Post 17: ESA update, Europa 3 design, the Seat Wars, and the creation of the Block III+ Apollo
Hello everyone! It's my favorite holiday of the year: the last day of finals! (And, if my co-op accepts my acceptance of their offer, my last day of school until August!) To celebrate, here's the next update for Eyes Turned Skyward. I hope you enjoy it, I made it myself. Note that some of the contents of this post are there because of earlier comments on this thread. Truth and I want to make this the best quality TL we can, so please...if you have comments or speculations on this or any other post, feel free to chime in. On another note, we've now passed the 10,000 view mark, and are probably going to hit 11,000 on this update. Thank you all for continuing to follow this TL.
Eyes Turned Skyward, Post #17:
By 1977, ESA was far more of a mature organization that the motley sum of parts of ELDO and ESRO that it had begun as in 1972, let alone the fractious amalgamation of independent space programs that had made up ELDO and ESRO. However, it was still facing many challenges; first and foremost was the agency’s manned program. ESA had signed on as a partner for NASA’s Spacelab program, bartering the construction of a European Research Module to expand the station’s capabilities (including adding astronomical equipment and more lab space) in exchange for slots for their new astronaut corps to fly to the station after the completion of the ASTP II flight. However, the development of the ERM and the training of ESA’s first astronauts would be over-shadowed by what some historians would come to dub the “seat wars.” The seat wars were a series of conflicts between ESA managers, mission planners, and astronauts and their NASA counterparts, with additional conflicts between the same NASA managers and members of their own science contingent and astronaut corps over the availability and allocation of slots for flights to Spacelab. The complaints from the NASA scientists and from ESA were both about the fact that the Block III Apollo left non-pilots fighting for a single seat per flight. ESA was thus only offered four slots for their astronauts in the period 1978-1980, which they felt was unfair given their contributions in developing the ERM and reflective of a general attitude at NASA that took them for granted and failed to fully appreciate their contributions to the international scientific potential nature of Spacelab. NASA’s science corps, in turn, pointed out that the so-called “throttle-jockeys” of the astronaut corps had much greater chances of flying than Flight Scientists with similar seniority.
However, NASA managers responded, these complaints about insufficient seat allocations ignored the simple facts of the hardware available. The Block III had just three seats, and two had to be occupied by pilot-trained NASA astronauts. ESA offered to take the problem off NASA’s hands if they could be allowed to fly their astronauts as pilots, rather than flight scientists, thus opening that slot for NASA’s own science corps. However, NASA managers were unwilling for the moment to put their spacecraft’s controls into foreign hands and NASA’s pilot-astronaut corps’s reaction was viscerally and emphatically negative. The rejection of the proposal was rapid and quite clear. ESA astronauts would continue to fly as Flight Scientists, not pilots. NASA’s scientists meanwhile pointed to the increased size of the laboratory volume of Spacelab compared to Skylab and the potential need for more experienced scientists to carry out experiments. While NASA’s own studies indicated that fully using Spacelab might require more crew time than would be available from a three-person crew, an increase to six-person crews would require keeping two Apollo crews on-station, and would still leave just two open slots. However, NASA’s science corps was even more incensed by this response and the ESA began making noises about withdrawing its participation.
In this polarized environment, Rockwell International (the result of merger between North American Aviation and Rockwell-Standard, the inheritor of the Apollo CSM contract) stepped forward with a proposal. With their involvement in the space program, they could hardly fail to be aware of the seat wars and they had a proposal; The essential thrust of the disagreement was over how to use the three seats of the Block III, but what if the Block III didn’t have to have just 3 seats? What Rockwell’s Block III+ proposal laid out was a plan to modify the basic Block III design to the so-called “rescue Skylab” five-seat configuration, and make use of the four tons of margin available on the Saturn 1C to move lockers and supplies to a new additional volume. This new “Mission Module” would sit below the Apollo CSM during launch as the Docking Module had on ASTP, then after second stage burnout would be extracted. The CSM would dock with one of two axial ports, with the crew then free to use facilities in both the Command Module and the Mission Module during the trip to Spacelab. Upon arrival, the Block III+ stack would dock to Spacelab just as the basic Block III would by using the second axial port at the front of the MM. The Mission Module would be discarded before entry just as the service module was. The idea was something of a combination of the rescue Skylab and Russian Soyuz concepts, but on a larger scale. The Mission Module would be roughly 2 m in diameter and 3 m long, massing about 3.8 tons and offering roughly 10 cubic meters of additional volume, though some of that would be taken up by lockers, a waste disposal system, and other fittings. However, this would still offer the Block III+ crew about as much personal space as Apollo Block III would. Faced with the rumbles within NASA and the diplomatic ramifications of even threats of an ESA pullout of Spacelab, managers signed off on the plan, and money was included in the FY 1979 budget to begin the estimated 2 year development program.
