Across the high frontier: a Big Gemini space TL

[Archibald]

December 8, 1983

Moscow

Designer Lozino- Lozinskiy was still working on the carrier aircraft issue. There was no time nor money to design a brand new aircraft, so the orders were clear – you must start from the Antonov 124 heavy military cargo aircraft Ustinov had said.

Even then there was no lack of possibilities.

They could extend the wings and add two or four turbofans, perhaps with hydrogen afterburners. That would be straightforward, but the space plane in this case would have to go on top of the Antonov, and that was no longer acceptable. You needed a crane to haul the heavy thing that high, and operational flexibility now prohibited that option. It would be much easier if the space plane could go either under the cargo hold, or under the An-124 belly. Parachuting the space plane out of the Antonov was tempting but extremely risky. With all that kerosene and hydrogen and oxygen inside it made for a perfect thermobaric bomb it was better not shaking too much. So that left only the An-124 underside, except of course there was no room, the fuselage being very close from the ground.

Unless they turned the Antonov into a catamaran, a twin fuselage aircraft akin to that old American fighter, the P-38 Lighting. The Antonovs would be joined like siameses; a new, central wing would bridge the two fuselages. Then the spaceplane could go under that central wing.

"If we ever build that thing, it will be one hell of a transporter." Lozino-Lozinskiy thought. The payload could be housed into the two Antonov 124 cargo holds, or in a giant pod hanged below the central wing. The central wing would extend the span by 30 feet;the whole aircraft would probably span 400 feet or so. Not only the wings would link the fuselages; the tails might also be joined into a single unit, the whole aircraft theorically a biplane, or more exactly a tandem-wing machine.

And there would be no need either for two cockpits, so either the right or left fuselage would lose his crew station. With the different tail the rear cargo doors would probably have to go, but not the forward ones. The An-124 hinged nose would remain in place.

Lozino-Lozinskiy had the vision of a humongous, one-million-pound catamaran aircraft boosted to 45 000 feet by the brute force of six massive hydrogen afterburning turbofans.

As for the engine, Isayev 11D56 already had a long story – it had been tested on the ground for a decade and a half.

The late Korolev had persistently tried to create a liquid hydrogen engine development program in the early 1960s, and the effort was finally producing results by 1967-68 with the establishment of a modest production base as well as the first static tests of actual engines.

The program to develop high-performance liquid hydrogen engines, so doggedly pursued by Korolev in the last years of his life, was also vigorously supported by his successor Mishin. It took a long time, but seven years after Korolev's first letters to the government requesting funds for liquid hydrogen engines, the Soviets tested such an engine.

On April 8 1967, engineers directed the first ground test of the first Soviet liquid oxygen-liquid hydrogen engine, the 11D56, designed and built by the Chemical Machine Building Design Bureau (formerly OKB-2) headed by Chief Designer Isayev, which unfortunately had died in 1971. His successor Bogomolov was busy creating a kerosene afterburner for the 20 000 pounds thrust 11D56.
Lyulka was working on a similar system for its 100 000 Ibs thrust 11D-57. Lyulka's 11D57 engine production had stopped in 1975 after no fewer than 105 were built, most of themhaving been stored. A trio of engines had been refurbished, to be used for the TAN test program.
But Arkhip Mikhailovich Lyulka was overburdened with work on the Su-27 AL-31F turbofan. There were talks about consolidating the T.A.N RD-57 and RD-56 teams probably by moving Lyulka rocket scientists to Isayev OKB-2.

 

[Archibald]

"For the European Space Agency Diagonal was merely a distraction from Ariane; they funded the project only as a testbed for the space tug, since Ariane wasn't ready and the French were reluctant.

Lockheed, however, had a larger vision; they saw Diagonal as a possible entry on the space launch vehicle business they had been excluded so far. Their unique foray into rocketry had been the Polaris submarine-launched vehicle, and for a time Lockheed had considered the feasibility of a launch-cost booster made of a cluster of these missiles. But, unlike their ground-based Minuteman and Peacekeeper counterparts, Lockheed missiles were just too small for the job.

Diagonal offered a different, much more efficient path of development. Soon the company jumped on another opportunity.

The closure of Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, in 1975 freed a large pool of German rocket scientists, many of them that had knew the V-2 era three decades before. That, and Marshall had done a lot of work on the space tug concept. Unsurprisingly, a lot of germans chose to return to their native country to continue the work, since ESA had somewhat taken over the tug program. As for large rockets, Ariane in its 44L variant made for an honourable successor to the Saturns.

Soon, however, the Germans grew desillusioned. After 1975 some of them had to face justice for past work with the Nazis. As for the tug and Ariane, the perspectives were not very rosy, since the two still couldn't be married, if only for political reasons. In this context, Lockheed, Agena and Diagonal represented an interesting fallback position.

Soon most of the Germans went back to America. Among them was Kurt Debus, and he brought a young engineer with him, with the name of Lutz Kayser. It happened that Kayser knew Diamant technology quite well, having worked for M.AN, Munich, with the French L.R.B.A on the so-called Europa III-E proposal of a cluster of Diamants.

The term cluster soon rung a bell on the older Marshall Germans: wasn't the old Saturn IB a cluster itself - a kludge of Jupiter missiles and tanks and engines cobbled together? Kayser and Debus found they spoke the same language, and they brought their idea to Lockheed.

What Lockheed had bought as a short-lived tug testbed had evolved int Diagonal, a small, very cheap launcher with a payload of a mere 0.5 tons to the space station. It was a far cry from either a Titan or an Ariane, however, so Kayser and Debus pitched Lockheed a family of medium and heavy modular launchers made of a bundle of Diagonals. A single Diagonal competed with Vought Scout; four Diagonals tackled McDonnell Douglas Delta; eight of them made for General Dynamics Atlas, or Martin Marietta Titan II.

Further modules added to the stack and heavy-lift would be in sight. An alternative to too much modules consisted of scaling-up the pressure-fed Valois engine for more thrust. Everything from the modules to the engine was scalable, Kayser said. It is an otrageous concept.

Then Lockheed become split over DIAGONAL market and future. DIAGONAL had slained SCOUT only to discover than the market for small satellites was a niche, and the company grew discouraged. They decided to give up DIAGONAL but to apply pressure-fed technology at a much larger scale for the ELVIS competition.

Lockheed's Germans saw a possible return of Saturn IB and strongly supported the ELVIS bid. By contrast Maxwelll Hunter was frustrated since he saw an enormous potential for DIAGONAL as it stood. Hunter finally retired from Lockheed in 1985 and created his own rocket company with Robert Truax.

Hunter managed to sneak DIAGONAL out of Lockheed albeit the company expressedly forbadde him to grow bigger rockets to compete with their ELVIS bid. Hunter accepted because he didn't care about growing DIAGONAL bigger. Hunter had seen DIAGONAL biggest flaw – its dangerous storable propellants. He intented to replace them with keroxide – H2O2 and kerosene.

