scientific data. An learn from the mistakes, , to Build A Massive Moonbase . A joint Venture Between NASA/ESA/, maybe other Nations. to fully Explore the Moon , And gather Resources to build the spaceships to explore our Solar System . Cant hardly wait for the next chapters.

 

[naraht]

A Cosmonaut on Apollo-22?

I'm a little confused at this point whether the Apollo missions are 3 or 4 astronauts, but is it *possible* at this point to have a Cosmonaut added or as a replacement on Apollo-22? That way both the US and USSR get the same access to the "hole".

 

[Michel Van]

I'm a little confused at this point whether the Apollo missions are 3 or 4 astronauts, but is it *possible* at this point to have a Cosmonaut added or as a replacement on Apollo-22? That way both the US and USSR get the same access to the "hole".

You could modified the CSM for 4 persons and LM can take 3 person down and up.
it would reduce mission time down to 7 days, but sufficient to land near and visit Zvezda-2.

 

[brovane]

I'm a little confused at this point whether the Apollo missions are 3 or 4 astronauts, but is it *possible* at this point to have a Cosmonaut added or as a replacement on Apollo-22? That way both the US and USSR get the same access to the "hole".

The Apollo LESA missions have in this ATL 4 people. The new Lunar Landing Vehicle that is being used brings all 4 astronauts down to the surface. The LLV-Taxi vehicle has a mass of over 60+ tons and brings down supplies, MOLAB and a smaller Lunar Rover Vehicle. The CSM stays in Lunar Orbit, unmanned for the duration of the Lunar surface stay. The LESA missions are dual launch missions with a LESA-Base sent ahead on a separate launch of a Saturn-VB. The LLV-Taxi stays in hibernation status on the Lunar Surface and the astronauts work out of the LESA-Base which allows surface stay times off around 6-months. The 4-person crew was selected because it offers the best work flow for EVA's. You have the crew split into two 2-man teams so each astronaut has a partner for safety on the surface. This also allows for alternating day's for EVA's so astronauts are not doing back-back EVA's constantly. For the Apollo J missions the astronauts and equipment where well beat up after the end of the 3rd EVA. However that was ok because for the J missions with limited surface time it was more of a sprint. The planned LESA missions going over months are a Marathon and the EVA's are planned appropiattely.

The problem with bringing a Cosmonaut is that would make Congress go beserk, which controls the money. If you say that a Apollo LESA Mission cost 2 Billion then that is $500 million per seat. No way is NASA going to pull a US astronaut off a crew to insert a Cosmonaut. If the Soviet's brought something to the table to offer NASA then that would be different. If you look at the Shuttle-Mir program, both space programs brought something to the table to offer each other. At this point the Soviet's have nothing to offer NASA and NASA isn't just going to give the Soviet's a seat for nothing in return. NASA is offering lunar surface time and to bring Soviet Samples/Film back in the spirit of cooperation. However offering a mission seat is out of the picture at this point.

I think I need to add some information to the Wiki for this ATL for the vehicles. I think that might clear up some possible confusion as to crew capacity etc for the vehicles.

 

[brovane]

I added some spacecraft data to the wiki for this ATL. I hope this clears up some of the confusion. It is still a work in progress but I hope enough information is there. Please let me know if anyone has any questions/comments etc.

E_of_pi - Thank you for your assistance on mass calculations for lunar landers.


http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/doku.php/timelines/spacecraft_data

 

[Bahamut-255]

It's taken me a while to get round to replying, but, Damn......

But this really does hammer home the merits of debugging a Spacecraft prior to its use. As the first two corpses on the Lunar Surface testify in the most brutal manner possible.

And the chasm of difference between the Saturn VB and the N-1F are clear here, with the massive TLI capability granting NASA a massive Lunar Payload - especially relative to the Zvezda Lunar Habitat - which simply allows for far more in the way of margin and redundancy.

And it's obvious to me that the first thing that Kerimov needs to tackle is the Quality Control at the Soviet Space Agencies if they're to have any chance of getting close to the US.

I would hope that they can work out just what caused the valve failure - as it appears to be based on the available evidence - and figure a way to overcome this Nadir.

 

[brovane]

Skylab-6

After all the Apollo and moon talk a little switching of gears back to Skylab for a bit. I got a little bit delayed this week but here is my weekly update.

I also spent some time updating the wiki. I added in some more information on the spacecraft being used in this ATL. I hope things a little bit more clear. Sometimes I forget that what is in my head, or on GoogleSheets doesn't help to make things clear for the reader. I also spent sometime adding in the Astronaut groups. I don't have every group done but I have made some significant headway over the last several days.

Thank you for taking the time to read my writing and as always if you notice a mistake or need to have something made more clear please let me know. Also feel free to criticize.

FYI - I am not the best with political writing and international relations. So please be merciful if you feel like I have hand-waved some political events. I am trying to concentrate on the space program without getting into the weeds on the political side of things.


As 1974 progressed NASA was dealing with two large competing projects for its manned space exploration budget. The Apollo LESA program and the Space Station program where both competing for funding under a NASA budget that seemed to keep getting trimmed a little each year. The Apollo LESA program was consuming more and more of the manned space program budget and the new Independence Space Station was also competing for funding. Once Robert Kennedy was elected, his administration had secured increased funding for the unmanned “Grand Tour Program” for 1973 but no increase in funding could be found for the manned exploration. In 1973 Kennedy had negotiated the tumultuous events of the year with the “Yom Kippur War” breaking out in the Middle East, when the Arabs had attacked Israeli. Kennedy had worked tirelessly to negotiate a cease fire between the two parties without alienating the Arabs or the Israelis. Robert Kennedy had to warn the Israelis privately that if they continued to escalate the situation he would cut off US military hardware to the nation. He had even managed to avoid having the Soviet Union intervene on the side of the Arabs. At one point it had looked like OPEC would reduce the supply of Oil to punish the West for support the Israelis but this never came to pass. However this possible OPEC embargo made Kennedy aware of how dependent the US was on foreign oil and the US needed an energy policy to get the US less dependent on foreign oil. For Robert Kennedy unlike his brother, his focus was on other items besides what was happening in the space program. The US economy was starting to see rising inflation and the issue of continued dependence on fossil fuels was becoming apparent. While Robert did see the importance of space exploration he was mainly focused on what where the benefits of the space program on Earth.

Kennedy was not able to fend off cuts in NASA’s Manned space program budget for 1974 and the further reductions were impacting the Independence Space Station program. It was starting to look like unless the budget was increased the NASA Skylab program would have to be closed down so the funding could be redirected to the Independence Space Station. Kennedy was able to prevent this for 1974 but at some point a decision would have to be made soon. The current budget couldn't support both the running of the Skylab-B and the development of a new Space Station at the same time. It didn't help that Skylab-B program had morphed from a Space Station to be used for only 3-4 missions with 3 man crews to a fully-fledged Earth Orbit outpost that supported 6 man crews and allowed the US to have a continuous presence in space. The outpost itself since its launch in August of 1972 had greatly increased NASA’s understanding of living and working in space and was now support 6-month duration missions. However the facility was being subjected to greatly increased wear and tear than originally planned for. This was compounded by the fact that the parts on Skylab were not built to be serviced while in orbit. This mean that some equipment wasn't made to be easily serviced in space and the lack of hand-holds for EVA’s on most of the outside Skylab-B. A space station greatly decreased the cost of man-hours in space for experiments. Under the original time frame Skylab-B should have already been replaced by the Independence Space Station. With the lessons learned from Skylab-B, changes were being made to the Independence Space Station modules being assembled on Earth. These changes were causing further delay and along with funding issues the program was now running over 2-years behind schedule with first launch not until 1977.

Also NASA was looking to move forward with a brand new vehicle to replace the Big-Gemini. NASA was calling this vehicle a “Space Shuttle”. The Original Space Shuttle design had called for a much larger vehicle that could haul cargo and satellites into orbit and even bring satellites down from orbit and would be fully re-usable. The “Space Shuttle” vehicle was proposed to be rapidly re-usable and would use a combination of a fly back booster and the Shuttle’s main engines to carry it into orbit. It was thought that a reusable “Space Shuttle” could drastically reduce the price to reach Earth Orbit. The review of the design and current budget realities made this design unfeasible. Even with a budget there was lots of doubts within NASA that the vehicle was even possible technically. The NASA experience with reusable capsule system of Big Gemini gave designers the confidence that a much smaller vehicle could be designed that was re-usable but would be launched on a rocket. The key difference between the vehicles is that the “shuttle” would be a true space plane with landing gear and there would be no service module, cargo module etc. to be jettisoned in orbit. The vehicle would be fully re-usable and unlike the Big Gemini, it wouldn't require extensive refurbishment after each missions with replacement of several modules like the Big Gemini. A new vehicle would have to be designed that could use the Saturn-IC to launch it into orbit just like the Big Gemini. The Saturn rocket line was going along at a steady production pace and with the multi-year procurement contract any new spacecraft needed to leverage this rocket. This mean that the a shuttle vehicle needed to have a maximum mass with cargo and crew of less than 32,000 kg. McDonnell Douglas teamed together with Northrop to propose a spacecraft design based on a concept called a lifting body where the body of the vehicle produces lift and the wings are eliminated. This type of design was attractive for space planes because it eliminated wing surfaces that would have to be protected during re-entry but still allowed the spacecraft to land like a plane. The design was coming together but NASA was having trouble getting funding to take the program from the study phase to start building a vehicle. As of right now NASA would have to depend on the Big Gemini to take crew to Earth Orbit. Enough funding was available to continue the study of lifting bodies and further research into them but not enough money to get the “Space Shuttle” program progressing beyond engineering studies.