 

[Archibald]

As you can see OTRAG doesn't happens ITTL. Lutz Kayser instead applies his cluster ideas, first to Marshall, then to Ariane, and finally to Lockheed.
Also, there goes Athena, Lockheed all solid rocket.

More on ELVIS later. It is my own Delta 4000 (ETS) or EELV (OTL) that is, the successor of Titan III started in the mid-80's.

 

[Archibald]

June 6, 1984

Richard Scobee felt a jolt, and his subscale shuttle dropped rapidly from under the NB-52 wing. Once far below the carrier aircraft he throttled up the XLR-11 rocket engine, and the subscale shuttle leaped forward, accelerating rapidly toward mach 1.

Scobee had finally decided to stay at Dryden and in the world of flight testing.

On the cockpit panel nearby was a new button, something added during the long immobilization of the subscale shuttle. He flicked the switch, and a refueling probe sprouted near his canopy. The NKC-135 was right in place for the rendezvous. Throttling the XLR-11 back, Scobee closed from the flying tanker. In flight refueling was already tricky while flying on turbojet power, but rocket engines were comparatively much worse. He would have no time for a second atempt, not with his fuel level dropping at alarming rates. Rocket engines were decidedly not made for atmospheric flight. But Scobee was an accomplished test pilot, and soon he had the refueling probe stuck to the tanker boom. Ethyl alcohol started to flow into his ship tank, and as the subscale shuttle took weight he had to gently throttle the old X-1 engine in his back. After 30 seconds like that, he disengaged from the tanker and prepared for landing. Since he had not received any oxidizer, there was no way he could continue flying. He instead dumped his unuseful rocket fuel before gliding down to a gentle landing at Roger Dry Lake.

He went on for a debriefing with Air Force and DARPA officials. DARPA was a newcomer in the subscale shuttle program; only them could test something as crazy and scary as in flight refueling of a rocket plane - on a shoestring budget and discretely enough that, if the idea proved unworkable, no-one would complain. If it worked then the Air Force and eventually NASA could claim success.



***


In 1980 Zucker-Abraham-Zucker Airplane ! was a major hit at the box office. Today the movie has garnered cult following, and his frequently ranked as one of the best spoof comedy ever, only matched by Monthy Pythons Life of Brian.

An atempt at a non-official sequel was thwarted by the trio in 1981 (1) and triggered a nasty judiciary battle. Z – A – Z ultimately regained control (lame pun intented) of the sequel project in 1982, as their Police Squad ! TV-series was cancelled (2)

In 1983 the Orion spaceplane was disclosed to the general public via Popular Mechanics and was “an instant hit” for the trio. Zucker, Abraham and Zucker explain why:

“Nowadays there are two aerospace manoeuvers that are, in essence, very sexual: those are aerial refueling and orbital docking. Both works through a system called “probe-and-drogue”, and this by itself says a lot, the probe being the penis while the drogue makes for the vagina. It happens that the Orion space plane actually perform both sexual manoeuvers – aerial refueling and space docking. This made for a perfect sequel to Airplane !

In a cross-over between Airplane ! and Police squad ! Leslie Nielsen's Frank Drebin found himself booked into a shuttle bound for the Moon which defective computer send toward the sun, with Otto the inflatable doll (and his girlfriend, with a little inflatable boy, too (3) ) returning as the autopilot, repeatedly mating with aerial refueling tankers and similar Orion spaceplanes as poor Ted Stryker tries to figure a way of bringing the space plane down to Earth solid ground. Stryker of course has “help” from flight attendant Elaine Dickinson (Hagerty) and from Drebin himself (Nielsen), who is revelead to be Doctor Rumack estranged twin brother (4) . Last but not least, Captain Over wife's lover makes a cameo – watch for the space horse ! (5)

(1) IOTL Airplane the sequel was not ZAZ and they denounced it

(2) I did not realized that Nielsen's Frank Drebbin had started in Police Squad !
As kids my elder sister and I watched every single Naked Gun movies and laughed to tears to all the WTF moments (I remember Drebin climbing into a bus driven by Ray Charles. What's the problem ??!!)

(3) Watch the end of Airplane ! : Otto inflates himself a girlfriend, and lift-off to Hawai aboard the damaged aircraft. We can guess they went on a honeymoon and beyond

(4) Couldn't resist. Nielsen played both characters, which are equally nuts (kudos to the scene in the Naked Gun with the statue penis.)

(5) Taken from OTL Airplane ! When the airport phone to Captain Clarence Over wife, she is actually in bed with her lover - a freakkin' horse stallion. She tells him to get out of the home discretely and, if he is hungry, there is oat juice in the fridge (WTF !)

 

[Archibald]

(See https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/explorers-ad-astra.366697/page-20#post-12648549 for variants of X-27 unmanned space plane)



The Agena space tug has been created by NASA from 1973 with the initial aim of ferrying space station modules from orbital injection to final docking with the base block. Since then however the tug has been used in a very wide range of missions.

The space tug offers unique maneuvering, rendezvous and docking capabilities that might of interest for the coming Strategic Defense Initiative.

Agena launchers are varied, small, flexible and unexpensives. Lockheed Diagonal is representative of that trend. Agenas can be stored for a very long time in orbit. The space tug can easily climb to geosyncronous orbit or execute large orbital plane changes. Two decades ago the SAINT project used an Agena for satellite inspection and eventual destruction. The Agena is also the bus of all Key Hole spy satellites from KH-4 Corona to KH-8 Gambit.

An interesting addon to the Agena present capability would be rendezvous, grappling or docking with uncooperative targets. A robotic arm would be valuable here.

An intriguing concept is a possible marriage between the Agena space tug and the X-27 subscale shuttle vehicle.

Born out of the 1971 space shuttle fiasco the X-27F program is typical of Cold War brickmanship. The Soviets perfectly knew about the program. Coincidentally, during Apollo-Soyuz in 1974 a soviet engineer had been show Rockwell full-size mockup of the never build shuttle orbiter.

A paranoid Soviet leadership couldn't belive the american had entirely given up the shuttle program. Matematician Keldysh strongly believed the (cancelled) shuttle had been an orbital nuclear bomber that could lift-off from Vanderberg AFB, California , nuke Moscow from orbit and then land back at Vandenberg after a single orbit. So the soviets had to keep track of the X-27 program in the case it would led to a reborn space shuttle – you never know.

The Soviet answer to the X-27 was Mig 105.11 aircraft followed by the BOR-4. Mig 105.11 was a piloted subsonic lifting body dropped from a Tu-95 bomber. BOR-4 were subscale models lifted into suborbital flight by Tsyklon missiles. Seven were flown between 1978 and 1984. Because they usually landed near Australia, RAAF P-3 Orions used to monitor BOR-4 recoveries. At some point the CIA got worried about the BOR-4; they saw them as possible anti-satellite weapons. Here Reagan SDI brickmanship echoed Andropov paranoia, with obvious results.

As an answer to BOR-4, Rockwell proposed the X-27F. The unpiloted, subscale shuttle vehicle would be boosted into orbit by an augmented Titan II missile (with Delta nine solid strapons) and remain in orbit for months at a time.

The Ford and Carter administrations staunchly refused to fund the X-27F. The decade-long Air Force lobbying effort however paid in the end. Right from 1982 (thus even before the Star Wars speech of March 1983) the Reagan administration decided to fund the little space plane.

On July 4, 1982 President Reagan announced the X-27F would be build.

At some point in 1982-85 a "war of the spaceplanes" nearly happened. Mini-space planes would be launched by Tsyklon (R-36) or Titan II heavy ballistic missiles. BOR-4s would battle X-27Fs in space. Both space planes would be satellite killers.

At the end of the day, it can be said that the shuttle made the Soviets so paranoid they restarted the Spiral program in the shape of the BOR-4. In turn, the BOR-4 made the CIA even more paranoid than the already paranoid soviets, hence the X-27F !

A X-27F could rendezvous with an Agena space tug. The tug would then lift the X-27F into geosynchronous or Molniya orbit for satellite inspection. The space tug robotic arm would be used to grapple the satellite and pick up pieces that would be stored into the X-27F small payload bay for Earth return and examination. With the addition of the Agena booster the X-27F could also execute very large orbital plane change. It would be possible to fly a X-27F into polar orbit from the Eastern Test Range (Cape Canaveral).

Beside anti-satellite missions the Agena might also be used as an Anti-Ballistic Missile weapon. The Agena could be a mothership for loads of kinetic interceptors stored in orbit. If launched in suborbital flight an Agena could home onto ballistic missiles and destroy them. Because it has been used as a satellite bus, the Agena could be used in the "Brilliant Eyes" role of launch detection of ICBMs.

There are probably many other possible SDI applications for the Agena space tug that will be explored further in the future.

One of them is particularly intriguing. It marries the Agena with a manned, suborbital space plane called Orion.

Today Agenas are launched by expendable launch vehicles. More generally satellites today are launched via booster rocket from a limited number of ground facilities, which can involve a month or longer of preparation for a small payload and significant cost for each mission. Launch costs are driven in part today by fixed site infrastructure, integration, checkout and flight rules. Fixed launch sites can be rendered idle by something as innocuous as rain, and they also limit the direction and timing of orbits satellites can achieve.

Orion-Agena is part of a wider program informally known as RASCAL (Responsive Access, Small Cargo, Affordable Launch) and aimed at placing 300-lb. payloads into orbit for less than $750,000.

Under development by Boeing, Rascal is a specially designed Lockheed SR-71-size supersonic aircraft powered by an existing turbojet engine modified to high-Mach, high-altitude operation. After takeoff, the manned Rascal is intended to zoom-climb to 180,000 ft. and release an expendable upper stage, then return to a runway landing.

The goal of RASCAL / Orion-Agena is to develop a significantly less expensive approach for routinely launching small satellites, with a goal of at least threefold reduction in costs compared to current military and US commercial launch costs. Currently, small satellite payloads cost more than $30,000 per pound to launch, and must share a launcher with other satellites. Orion-Agena seeks to launch satellites on the order of 100 pounds for less than $1M total, including range support costs, to orbits that are selected specifically for each 100 pound payload.

Orion-Agena aims to develop and employ radical advances in launch systems, to include the development of a complete launch vehicle requiring no recurring maintenance or support, and no specific integration to prepare for launch.

Orion-Agena is designed for launch from an aircraft to improve performance, reduce range costs and enable more frequent missions, all of which combine to reduce cost. The ability to relocate and launch quickly from virtually any major runway around the world substantially reduces the time needed to launch a mission. Launching from an aircraft provides launch point offset, which permits essentially any orbit direction to be achieved without concerns for launch direction limits imposed by geography at fixed-base launch facilities.

The Orion-Agena demonstration system plans to draw on emerging technologies to provide increased specific impulse propellants, stable propellant formulations, hybrid propellant systems, potential “infrastructure free” cryogen production, new motor case materials, new flight controls and mission planning techniques, new nozzle designs, improved thrust vectoring methods and new throttling approaches.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (Darpa) goal with this new program is to demonstrate a reusable capability that can transition to industry for low-cost military and commercial satellite launches and hypersonic technology testing.

The agency usually hands off successful programs to one of the U.S. military services, but “Darpa’s transition partner is you — industry,” Program Manager Jess Sponable told attendees at a proposers’ day briefing earlier this month.

In addition to enabling lower-cost, more-responsive launches of U.S. government satellites, Darpa sees the reusable first-stage technology to be demonstrated under the Orion program as key to recapturing a commercial launch market lost to foreign competitors.

The program’s goal is to fly an X-plane reusable first-stage to demonstrate technology for an operational system capable of launching 3,000-5,000-lb. payloads to low Earth orbit for less than $5 million per flight at a launch rate of 10 or more flights a year. This compares with around $55 million to launch that class of payload on the Delta expendable booster.

The technical objectives are to fly the X-30 ten times in ten days; fly to Mach 10-plus at least once; and launch a demonstration payload into orbit.

The 10 flights in 10 days are intended to demonstrate reusability and expand the flight envelope. There is no velocity requirement for the flights, but the vehicle must take off and land each time.

Flying to Mach 10 or beyond will demonstrate that Orion can reach a staging speed that minimizes the Agena propellant load, for which a target cost of $1-2 million has been set. There are no dynamic-pressure or load-factor requirements, but designing for Mach 10-plus will require the demonstrator to have the aero-thermal capability needed for space access and hypersonic testing.

The stated objective of the X-30 program is to “break the cycle of escalating space system costs,” the agency says, pointing out that GPS II will cost $500 million for the satellite and $300 million for the launch, compared with $43 million for the satellite and $55 million for the launch of the first GPS in 1978.

Previous attempts to develop a reusable launch vehicle have failed, the agency acknowledges, arguing that the early-70's space shuttle never flew because the technology was not available and the designs never closed.

Advances that should make the concept feasible this time around, Darpa believes, include lower-weight, lower-cost composite airframe and tank structures, durable thermal protection, available propulsion that is reusable and affordable, and health management systems that enable aircraft-like operations.

 

[Archibald]

This is a tribute to DARPA varied efforts at fast responsive launch. XS-1 and the older RASCAL.

ITTL both DC-X and X-30 will be severely impacted. DARPA and SDIO funding will go elsewhere.