The selection of Astronaut Group 9 also finished at the end of 1974 and was the most diverse group to date. The group had 3 female astronauts, an African American and an Asian. While Collins wasn't trying to fill any quotas he could feel the pressure from NASA administration to not see another group of white males. The group picture of Astronaut Group 9 certainly fit this picture and Collins was extremely happy with the selection. After Lovell had returned from ASTP-I he had told him about the Paine conversation about hiring untrained females to train them as pilots to become astronauts. The “Are you shitting me look” that Collins got from Lovell was priceless when he first told him. The next day Lovell came and talked to Collins about the “Paine Plan” as Lovell called it. Lovell told him that they either needed to get on-board and come up with selection criteria or someone else would do it for them, probably too the programs detriment. At some point this was going to happen and as Lovell said he would rather be the dog than the tail in this situation. So Collins brought in Stafford, Young and Shepard so they could sit down and figure out criteria that they were looking for in female astronaut candidates. After they got over the initial proposal from Shepherd to just look at breast and ass size. They settled down to give preference to candidates that had engineering degrees, aerospace or aeronautical degrees. They bantered around discussing Advanced degrees and decided that those with Master’s degrees would be looked on favorably but if they had a Doctorate that probably meant they were more interested in theory than application. Also any woman with actual flying experience would be highly desirable, even it was not jet aircraft. The important part would be the interviews in the selection. They somehow had to select female candidates that they believed had the drive and determination to succeed as astronaut pilots without having any background criteria they usually used, like flying experience. The day chosen to announce that NASA was looking for 6 female astronaut pilots was November 12, with the first US female astronaut Dr. Green in attendance. The NASA announcement immediately brought condemnation from conservatives that it was dangerous and pandering to female interests. At one point a conservative Senator tried to get legislation passed to specifically de-fund the NASA program to select female astronaut pilots.

The fortune of the Space Station program would change drastically when two Soviet Cosmonauts of Zvezda died on the lunar surface. Very quickly NASA budgets that had been languishing where increased and now funding was available for not only the new Independence Space Station but also the Big Gemini replacement and the EML-2 Space Station. With the New Year NASA was preparing for the launch of Skylab-13 crew. With the number 13, NASA had a certain amount of bad luck with Apollo-13 and the abort during launch. Some more superstitious planners came up with a plane to just move to Skylab-14 and skip over 13 in the numbering scheme. However this was vetoed and Skylab-13 would be launched as planned. The commander of Skylab-13 would be breaking new ground he was Robert Lawrence from Skylab-9 and he would be the first African American commander of a space mission. He was joined by fellow USAF MOL transfer Gordon Fullerton who would be his co-pilot. They would be joined by Mission specialists Gene Boudette, David Schleicher, Richard Truly and physician William Thornton a veteran of Skylab-8. Thornton and Truly would be setting a new space endurance record during this mission. They would be staying in orbit for over 1-year and would be coming back to Earth with the Skylab-14 crew. Collins had a several MOL pilots that he wanted to get space flight experience and he was running low on qualified scientists that were not already busy with other missions. So in discussions with Lovell and Stafford they made the decision to send up one of MOL transfers, Richard Truly as mission specialists to accompany Thornton for the 1-year duration mission. Mission specialists Gene Boudette and David Schleicher where both Geologists that had been brought on-board for lunar landings. With LESA missions only occurring one time a year both Geologists would be waiting probably at least over 5+ years for a lunar mission. They both jumped at the opportunity to fly on a Skylab mission before then and get some in space experience and their gold astronaut pins.

On February 1, 1975 Skylab-13 crew lifted off from LC-34 on-board Big Gemini-5 “Yorktown”. Big Gemini-5 who would be making its first flight and was the first Block-II variant BG capsules. The Big Gemini-5 and 6 capsules were built with the experience gained from earlier Gemini capsules and where a full 1,000 kg lighter and could support 13,000 kg of cargo without an overall increase in total vehicle launch mass. This was a big help in getting supplies up to the Skylab-B for the increasing duration missions. NASA was finding it difficult to find room for all the equipment it was sending up for the missions. It was not only having to send up supplies for the crew but also experiments and spare parts for the Space Station. NASA needed to develop the ability to regularly send up supplies and this was creating disagreements within NASA on how to best handle the situation. You had one argument that NASA had contracted for the production of 4 Saturn-IC rockets per year which could support 4 flights but only 2 per year were launched in 1974 with the move to 6-month duration missions. NASA could use the USAF MOL pilot group to fly two more supply missions during the year. A 2-man crew could bring up easily over 12,000+ Kg of supplies on a Big Gemini and stay for a couple of days and then carry back down to Earth any experiments. The other argument was that using a manned mission to deliver supplies was a waste and an unmanned vehicle could deliver the needed supplies much cheaper. The new all solid launch vehicle replacement for the Delta rocket was progressing along well in its development. This vehicle could launch 8,000 kg to Earth Orbit and a unmanned capsule with automated docking capability could be developed to ferry supplies to a Space Station. The capsule could even be made to burn up on re-entry so trash could be placed in the capsule and easily disposed of. Using this method would be a lot cheaper than using a $40 million Saturn-IC. However as in any government organization sometimes the cheapest method wasn’t selected.

On February 2nd the Skylab-13 crew docked with Skylab-B and the two crews prepared for the hand-over. Supplies were moved from Skylab-13 capsule into the space station. The two crews packed the cargo module of the Skylab-12 with trash that would be burned up in the atmosphere when the cargo module was jettisoned right before re-entry. The crews also moved finished experiments from the mission into the Skylab-12 capsule to be brought back to Earth including a lot of freeze dried Astronaut feces. As part of on-going experiments the Astronauts had to save their feces so they could be studied back on Earth. The feces were exposed to the vacuum of space to freeze dry them to make storage easier and less messy. This was the unglamorous part of being a astronaut that never seemed to get mentioned. More than one Astronaut, as he was having to freeze dry his feces was heard to exclaim “This wasn't on the brochure when I signed up for this program”. The crew of Skylab-12 was supposed to un-dock and land on February 5th from Skylab-B. However there was a problem with it’s primary landing site at Edwards. Unusually excessive rains over the last week at Edwards had caused flooding on the dry lake bed at Edwards. NASA had a alternate landing site prepared on the Dry Lake bed at White Sands Missile range. The crew spent an extra day in orbit and then the Big Gemini Capsule un-docked from Skylab-B and shortly after the de-orbit burn was completed and the capsule landed on the dry lake bed at White Sands without any issue.

In March of 1975 NASA announced the selection of 6 female astronauts that would be starting almost 4 years of training to become the first female astronaut pilots. The announcement started a media sensation over the group of female astronauts. The new astronauts had been warned by both Collins and Lovell that they would be under a lot of scrutiny and to keep a low profile. Collins and Lovell worried if they had selected woman with the right drive,determination and temperament to become female pilot astronauts. They would be facing a lot of male pilots in NASA that probably didn’t think they had what it took to get the job done. Lovell made sure the new astronauts knew that he would hold them to the same standards as any other astronauts and if they handle it he would have no problem firing them. Equal Rights didn't mean separate standards for men and woman. Privately he didn't expect that all 6 woman would pass through all the training over the next several years. He personally figured that NASA would be lucky to get 3 through the entire program. He fully expected that one of these ladies was probably going to crater a jet at some point and kill themselves and he told both Paine that when he approved this class. Hopefully they didn't take anybody else with them when it happened. It wasn't anything personal but flying military jets and taking them to their limits was dangerous. He had lost a lot of friends over the years in aircraft accidents. These females were entering into the very masculine world of jet fighter pilots and test pilots. Nobody would know for sure what effect NASA and astronauts had on the debate over the “Equal Rights Amendment”. In April of 1975 the “Equal Rights Amendment” was finally ratified by the 38th state which would happen to be the state of Florida. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. With equal rights for both sexes now enshrined into the US Constitution it seemed like NASA for once was actually ahead of the social curve.

 

[Astronomo2010]

very good new chapter, i hope soon a new mission , to the Moon to establish a well secured Moon Base , expandable ,Also maybe recuperate the bodies of the Soviets cosmonauts , And to use to explore further the Moon , and extract Helium 3 for future Fusion Plants , Also prepare future Missions to Mars ,and all our solar system planets . Cant hardly wait for the next chapters .

 

[brovane]

Apollo-Part 18

Kerim Kerimov who was in charge of the Soviet Space program, directed a complete overhaul of the Soviet Union space program to streamline its design and operations. He needed to end the intrigue and infighting that went on in the Soviet space program between the various design bureaus. To this end Kerimov would create a new single design bureau called NPO Energia for the Soviet Space program. This would help eliminate all the infighting that went on between the current design bureaus, everyone needed to be focused on one goal which was the success of the Soviet space program. The first order of business for NPO Energia was to design and build a Liquid Hydrogen rocket engine that could be used to replace the upper stage on the N1F rocket. Kerimov knew the N1 rocket had some serious design flaws, yet after years of development it had evolved to the point that its design flaws were mostly compensated for. It would be better to start with a clean sheet launch vehicle design but this would have taken too long and would be unacceptable for Soviet Leadership. The N1 rocket would have to continue to mature and evolve to meet the needs of the Soviet lunar program and Beyond Earth Orbit operations. If the Soviet Space Program hoped to match or exceed the US space program an increase of resources was needed. A decision would have to be made by the leadership of the Soviet Union if they wanted to commit those resources. Kerimov would prepare multiple options that needed to be reviewed and a decision made by Soviet Leadership. ​

The first option which was to continue to allocate the current amount of resources. The Soviet Union would have to retreat from the Moon and focus on Earth Orbit and modular Space Stations for the Soviet Manned space program. Missions beyond Earth Orbit would be undertaken by unmanned probes. The next option was current minimal continuation of the Earth Orbit missions with continued small space stations. The lunar program would continue with a selection of a site for a permanent lunar base. This would require more resources than currently being allocated to the Space Program but would allow the Soviet Union to at least match the US. A key part of this would be an evolution of the N1 rocket to allow larger payloads to the lunar surface including a Hydrogen rocket engine for use as a N1 upper stage. The Soviet Union would also push forward in unmanned probes since the Americans were focused so much on manned missions. The last option which would require the most resources was the continued development of both a lunar base and a module space station with an eye toward a manned Mars mission sometime before 1990. This would require the development of a brand new heavy lift rocket to replace the N1 eventually. However the N1 would need to continue to be used in the short term. The Soviet Union needed a reliable heavy lift rocket that could come close to matching the lifting power of the Saturn-VB if it was going to beat the Americans to Mars. ​