 

[Archibald]

The Briz (Breeze) rocket stage apparently originated in the 1980s within a Soviet anti-satellite weapons program designed to carry a "killer" vehicle toward its target in orbit. After the end of the Cold War, the propulsion section of the "killer" satellite was converted to a pair of upper stages, which were designated Briz-K and Briz-KM. Both were designed to fit on top of the Rockot launcher, which itself derived from the two-stage UR-100NU ballistic missile.

During the mid-1980s, the Soviets began development of a second co-orbital ASAT weapons system known as Naryad. This system utilized a rocket based on the UR-100 (NATO designation SS-19 Stiletto) that was fitted with a powerful upper stage. The upper stage was significantly more powerful and lighter in weight than previous ones and could reportedly reignite up to 75 times. This would allow the upper stage to place one or more kill vehicles into orbits as high as 40,000 kilometers (24,850 miles), allowing them to independently target and home in on multiple target satellites before detonating.

Naryad would ride into space onboard a silo-based missile derived from UR-100NU and upgraded with a highly maneuverable upper stage, which was later declassified for commercial use under name Briz-K. In its turn, Briz-K was apparently designed to release one or several rocket-powered "kill vehicles" developed at Nudelman's OKB-16 design bureau and capable of intercepting orbiting satellites at altitudes of up to 40,000 kilometers -- much higher than the reach of the previous IS system.

OKB-16's interceptor would be released at its target under guidance from Naryad's launch platform. The interceptor could adjust its trajectory with short bursts of four liquid-propellant thrusters installed at the center of the vehicle perpendicularly to the flight path. Upon approaching its target, the interceptor would home in on it with the help of a self-guiding warhead developed at KB Geophysika. The interceptor would then switch to autonomous control with the help of its onboard computer.

Along with destroying enemy satellites, the capability of the Naryad system to intercept ballistic warheads during various stages of flight or even hit targets on the ground was also rumored. The government authorized the construction of several experimental vehicles for the project with the first tests planned around 1987.

To propel Naryad's Briz-K space booster, KB Salyut requested KB Khimmash design bureau to develop a new engine capable of multiple firings in space. KB Khimmash had an extensive experience in propulsion systems for prolonged operations in space, such as the 11D417 engine for Luna-15-24 lunar probes, 11D425 for Mars series and S5.92 for a new-generation Fobos platform. However KB Salyut's managers demanded from KB Khimmash even more thrust, endurance and an unprecedented capability for such a large engine to make as much as 75 firings in space, along with lower pressure in its propellant tanks. All these improvements had to be achieved with a simultaneous mass reduction in the overall engine, which received a designation S5.98. At the end of the 1980s, new propulsion systems went through a series of live-firing tests, before being shipped to Baikonur for actual launches. According to multiple Russian sources, the first sub-orbital mission of the Rockot booster with the Naryad-V payload lifted off from Baikonur on November 11, 1990. The second Naryad mission flew in December 1991, just days before the disintegration of USSR. Although both missions were on ballistic trajectories, without reaching the Earth orbit, Naryad's maneuverable platform apparently demonstrated capability to conduct multiple engine firings.



***


(thanks to Nixonshead) https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...rnate-space-race.314576/page-20#post-10210511

MOVING IN THE DARK: THE X-27F INNOVATIVE MANOEUVERS.

The X-27F owes a lot of innovatives schemes to its two forerunners that are DynaSoar and the space shuttle. Both winged spacecrafts were to perform daring orbital manoeuverings; experience gained during both studies and development will certainly be channeled into the X-27.

DYNASOAR LEGACY: SYNERGISTIC PLANES CHANGES

In 1972 Boeing pitched a reborn DynaSoar as NASA next manned vehicle. Boeing teamed with Martin Marietta to propose a Transtage space tug working along their DynaSoar space plane.

Few people realize that the DynaSoar by itself far from maxed Titan IIIC payload capability. The space plane barely weighed 15 000 pounds when Titan IIIC could loft a minimum of 23 000 pounds, if not 30 000 with some upgrades.

Whatever the difference in weight, it was filled by a partially fueled upper stage. DynaSoar was launched into orbit with a fat Transtage attached to its aft end.

During DynaSoar development, the Air Force hoped to conduct so-called synergistic exercises. Using the Transtage a DynaSoar would dip into the upper atmosphere, employ its aerodynamic manoeuverability to change the plane of inclination and refire the Transtage to boost itself back into orbit. It was an alternative to the classic propulsive plane change, a brute-force approach that cost a huge amount of propellants.

Today the Air Force wants to bring back the daring manoeuver – using an Agena space tug mated to an unpiloted X-27F space plane.

The synergistic orbital plane change basic theory works as follow.

For a propulsive plane change it is assumed it’s a simple vector calculation at apogee (500km), where the velocity magnitude doesn’t change, just the direction. That means:

delta-v(Rocket) = 2*(orbit speed at apogee)*sin(inclination change/2)

Now the synergistic change

delta-v(Syn) = delta-v(lower orbit) + delta-v(raise orbit) + (recover speed lost to drag)
The delta-v for the plane change itself is assumed to be ‘free’ from aerodynamic lift, hence doesn’t appear here.

The delta-v to lower and raise the orbit is assumed to be the same (50m/s). For the speed lost to drag, it is related this to the equivalent delta-v of the plane change, which was calculated based on the vector change at perigee for the lowered 500km x 80km orbit - which, incidentally, would be somewhere over Antarctica on DynaSoar - which raises a few interesting operational issues!

delta-v(Syn-Equiv) = 2*(orbit speed at perigee)*sin(inclination change/2)

Assuming that this aerodynamic delta-v comes from lift, L/D got related to approximate the speed lost to drag. Supposed is a 7.6 degree plane change and a lift-to-drag ratio (L/D) of 1.2

delta-v(Syn) = 2*50 + 1031*(1/1.2) = 960m/s

delta-v(Rocket) = 1000m/s

In this case, ricocheting on the atmosphere saves just 40m/s when compared to a propulsive orbital plane change. Now if we suppose an L/D of 1.9 the end result is a bigger saving - of 357 m/s.

Lowering the angle changes the result. With an L/D of 1.9 the cross-over point is 1.66 degrees. By cross over point we mean the point where an atmospheric ricochet become more efficient than a propulsive plane change. Put otherwise, at anything below that 1.66 degree angle it’s better to use rockets than try a synergistic manoeuvre.

Another way to put it- - if DynaSoar had achieved a lift/drag ratio as high as 2, and auxiliary drag due to the transit down from 500 to 80 km (and then back up again) slowed the craft as much as 100 m/sec, then still the maneuver saved 270 out of 1000 m/sec, 27 percent. And all turns of any angle would be cheaper in delta-V by that same amount-or really, more for harder angles, because the losses due to lowering the orbit and then enduring drag going down and coming up would be fixed, and the benefit gained on the turns would be greater in proportion.