After the disaster of Zvezda-2 for the Soviet, the usual NASA critics were unusually silent. Administrator Paine had been receiving criticism from Politicians and several critical editorials were written in newspapers about the slow pace of the US manned space program. Now the critics of Paine’s slow and methodical approach to the US spaceflight program were silent. In meetings with Robert and John Kennedy, Paine emphasized how he tried to balance keeping the US manned space program safe as possible while still moving forward on exploration. Manned Space flight was extremely hazardous by nature and a methodical approach was needed to minimize the dangers. Robert emphasized how he had the full support of the Kennedy administration in his decisions. He wanted Paine and John to work on planning for expanding of NASA missions beyond just the lunar LESA landings. Robert thought he could funding for NASA to get back on track with the Independence Space Station. He also figured that possibly get funding restored for the EML-2 space station and the Hermes Mars-Venus Flyby was possible. Also with all the noise about a Soviet Lunar base that he wanted NASA to update studies looking at US lunar bases for the next step beyond the LESA program. Bobby thought he could possibly use the Manned Soviet Lunar landing, despite its failure to their advantage to get more money for the US space program. During a meeting in the Oval Office on December 5, 1974 with NASA Thomas Paine and his brother John. Robert asked Paine about where Apollo-21 and Apollo-22 currently stood with their launch preparations. ​

“Mr. President, the preparation is going along well. Apollo-21 is planned to launch on April 5 of next year. If this mission encounters no issues then Apollo-22 will be landing in the Marius Hills area on October 29 of next year. As we had previously discussed the mission will be planned for 3-months but we can extend the mission up to 6-months. As of right now we are encountering no major issues that would stop the landing. The biggest open issue is the LESA base power plant. It is tricky getting the Hydrogen and Oxygen from gas back into a Cryogenic Liquid to be used by the fuel cell. General Electric thinks that they have worked out the issues. We anticipate possible issues with the system working correctly for the full 6-months on the lunar surface. The crew is receiving extra training with the power plant in-case any repairs need to be completed during the mission. The other open issue is how well the actual Lunar-landing-Vehicle-base will land un-manned on the lunar surface. We have never attempted a manned or unmanned lunar landing with such a large object before on the lunar surface. We will be attempting to land almost 70 tons of Mass on the lunar surface. There is a big question mark if we will be successful. While we have been testing the LLV in Earth Orbit we have never attempted a lunar landing. “
Paine sighed audibly.​

“I would like to announce that the first lunar landing LLV-base is a test mission to validate the vehicle in landing configuration. If we can get it down successfully we can then follow up with a manned landing a month later.”​

Robert Kennedy looked at John and Paine. “You mean similar to how the Soviets announced the LK-lander base?”​

“Yes Mr. President.” ​

“Ok Tom I can go with that. I am not sure if the press will go along. They will probably see it as a mission attempt not a test, no matter how we spin it. However we will emphasize that it doesn’t make budgetary sense to send the LLV-Base all the way to the moon to attempt a landing and if it works to not follow up with a manned landing to make use of this base. We will need to emphasize we are trying to save money by making best use of the test mission since it will be unmanned. Let’s just hope you guys are good and are successful because the Soviet’s landed the LK-Habitat base on the first attempt. “​

“I know Mr. President.”​

“John what do you think about all this?”​

“Well Bobby, we got a lot of pressure for NASA to be successful with this first Apollo-LESA mission. I think we can use the increased activity of the Soviet Lunar program to good effect to secure increased funding for NASA. Right now NASA is planning LESA missions at the rate of 1 a year.”​

“One a year? John”​

“Yes, one a year that is all that funding will allow. Also we have to consider rocket production. At the current rate of production, 3 Saturn-VB’s are produced a year. Each LESA mission requires 2 Saturn-VB launches. Which means that we only have enough rockets to launch 3 LESA missions over 2-years. So at maximum we can do only one mission every 8-months at the current Saturn-VB production rate. This year is the first year that 3 Saturn-VB’s will be produced. The vehicle wasn’t easy to design and develop. North American, sorry Rockwell International and Boeing have worked the manufacturing issues outs for the 1st and 2nd stage. The 3rd stage progressed faster since it is smaller and had less development issues. McDonnell also had the advantage that the S-IVC is used on the Saturn-IC and it could progress faster into flight testing. From experience the bigger the stage the more headaches that occur during development, testing and then manufacturer. The issues we had were easier than the issues with the Saturn-V, but still the size of the stages we are dealing tend to create problems that nobody had previously thought about. For example we had roof clearance issues with the new 1st stage at Michoud that required some structure changes. NASA prefers to have all 3-stages finished, tested and delivered to Michoud at a minimum of 12-months before a planned mission that they will be used on. Even 12-months sometimes is cutting things close. All the stages are too big to move by air so each stage has to be transported by sea, which takes extra time and planning. Once at Michoud it is inspected again and then either moved by Sea to the Cape or put in storage until it is time to move to the Cape. Once there each stage has to be moved off the barge and into the VAB and then inspected again before it is stacked. The launch vehicle for Apollo-21 was only delivered to Michoud in March of this year. It is now in Vertical Assembly building being checked out and stacked for the launch in April of next year. The 2nd Saturn for Apollo-22 was only delivered to Michoud last Month. Also remember that is just for the launch vehicle, we then also have to deal with the two different Lunar Landing Vehicles. You also have the Apollo CSM and don’t forget about the four 260” Solid Rocket Boosters that are required for each Saturn-VB so that each one has to be delivered and they weigh 1600+ tons when loaded. The AeroJet facility is in Florida, which is reasonably close by which helps in timing deliveries. You also have a Apollo-Centaur stage for each launch that has to be delivered and test. Oh I almost forgot you also have the Instrument Unit for the Saturn Rocket that controls the entire vehicle during its launch. Not to mention all the other items from spacesuits, consumable supplies inside the LLV’s and the MOLAB vehicle. All these items that are produced by various companies and all have to come together on-time or the entire timing of the launch gets thrown off. Not to mention that depending on a particular Lunar landing site we only have a 24-48 hour window each Month for launch so we have the correct lighting conditions for the manned landing. Luckily with the un-manned LLV-LB we have more flexibility in regards to lighting conditions." John stopped and smiled at his brother​

Robert Kennedy, was just starting to realize how complicated the space program was. He had no idea all the details to pull off an Apollo launch. However his brother seemed to revel in the details of the space program. He was glad he had his brother to help him with all of this because he was completely out of his depth. ​

“Ok John, I can see that going to the Moon is a lot more complicated than I thought.”​

Paine cleared his throat and drank some water trying not laugh at this exchange between John and Bobby. When John Kennedy left the Presidency his interest in space never stopped and now after several years of being involved with NASA at high level he had a better grasp of the details than any politician and he quietly suspected even some NASA managers. Which had presented it’s own challenges for Paine. Shortly after John Kennedy’s Presidency came to an end he showed up at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston and as some people put it, he never really left. John Kennedy was only 52 when his Presidency ended and despite his medical issues he wasn’t ready to retire, and write his memoirs. It wasn’t helped that within a week of him leaving office Jackie Kennedy had filed for divorce. His predecessor James Webb, after realizing that Kennedy was squatting in various vacant offices in the Manned Spacecraft Center had assigned the ex-president an office in the Administration building and a secretary. This didn’t help Paine much when his own office was in Washington DC and Kennedy refused to take Paine up on the offer of a office at NASA headquarters in DC. John Kennedy had created his own unit inside of NASA and the only reason that he got away with it was because he was a former US President. When Paine had tried to talk about it with Lyndon Johnson after taking over for Webb. President Johnson only smiled and told him that he would figure out the best way to handle Kennedy. Now with Robert Kennedy in office the situation wasn’t getting better. In Paine’s view there needed to be clear lines of responsibility and reporting in any organization and Kennedy’s own office threw this into chaos at times. Kennedy officially didn’t report to anybody except the President, and even then he wasn’t sure sometimes. It didn’t help that Kennedy’s NASA office had slowly grown somehow. He now had former astronaut Bill Anders working with him and Alan Shepard would also drop by as his schedule allowed. Another recent addition was General Sam Phillips who had retired for the USAF and now was assisting Kennedy for free on a part-time basis. He finally had to assign someone to try and keep tabs on what John Kennedy and his “NASA gang” were up to. Having John Kennedy around was kind of like playing with explosives and Paine was never sure when something was going to blow up in the heavily bureaucratic NASA. He still hadn’t figured out how to best handle the Kennedy problem so he decided his best course of action right now was one of containment and observation. ​

“Yeah Bobby, going to the moon is complicated and landing on the moon is even more complicated. The entire Apollo program has been more about project management of large engineering projects than anything else.”​

“So what do you recommend we do John?”​

“Right now we need more funding to get the Independence Space Station back on track. I don’t recommend we speed up the lunar landings and we keep them at one mission a year. For long range planning we continue to fund the replacement for Big Gemini and fund a Space Station at EML-2. We have most of the hardware for the EML-2 space station we just need the funding for operations. We cannot afford to abandon Skylab-B until Independence is up and operational, having a working space station in orbit is a national asset that needs to be preserved. Also having a space station makes it cheaper to do research that requires a microgravity environment. We need to increase the funding to get the Independence Space Station back on track. People don’t realize the return on investment that a work space station gives. Instead of just sending astronauts up for a couple of weeks at a time we can send them up for months at a time and they can do extensive research while on the space station at lot lower cost per man-hour than a conventional space mission. We should continue the long range planning for creating a lunar base, but more funding needs to be allocated. Part of the LESA exploration will be determining the best location for a lunar base. If you think we can get that funding from Congress we can get everything on track and make sure the Soviet’s and the US public know who is dominating in space.”​

Robert looked at Paine after John finished “Do you agree Tom?”​

Paine cleared his throat “Mr. President I liked the priorities that your brother has laid out and we can work with that. I would like to add a couple of additional requests. With the failure of the Soviet lunar mission we need to reexamine failure options for a lunar mission. I think we need to look at possibly staging landings out of the proposed EML-2 space station and have a permanently docked lunar rescue vehicle. I don’t want to see US astronauts dying on the lunar surface or in lunar orbit and by staging out of EML-2 we can increase the safety of the lunar missions. “ Paine paused he could see John Kennedy wanting to say something but he then decided not to. ​