It seems the ratio was in fact something like 4/3 (or lower, considering that the outcome was spending more propellant than a turn on rocket thrust would have cost). Even getting it up to just 3/2 ought to have resulted in a small net benefit from the maneuver.

A key factor in the synergistic manoeuver is DynaSoar lift-to-drag ratio. While subsonic aircrafts have very L/D high values, in the supersonic and hypersonic regimes that number tends to degrade very fast. DynaSoar L/D was between 1 and 2.

It is all the fault of that ancestral dream of Sänger's skip-gliding concept, where an aerospace plane is launched to some speed somewhat lower than orbital speed, but as its suborbital arc brings it down, it aerodynamically reverses the downward motion to go back up on another arc, thus skipping across the upper atmosphere like a stone skipping on the surface of water.

It's a perennially popular idea that keeps resurfacing with modern enthusiasts. Yet it's always seemed pretty dubious; the concept as Sänger conceived it and in the usual revivals does not assume that further thrusts are applied to maintain suborbital speed but instead that the "skips" diminish due to the drag from each skip – instead of probably supplementary thrust to maintain the energy of the arcs.

Either way it seems unreasonable, unless again as with the DynaSoar concept of synergistic inclination changes, we can get considerably better L/D than 2 – and that low number, by itself, ruins the entire skip-glide concept. Indeed with low L/D like the DynaSoar, a skip-glider would have to increment its velocity cumulatively to match and exceed orbital velocity many times over to circumnavigate Earth; it seems much more sensible to just go the extra mile with the initial boost and put it into proper orbit already, then deorbit when approaching the destination.

Sänger might have been assuming that if lift/drag ratios on the order of ten or twenty could be achieved for subsonic airplanes, it would just be a matter of getting the details right to do the same at Mach 20! He could be forgiven for such optimism in the middle of World War II. But the question now is, can such goals reasonably be reached in the light of what we know nowadays. If not the constant revivals of enthusiasm for the idea should get a proper quashing with hard numbers, once and for all. And even if practical, with much higher L/D than 2, we'd think it is generally of little strategic advantage to pursue these alleged advantages for hostile purposes.The ability to do synergistic vector changes might come in handy for particular civil purposes, though not generally.

Each DynaSoar synergistic vector change involved hard turning on the atmosphere, which involved, at speeds in the Mach 20+ range, a lot of heat generation which should make the craft glow brightly on infrared detectors; the foe thus knows where the skips happen and can probably even observe the vector the craft leaves the maneuver on, thus pinning down the suborbital trajectory and predicting where to look for the next turn. In the process any possible strategic advantage get lost.

SPACE SHUTTLE LEGACY

Recently the Air Force leaked a document from the space shuttle days. Dated 1972, it deals with the baseline reference missions (BRM) that the shuttle was originally designed to. It seems that the Air Force wants the X-27F to perform such missions. The document shows how big and aambitious the shuttle was to be; former NASA official George Mueller famously joked that it may have lifted a railway boxcar into orbit.

According to retired Air Force General Bleymaier, NASAs Mission Planning and Analysis Division (MPAD) began work in 1971 on defining Baseline Reference Mission 3 - in conjunction with the Air Force.

In BRM-3 the Shuttle would be launched from Vandenberg, reach orbit and carry out its mission before de-orbiting next time round and returning to either Vandenberg, or alternate facilities at Edwards AFB. On such a mission, the Earth would still be rotating under the Shuttle, meaning that by the time it was ready to re-enter, its orbital track would be some 1100 miles to the west of the United States. Flying back to California would require considerable cross range. Added to this, any abort following launch from Vandenberg would necessitate either a landing at an emergency site at Easter Island or a return to California after one orbit. This brings us back to the Air Force’s preference for Delta wings. By insisting these went into the Shuttle’s final design, the Air Force ensured they could get their single orbit mission and a margin of safety for all other launches from the west coast.

The declassified document says

BR Mission 1 is a payload delivery mission to a 150 n.m. circular orbit. The mission will be launched due east and requires a payload capability of 65,000-lb. The purpose of this mission is either the placement in orbit of a 65,000-lb satellite or the placement in orbit of a 65,000-lb satellite and retrieval from orbit of a 32,000-lb satellite.

Baseline Reference Mission 3A is a payload delivery mission to an orbit at 104 degree inclination and return to the launch site. The boost phase shall result in an insertion into an orbit with a minimum apogee of 100 n. mi., as measured above the earth's equatorial radius.

Baseline Reference Mission 3B is a payload retrieval mission to an orbit at 104 degree inclination and return to the launch site. Mission 3B would have been especially challenging given that the maximum time estimated between the Shuttle reaching orbit and reaching a station keeping position within 100ft of the target was a mere 25 minutes. The boost phase shall result in an insertion into an orbit with a minimum apogee of 100 n. mi., as measured above the earth's equatorial radius.

Mission 4 is a payload delivery and retrieval mission of a modular spacecraft weighing 32,000 lb at lift-off. The mission will deploy a spacecraft weighing 29,000 pounds in a 150 n. mi. circular orbit at 98 degrees inclination within two revolutions after lift-off. A passively cooperative, stabilized spacecraft, weighing 22,500 pounds, will be retrieved from a 150 n. mi. circular orbit and returned to VAFB. The mission length, including contingencies, will be 7 days. For mission performance and consumables analysis, a cradle weight of 2500 lb will be assumed to be included in the ascent payload weight, but must be added to the retrieved payload weight..

The 1Y and 4Y missions are assumed to have the same payload requirements as 1 and 4, respectively, the missions are planned for one day with two crewmen.

The missions were referred to as "Baseline Reference Mission" BRM, except number 4 which was called "Performance Reference Mission" PRM.

BRM-1 set the structural capability of the orbiter with the 65klb payload. It did not size the propulsive system of the the shuttle. PRM-4, as it was called, did. Even though PRM-4 only was a 32klb payload, the orbital altitude and inclination demanded more performance. If the required performance of PRM-4 was translated to an east coast launch, the capability would be around 78klb.

Also of note, BRM-3A and 3B are one orbit missions. This was to allow the missions to be done without overflight of the Soviet landmass.* Also the 1Y and 4Y missions were relatively short with small crews.

At the end of the day albeit it is much smaller than the lost space shuttle the X-27F may make such missions a reality. The X-27F will be launched atop a Titan III-B from Vandenberg Western Test Range (WTR). Studies have been made of a folding-wing X-27F that could be launched by one of the 54 Titan II heavy ICBMs that stands in alert in underground silos at three different Air Force Bases. Standing in alert atop a repurposed ICBM, it would launch toward a target, reaching it in as little as 25 minutes. Once the target inspected the X-27F could perform a synergistic manoeuver and change the plane of inclination, homing into another target before reentering Earth atmosphere. It would be a formidable weapon.