“I also want to see about expansion of Launch Complex 39 to make launches more efficient. I want to have all manned Saturn launches be launched from Complex 39. The issue is that the Saturn-IC uses a Solid Rocket Booster for the first stage which means we cannot stack the launch vehicle in the Vertical Assembly Building because of the danger of having a fully fueled rocket inside this building. I would like to start the construction of two separate Vertical Assembly building that would be smaller in scale and have only 1-bay in each building. These buildings could support the launch of Either the Saturn-1C or Saturn-III rockets. The buildings would need be separated from the Vertical Assembly building. This way we can stack a Solid Rocket Booster inside a building and then transport to the pad when the stacking and checkout is completed. Instead of stacking at the pad which is what we have to do now. This will also allow to have all manned launch from Launch Complex 39.” ​

Robert looked over at his brother who nodded at him.
Paine caught the nod from the John to his Brother. Paine had very quickly realized that as long as he had John Kennedy’s support on something for NASA he could just about guarantee that his brother would agree. This also meant that if John Kennedy didn’t like something he was proposing it was probably going to be denied. He would have to keep this in mind. ​

“That is fine with me Thomas, this all sounds good thank you both of you for coming today.”​

“Actually one other thing Bobby.” Kennedy had raised his finger.​

“Go ahead John.”​

“We need to amend the Saturn production contract which will also require some additional funding. The HG-3 engine, which is a new more powerful upper stage engine has finished development and ground test and I think we should shift production to take advantage of this new engine at the earliest opportunity. “ Kennedy paused and looked over at Paine.​

“Do you agree Tom?”​

Paine nodded his head. ​

“Sound good Bobby?”​

“Ok, John get some numbers on everything and I will work on seeing what we can get on the hill for funding. Well if you guys are done trying to empty my pockets. I think we can wrap this up.”​

John got up out of his chair and a Secret Service quickly agent appeared with a wheelchair and Kennedy eased himself into it. Paine and then John left the Oval office. Once outside in the hallway John stopped Paine. ​

“Do you have a couple of minutes?”​

“Sure Mr. President.”​

Paine walked with the John Kennedy as his wheelchair was pushed out to rose garden near the west wing of the White House. ​

“So Tom about staging out of EML-2. I think there might some alternatives and we can still get increased safety.”​

Thomas Paine sighed “Mr President” John raised his hand​

“Tom in private just call me John.”​

“Ok John, I am really concerned about having a crew stranded in either lunar orbit or on the surface. We almost had the crew of Apollo-19 stranded on the surface, that was a close call. It gives me nightmares. We now have two cosmonauts dead up there. Sometimes I question if the entire lunar exploration program is worth it.”​

“Gives me nightmares too Tom, but we have smart people that think of contingencies and the backup system worked with Apollo-19. The astronauts in NASA know the risks they take. Nobody is under any illusions that spaceflight or going the moon is routine. I think we will discover that those two Cosmonauts were killed by incompetence and sheer hubris by the Soviet manned space program. The important thing is to remember that space exploration is dangerous and we can only eliminate so much risk before we just start spinning ourselves in circles of money and we make no forward progress. Also never lose sight of what could go wrong and become complacent becomes I can guarantee you that being complacent will get people killed. I understand that you want to stage the lunar landings out of EML-2 and pay Grumman to create a Lunar rescue vehicle that can be in long term hibernation at EML-2 in case it is needed. “​

“Yes John I do. “​

“I think you might want to consider a proposal from McDonnell I heard a couple of weeks ago that is intriguing. That I think could work better for the program and still give you the safety benefits you want. “​

Paine sighed “Ok, I have never heard any proposal by McDonnell on this.”​

“Well you know the HG-3 engine has completed its development. “​

Paine nodded his head.​

“I have had some of my people looking over some numbers, the Saturn Launch vehicle Manufacturers Rockwell, McDonnell Douglas, Boeing and AeroJet all think we should look at moving to what they call a block-II series of the current line of Saturn rocket stages. “​

“Ok John you lost me, what does that have to do with lunar mission contingencies?”​

“Just hear me out Tom. The Saturn VB stages in the rush to get into production are all over-engineered for what they do. Which means they have more mass than they need. A improvement of the mass fraction by 1% maybe 2% can be achieved and still retain all the necessary structural margins for safety. The numbers look solid. To get the Saturn-VB and IC into production some assumptions were made and the manufacturers errored in the side of caution. Which isn’t a bad thing thing when rushing to develop a new stage. The reason it wasn’t an issue for mission planning is the VB was so powerful that they still hit their payload targets and we didn’t see a constant growth in mass of Apollo spacecraft.”​

“Ok John, I am still trying to see the connection.” Sometimes talking to John Kennedy was exasperating. ​

“You will Tom. AeroJet has also been closely tracking the performance of the Solid Rocket Boosters and the re-use program. The numbers don’t pencil out, it just isn’t cost effective to have the things splash down in the ocean and fish them out and refurbish them. It would be better to construct a more lightweight Solid Rocket body that is disposable. So this means the Saturn-VB could lose some significant mass in the stages. This reduction in mass along with the HG-3 engine should allow launch payloads of around 150 tons to the Moon. “​

“That is a lot of payload John.”​

“Yes it is, a lot of payload. Now lets discuss lunar contingencies and how this all fits together. McDonnell Douglas has been continuing to work on Big Gemini upgrades and they presented me a design for a lunar mission “Big G” with a beefed up heatshield and engines. The entire Cargo module would be replaced with a Service Module with a pressurized tunnel to allow aft docking to the LLV. The Service Module would use a cluster of three engines that are derived from the LLV ascent engine. By having three engines you have a lot of redundancy for TEI. “ ​

“So instead of depending on one CSM engine firing we have three engines?’​

“Yes and the Big Gemini has another advantage. Already mission planners are running into possible planning issues with return capability of CM. There just isn’t enough room in the CM. The “Big G” has triple the internal volume in it’s reentry vehicle of the CM and has a lot more bring back mass. This also means no Multi-mission module and the “Big G” is designed to be re-usable. At the same time we eliminate water landing’s and the logistical challenges that they represent. “​

Paine paused to take this all in. “Ok that could work to make sure the astronauts are not stranded in lunar orbit. How about getting off the lunar surface? What happens if the ascent module engine doesn’t ignite.?”​

“If that happens they have access to the LESA base if they are on the lunar surface. The LESA base has emergency rations and they could easily survive another 60+-days on the lunar surface. They wouldn’t be comfortable but they could survive and wait in the LESA base for rescue. Grumman was working on a modified LM before we went with LESA base route called a LM Cargo and it had a overall mass of around 16-tons and could transport about 5-tons to the lunar surface. With the HG-3 engine, the Saturn weight reductions and a Apollo-Centaur on the Saturn-IC could launch 20 tons to the moon and a Saturn-IC is much easier to prepare in 60-days for launch than a Saturn-VB. With 5-tons we could easily transport enough supplies to keep a crew alive for another 4-months. So this gives us at least 6 months to prepare a Saturn-VB for a rescue mission which is much more manageable and safer timeframe. Also we then have a lunar cargo module that can be launched on a Saturn-IC and we can re-supply a LESA Mission if we want to extend the mission or send additional supplies. Which is much more effective than developing a lunar rescue vehicle that sits at EML-2 to hopefully never be used. We can wrap up together the switch to Big Gemini, the block-II Saturn rockets and the LM Cargo as a single program to improve mission safety. John Kennedy leaned back in his wheelchair. ​

Tom paused and was considering what John had just told him. Why had this “Big Gemini” proposal never crossed his desk? He sometimes worried that what he was being allowed to see what being filtered to much. Was he that out of touch sitting at NASA headquarters. It was intriguing and the possibility of being able to land supplies on the lunar surface using a much cheaper Saturn-IC could be very interesting. John didn’t just pull this out of thin air. Somebody had done some work on the engineering for this. Paine had a idea, maybe instead of trying to contain John Kennedy, he needed to work with him and give him a direction? Kennedy because of his position didn’t have the filtering that he had to deal with being the head of NASA. ​

“Ok John, you have my attention. Why don’t you have your team in Houston work with the various parties involved. I want to see on my desk in 2-weeks a study on the proposed mass reductions for the block-II Saturn stages using HG-3 engines. I also want to see some realistic time plans and cost for phasing in the new HG-3 engine and the mass reductions. I also want to see a study on the cost of the recovery of SRB’s versus not recovering them. No AeroJet bullshit, I want to see the numbers and their costs. “
Paine paused, he could see John had a small notebook out and he was writing in it. ​

“I also wanted to see a study on the proposed lunar “Big Gemini”. I want to see some numbers, especially timing and cost. I also want to see the proposal on this Lunar Module cargo vehicle. ”​

Tom paused “I would take it you wouldn't be telling me this if you didn’t have some of this information already. “
John smiled “I think I might just have some of the information you are asking for already Tom.”​

“OK John, should we get out of here? It is getting a little chilly?”​

“Yeah I think it is time we depart.” John waived to a Secret Service Agent who came over to push the President. ​

Tom waved him off. “John, let me push for a bit.”​

Tom Paine started pushing John Kennedy in his wheelchair out to their waiting cars​

“John, When are you flying back to Houston? I wanted to see if you had time to do dinner tonight?” ​

“I wasn’t planning on flying back till tomorrow. That sounds great lets do dinner. Tell your wife to come. I think I have a date lined up tonight. We can have a double date. “ John smiled and winked at Tom. John Kennedy was well known among the secretarial staff at Houston. Tom made a point to make sure only young unmarried secretaries were assigned to John Kennedy's office. ​

“Well if you don’t mind I will come back with you to NASA HQ. I have a few phone calls to make to get my staff working back in Houston on what you asked for.”​

Tom Paine and John Kennedy left the White House together and Tom was in a much better mood now than when he arrived. ​

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Well, aside from all the "were"s becoming "where"s (which is really annoying), good update.

 

[brovane]

Well, aside from all the "were"s becoming "where"s (which is really annoying), good update.

Thank you - I think that gramatical error with were and where should be corrected now. Unfortunately I am not real good with grammar. Hopefully it is less annoying now.