----

SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE

I often wondered whether the USAF's lifting body program had two elements. One was the obvious, collecting data for manned space shuttles derived from the lifting body shape or Dynasoar. The other was a bit darker. Were the PRIME and ASSET research vehicles prototypes for new methods of returning film in a much more controlled fashion?

GENERAL BERNARD SHRIEVER

Truth is, USAF hoped that they could develop winged reentry for a film-return vehicle. They initially wanted to go to land recovery, bringing it down in Nevada (or possibly New Mexico) and then eventually going for a winged recovery vehicle. Again it goes to the utility of the wings on orbit. Or actually, the reduced film or propellant load vs a more precise landing. USAF wanted to develop winged reentry anyways, and if it paid off, they would possibly migrate that technology to the reconnaissance satellites.

SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE

But the reconnaissance program did not drive the development of PRIME and ASSET. They were not cover stories for a reconnaissance technology development effort. Gambit used the same recovery vehicle as Corona. That was a clear decision to use a safe system that was already proven. The Gambit designers chose to go the safe route and use the Corona SRV (built by General Electric) and this proved to be a smart move.

Then how about the KH-9 ?

GENERAL BERNARD SHRIEVER

The decision on the recovery vehicle for Hexagon would have been made around 1966-1967 or so. By this time there was already experience with ASSET and PRIME (launched in Dec 1966-April 1967). Then again the spooks decided upon the safer option, that is the Big Discoverer reentry vehicle. A Corona-like SRV was a simple design. But imagine trying to put more than one winged reentry vehicle into a spacecraft nosecone. You end up using a lot of mass for things like wings, control surfaces, landing gear, guidance. And you don't need ANY of that for a simple dumb SRV like on Corona. So at most you would get one of these winged reentry vehicles into a reconnaissance satellite, and you would waste a lot of mass doing it. What would make more sense, but would have been beyond a big stretch for the times, would have been to make the entire upper stage and payload recoverable/reusable. At the high Corona flight rates, a reusable upper stage and payload might have paid off. It would have been a big money sink to develop, though, and Thor probably wouldn't have been able to lift it. And it all would have been obsolete within a few years. Kind of unmanned DynaSoar when you think about it.

----

100 miles above Earth

The enormous KH-9 had been in orbit for a month, and it had snapped ten of thousand of pictures of the Soviet Union – and beyond. Within the satellite was a very complex, cutting-edge machinery. Miles and miles of film piled up in a reentry capsule attached to the forward rack of the big spacecraft. Now the capsule had been filled to the brim and it was time to send it back to Earth. Within the KH-9, a guillotine severed film and the capsule automatically sealed itself hermetically. An impulse from the ground had the capsule detaching and starting reentry over the Pacific ocean.

It was only the beginning of a long, harrowing trip. The film bucket glowed red as it plundged deep into Earth atmosphere, its ablative heatshield taking the heat away. Minutes later the capsule floated over the Pacific, under a larche parachute. Coming from Hawai, a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft dived toward the capsule and snapped the film bucket in midair, cutting it from the parachute and jerking with the weight.

The Hercules carried the precious capsule to Hawai, where it was loaded within a military jetliner. Its destination was far, far away: near the Great Lakes, at the border between Canada and the United States. There was Rochester, the home of the famous Kodak company. Press the button, we do the rest – including highly classified work for the Government. No jetliner had the range to fly 5000 miles, so the military jet had to stop for refuel on the West Coast, losing some time. Finally the film bucket was handled to Kodak for development. But Kodak didn't do any analysis of the pictures – that was the job of the NRO analysts. Which Headquarters was in downtown Washington DC... 500 miles from Rochester. So the film went on the road again, to its final place.

Needless to say, the whole process was rather cumbersome – it took two complete days.

Tonight would be different, however.

Ignoring the beautiful Earth that rolled below it, the X-27F closed from the KH-9. The Air Force had taken the guidance system of an Agena space tug and plucked it into his space plane. They also had borrowed the canadarm from NASA. The space plane opened its payload bay door and under control from the ground the canadarm deployed in the direction of the KH-9 forward rack, where the film buckets hanged in a row of four. One bucket had been – experimentally – fitted with a grapple fixture on which the canadarm latched. The film bucket got detached from the KH-9 and then the X-27F backed away from the monster spy satellite that dwarfed it. The Canadarm gently placed the 2000 pounds film bucket into a specially build craddle set into the payload bay. The doors were closed before the tiny space plane prepared for reentry. It wouldn't land in the Pacific, nor even in Hawai. After all it was a winged vehicle, so it could do all kind of things during reentry a Corona couldn't. The X-27F was caught in a bubble of plasma and its heatshield endured the brunt of reentry as it sped out over the Western United States like a bat outta hell. It was small enough to restrain the sonic boom so that wasn't a real issue.

It's destination was the Wright Patterson Air Base, Dayton, Ohio. It was much, much closer from both Rochester and Washington DC than Hawaii, and as such, precious time would be saved moving the film from one place to another.

The X-27F passable aerodynamic shape made it sunk like a rock as it hurled toward the runway. It extented its undercarriage, flared out to lose some speed, and touched right in the middle of the runway, speeding at 200 miles per hour before coming to a halt. Technicians in astronaut-like protective suits secured the leftover propellants after what a pickup towed the X-27F to the processing facility were the film bucket was retrieved. Later the X-27F would be loaded into a Conroy Supper Guppy and flown back to Vandenberg for another launch. The system breathed new life into the old KH-9 system, the last American spy satellite to send film in capsules. The KH-11 actually beamed electronic pictures to the ground but only on a narrow strip. The KH-9 had a much wider angle of view, so the two systems complemented each other. As for the X-27F it was light enough to be launched by either a Titan II GLV, an Atlas Centaur, or a Thorad 7920.

Not only the X-27F did rendezvous with KH-9s. Blue Helios did the same. The pressurized module would be cut in favor of a flatbed-truck like platform for servicing. Not only did the KH-9 required refueling in orbit, it also required new film and new SRVs. The contractors proposed a servicing method whereby the HEXAGON would be secured horizontally above the Blue Helios servicing platform. From that position, the entire forebody of the spacecraft with the film supply canisters and the structure that held the SRVs would be rotated out of the way and down, and replaced with a new forebody containing loaded film supply canisters and new SRVs. At the same time, the rear end of the spacecraft, which contained the fuel supply and power system, would be serviced with a rotating tool kit that could provide replacement units. It was a highly complex procedure. What is unclear is how the new film would be re-threaded through the camera and to the new SRVs. Because of the complexity of this resupply and refurbishment, the contractors recommended that the best course of action would be to use the shuttle to recover spent HEXAGON satellites in orbit and bring them back to Earth for refurbishment on the ground. But the shuttle was dead and it would be a long time before any RLV with such an enormous return capbility would ever exists.

 

[Michel Van]

The billion dollar question is wen will NRO transition from Film to digital format and terminate
need for recovery operation or Space flight to Keyhole and will Kodak goes bankrupt of this ?

 

[Archibald]

OTL the US military scrapped the KH-8 in 1984 and KH-9 in 1986, then complained that KH-11 coverage was insuficient during Gulf War 1 in 1991. So maybe film return will last longer, perhaps KH-8 since Agena is mass produced ITTL.
now that's an idea, KH-8 Gambit up to 1992 covering GW-1.

The last paragraph is a straightforward adaptation of recent declassfied documents showing KH-9 servicing by the Space Shuttle.
http://thespacereview.com/article/3160/1
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3172/1

Big Gemini certainly can't bring back a KH-9 down to Earth, but it can certainly be outfited with a "flatbed truck" surrogate payload bay for limited on-orbit servicing.
I can see studies being done for Hubble by NASA, then scrapped when Hubble get serviced at Liberty, and then the military bringing back the concept for polar orbit spysats.

Looks like scientists have used declassified KH-9 pictures to monitor himalaya glaciers losses. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38307176

 

[Archibald]

The Great Game was a late XIXth century period of tension between the Russian empire and the British empire, particularly in Asia. The two empires faced each others on many locations and fronts, playing hard games although no war ever broke.

It seems that a remake of the Great Game is happening in space.

At the beginning the Soviets and Americans faced each other on the same orbit – 200 miles above the ground at an inclination of 51.6 degree over the equator. There the American were building Liberty. As for the Soviets, they were launching civilian and military Salyuts serviced by a mysterious new ship, the TKS.

The TKS was pretty much an Apollo-shaped capsule bolted to a powerful service module called the FGB. The FGB had plenty of fuel for large orbital manoeuvering. In 1977-80 the last two Salyuts docked together in space, forming a 45 tons spaceship that faced Liberty on the 51.6 degree orbit.

Then come Blue Helios – the military Big Gemini. Soon the battle front moved to polar orbit, home of most of Earth observation satellites.

The Air Force worried a lot about the TKS orbital manoeuvering capabilities. In 1981 a Blue Helios had a rendezvous in orbit with an Agena. The space tug docked to the rear of the cargo module. Just like in the old pre-Apollo days, the Agena was used to rise the orbit. That Blue Helios flight climbed 500 miles high in polar orbit, visiting a handful of Earth observation satellites. The Air Force announced that another docking point would be created on Blue Helios “nose”. That way a pair of Agena could dock at each end of the spaceship and push it even higher, to the lower end of the Van Allen radiation belts, 800 miles high.

With the advent of Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative the Agena space tug found all kind of military missions, and that worried the Soviet leadership a lot. A space tug akin to the Agena was badly needed. The Soviet thus created the Briz-M from the Naryad anti-satellite weapon system that was usually carried by an UR-100 ballistic missile. The Briz was initially as small as the Agena, but the addition of a large fuel tank gave it even more delta-V

Will geosynchronous orbit become the next battleground ?

The Briz-M has enough energy to loft a Soyuz into geosynchronous orbit, 23 000 miles above Earth. There stands the other big fleet of satellites. The polar orbit satellites are observing Earth; their geosynchronous cousins are tasked with communications.

The alarmed American military recently had feasability studies of turning their powerful Centaur into a space tug similar to the Agena. It wouldn't be too hard: there is no reason the Agena navigation guidance and docking system wouldn't work on a different, fatter rocket stage.

Blue Helios would have a Centaur on the back, and an Agena on the “nose”. The Centaur would be fired to climb into geosynchronous orbit, then cast away. The Big Gemini cargo module would be outfitted as an habitation module for the crew. They could spent a week up there. At the end of the geosynchronous mission the large cargo module would be jettisoned. The nose-mounted Agena would then desorbit the crew module. Blue Helios needs a couple of rocket stages, one of them cryogenic, because it is heavy, a good 45 000 pounds. By comparison the nimble, 15 000 pounds Soyuz could go up and down with a single, storable-propellant Briz-M orbited by a powerful N-11 booster.

Let's consider the TKS again. It has a weight of 19 tons, 5 tons of which is the VA crewed capsule. If the capsule was eliminated the FGB would weight only 14 tons. It has a lot of propellant and it is pressurized; it is a small space station by itself. It could be the nucleus of a new space station in gesoynchronous orbit ! In order to get it up there, the Soviet are considering a marriage between the two space tugs. The Briz would haul the FGB into geosynchronous transfer orbit; the FGB would then fire its engines to circularize the orbit. It would become a small space station in geosynchronous orbit. That station could be augmented with Soyuz-derived modules.

On the american side, modified Big Gemini cargo modules would be hauled to GEO by Centaur tugs. At a later date the Centaur could be replaced by a reusable spaceship, the Orbital Transfer Vehicle. The OTV could shuttle between Liberty and GEO.



***



"As you all know the Americans have vastly expended the range of their activities into Earth orbit." Valentin Glushko declared. "First, they tested large propulsive plane changes through Agena space tugs. Then their X-27F space plane brought back DynaSoar synergistic plane changes – skimming the upper atmosphere to change inclination of its orbit. After that they set their sights higher and higher, up to geosynchronous orbit and cislunar space. Their Blue Helios manned military ship picked Agena space tugs to climb higher, and plans have been to substitute a high-energy Centaur for a jump to GEO.

"As such from 1983 onwards we performed studies of sending Soyuz and TKS in Molnyia and Geosynchronous orbits. These plans can easily be extented to lunar flybys.

A lunar flyby from the Earth’s surface requires considerable expenditures of energy. The Proton family of rockets has been in use since the early 1970s and has flown in excess of 300 missions. The standard version of the Proton rocket is at present a three-stage launch vehicle with two possible upper stages, the Block-D or the more powerful Briz-M. The Briz-M upper stage consists of a main engine with a small primary fuel tank and a surrounding second larger toroidal fuel tank. Removal of the toroidal tank is possible and creates a smaller "mini" version of the Briz-M.

While the Proton family has been in existence for more than four decades, the hardware and capabilities of the machine have improved with time. The result of these changes is a launcher with the capability to put 21 tonnes into low Earth orbit (LEO). Since the mass of the Almaz capsule is less that 7 tonnes, a considerable percentage of the Briz-M’s fuel remains for a TLI burn. As a replacement to the Block-D upper stage, the Briz-M was designed to take up less volume than its predecessor while providing more thrust. The Briz consists of an engine, central small tank, and toroidal large outer tank, which can be removed. A single Briz stage has been rated and published to put roughly 6 tonnes into a lunar flyby trajectory. This mass is on the low end of what is required for a crewed command and service module with supplies. In order to increase the

available mass for the payload, the main commercial supplier of Protons, International Launch Services (ILS), has developed an additional “half” stage configuration using a second Briz-M with the outer tank removed. ILS has stated that the use of the dual Briz configuration, with the smaller engine burning first, can take a payload of 7 tonnes into a lunar free return trajectory.

Once in orbit, the standard Briz-M upper stage has a published battery life of 24 hours, which is the limiting factor in its life cycle. This works out well as a bound on the time spent in LEO or HEO since a lunar flyby mission takes approximately 6 days, and the life span of the Almaz capsule is roughly 7 days. At the end of any LEO or HEO portion of the flight, the Briz will again ignite and perform the TLI burn. The specific impulse and thrust of the Briz-M are different from those of the Apollo S-IVB yielding different burn times. While TLI burns of the S-IVB were roughly six minutes, those of the Briz-M will be between 10 and 13 minutes. The fact that the Briz burn will be twice as long as that of the S-IVB means it will be necessary to use more of the course correction fuel to keep the spacecraft and engine correctly oriented and that the variance from the norm of the engine firing will have a longer time to propagate causing a greater deviation in the trajectory.

Augmenting the upper stage with the mini-Briz increases the launch weight but also provides additional fuel and reduces the total fuel expenditure of the main Briz-M to reach either type of Earth orbit. The launch profile has been analyzed to determine if there is enough fuel left in the Briz-M to propel 7 tonnes to a lunar flyby. Knowing the masses of fuel and structure for the two Briz engines and the 7 tonnes for the payload, we determined the maximum delta-V of the combined system as well as the required amount of fuel to accomplish the mission. The difference in these two values was the total fuel available to take the entire stack, the two engines and the payload, from its position at stage 3 burn out to LEO.

Assuming that both engines burn the entirety of their fuel stores, the total delta-V that the engines can produce is 4.1 km/s, of which 3.6 km/s is the Briz-M and 0.5 km/s is the mini-Briz-M.

Since the required delta-V for lunar flyby is roughly 3.15 km/s, there is enough fuel between the two Briz engines for a delta-V of 0.9 km/s to take the stack from third stage burnout to low Earth orbit and still have enough fuel for TLI. An analysis of the launch of the Proton rocket’s first three stages launching a dual Briz M fourth stage plus 7000 kg Almaz payload.

From this analysis, we found that the “Proton-Heavy” has the following post-stage 3 burnout characteristics: an inclination of 51.6 degrees, downrange distance of roughly 1800 km, altitude of roughly 200 km, and velocity of 7.2 km/s. At a parking orbit of 277.8 km (150 nm) the orbital velocity is 7.74 km/s. Further analysis indicated that a finite burn of approximately 0.8 km/s can take the stack from stage 3 burn out to LEO. Thus, the smaller Briz-M engine will burn its total fuel weight and achieve 0.5 km/s of delta-V, leaving roughly 0.3 km/s delta V for the main Briz-M. This will leave 3.3 km/s of delta-V in the Briz-M for the TLI burn, which requires a maximum of 3.15 km/s. This indicates that the dual Briz configuration has the capability of placing 7 tonnes of payload into lunar flyby with a 0.15 km/s delta-V safety margin."

Boris Chertok raised its shoulders. "Proton is on the way out and your scheme is very unflexible and expensive. I suggest a better approach. A modified Soyuz spacecraft is performing a baseline six-month MKBS-1 crew exchange mission. A new Soyuz is launched with two new station crew members and the paying passenger. They perform the standard weeklong crew exchange, and then the old Soyuz, the returning station crew and the tourist unhook from the station.

Here’s where it gets interesting: The Soyuz does not return directly to Earth. Instead, it approaches a rocket stage (probably a Block D, but the Breez-M could do the job, too) that has been launched separately with a special payload, and docks with it. That stage then ignites, pushing itself and the Soyuz and its passengers toward the moon. The flight, which slingshots around the moon but does not actually enter lunar orbit, will take six days. Both Briz-M and Block D weights 20 tons. Calculations show they could threw 7.5 tonnes to Earth escape velocity (3.25 km/s) - which corresponds to the mass of a Soyuz ship."

 

[Archibald]

Last post was a nod at the (never happening) Space Adventures Soyuz-around-the-Moon scheme.

The part with the TKS come from a paper by now defunct Excalibur Almaz. The Proton is powerful enough it can throw 7 metric tons around the Moon, enough for a TKS with a much truncated FGB.

http://www.thespacereview.com/gallery/7

 

[Archibald]

This TL goal is to break OTL tyranny of LEO and have the space race getting back to cislunar space, using GEO as a backdoor.

 

[Michel Van]

So we will see in TL for 20 anniversary of Apollo 11 landing a manned cislunar flight in 1989 instead OTL of 2018 ?

oh by the way, today launch SpaceX flight 32 novelty the booster is a reused from flight 23
if all goes well SpaceX will make history

 

[Archibald]

There will be cislunar flights and lunar return but in a rather unexpected way.

 

[Michel Van]

Today is begin of new era in Space flight: entering low-priced launch
SpaceX manage to launch there reused Falcon9 and to land save on there Drone Ship

The reaction of Management at ULA, Ariane Space and NASA SLS

 

[Archibald]

 

[Archibald]

At Nasaspaceflight.com somebody told me that DynaSoar pilots were to be given an AR-15 gun to shoot Soviet satellites. that's... weird !

 

[Michel Van]

At Nasaspaceflight.com somebody told me that DynaSoar pilots were to be given an AR-15 gun to shoot Soviet satellites. that's... weird !

I always thought that the AR-15 gun was part of Astronaut survival kid not for literal hunting Soviet satellite.
it's unpractically: approach the Satellite, inspection, then the astronaut open the cockpit try to stand up and fires AR-15 gun on soviet satellite
sorry i believe this just a legend

Although they really suggest that Astronaut make EVA and spray black paint over the optics or with tongs cut off the Antennas...
But they abandon entire concept of close manned Satellite interception, because the Soviets put self destruction system into there satellite.

 

[Archibald]

Note on SpaceX. ITTL Robert Zubrin (Robin Zubert !) went to Martin Marietta in the 70's. He has all kind of interesting ideas, particularly about reusable Titan, which will be ITTL Falcon 9 some years in advance.

 

[Michel Van]

Note on SpaceX. ITTL Robert Zubrin (Robin Zubert !) went to Martin Marietta in the 70's. He has all kind of interesting ideas, particularly about reusable Titan, which will be ITTL Falcon 9 some years in advance.

i have not information about Zubrin early life and work before "Mars Direct" proposal.

but i could imagine that he look into the Titan and consider reuse is option
special after launch of Gemini 5 on Aug 21, 1965
they pull this out ocean afterwards