For NASA’s science contingent, this settled their major concerns. There would now be three seats for non-pilots available on each flight instead of just one, meaning they wouldn’t have to see Flight Scientists bumped to allow ESA astronauts to fly. Their plans for Spacelab use in the early 80s now focused on the best way to make use of five astronauts in the basic lab and the ERM. However, the ESA was less satisfied by the resolution to the seat wars. Though they would now be allowed to fly potentially one astronaut per mission starting in 1981 on top of the slots already promised for 1978-1980, they felt that NASA was treating them as an organization to be humored, a source of political cover as opposed to a true international partner worthy of respect. This drove them to continue to pursue development of their own launch capabilities in parallel with continuing training of their astronauts for missions in co-operation with NASA and tied back into the other major issue facing the ESA, the continuing debate over what to do about evolving the Europa launch vehicle.
The major question was whether to simply enhance Europa with more powerful boosters and a possible stretch of the first stage, or to build a whole new more powerful first-stage. Enhancing Europa to accept even more powerful boosters than the French Black Diamant boosters of the Europa 2-TA would require thickening the stage walls further, plus a stretch of the first stage to fully utilize the potential gains. A full new first stage would cost more, but would in turn offer the chance for even more evolution in the future. While both options could get payloads into the 2-4 metric ton to LEO range, the desire on the part of the ESA leadership to develop their own manned capability in the near future, both for prestige and to prove to NASA that the ESA was worth taking seriously as a partner, favored the new first stage that would potentially be able to be evolved to reach the 5,000 to 6,000 kg range that a even a minimalist manned multi-crew capsule would require. This drove the decision in 1978 to focus on a new first launch vehicle to be designated the Europa 3. The new first stage would be built with a larger diameter, and would feature four RZ2 engines redesigned by Rolls-Royce for better performance in ISP and thrust. The second and third stages would be French-built using LH2/LOX engines. With the Europa 3 slated to enter service in 1985, European designers began several studies into minimal-mass crew-launch options.
Eyes Turned Skyward, Post #17:
By 1977, ESA was far more of a mature organization that the motley sum of parts of ELDO and ESRO that it had begun as in 1972, let alone the fractious amalgamation of independent space programs that had made up ELDO and ESRO. However, it was still facing many challenges; first and foremost was the agency’s manned program. ESA had signed on as a partner for NASA’s Spacelab program, bartering the construction of a European Research Module to expand the station’s capabilities (including adding astronomical equipment and more lab space) in exchange for slots for their new astronaut corps to fly to the station after the completion of the ASTP II flight. However, the development of the ERM and the training of ESA’s first astronauts would be over-shadowed by what some historians would come to dub the “seat wars.” The seat wars were a series of conflicts between ESA managers, mission planners, and astronauts and their NASA counterparts, with additional conflicts between the same NASA managers and members of their own science contingent and astronaut corps over the availability and allocation of slots for flights to Spacelab. The complaints from the NASA scientists and from ESA were both about the fact that the Block III Apollo left non-pilots fighting for a single seat per flight. ESA was thus only offered four slots for their astronauts in the period 1978-1980, which they felt was unfair given their contributions in developing the ERM and reflective of a general attitude at NASA that took them for granted and failed to fully appreciate their contributions to the international scientific potential nature of Spacelab. NASA’s science corps, in turn, pointed out that the so-called “throttle-jockeys” of the astronaut corps had much greater chances of flying than Flight Scientists with similar seniority.
However, NASA managers responded, these complaints about insufficient seat allocations ignored the simple facts of the hardware available. The Block III had just three seats, and two had to be occupied by pilot-trained NASA astronauts. ESA offered to take the problem off NASA’s hands if they could be allowed to fly their astronauts as pilots, rather than flight scientists, thus opening that slot for NASA’s own science corps. However, NASA managers were unwilling for the moment to put their spacecraft’s controls into foreign hands and NASA’s pilot-astronaut corps’s reaction was viscerally and emphatically negative. The rejection of the proposal was rapid and quite clear. ESA astronauts would continue to fly as Flight Scientists, not pilots. NASA’s scientists meanwhile pointed to the increased size of the laboratory volume of Spacelab compared to Skylab and the potential need for more experienced scientists to carry out experiments. While NASA’s own studies indicated that fully using Spacelab might require more crew time than would be available from a three-person crew, an increase to six-person crews would require keeping two Apollo crews on-station, and would still leave just two open slots. However, NASA’s science corps was even more incensed by this response and the ESA began making noises about withdrawing its participation.
In this polarized environment, Rockwell International (the result of merger between North American Aviation and Rockwell-Standard, the inheritor of the Apollo CSM contract) stepped forward with a proposal. With their involvement in the space program, they could hardly fail to be aware of the seat wars and they had a proposal; The essential thrust of the disagreement was over how to use the three seats of the Block III, but what if the Block III didn’t have to have just 3 seats? What Rockwell’s Block III+ proposal laid out was a plan to modify the basic Block III design to the so-called “rescue Skylab” five-seat configuration, and make use of the four tons of margin available on the Saturn 1C to move lockers and supplies to a new additional volume. This new “Mission Module” would sit below the Apollo CSM during launch as the Docking Module had on ASTP, then after second stage burnout would be extracted. The CSM would dock with one of two axial ports, with the crew then free to use facilities in both the Command Module and the Mission Module during the trip to Spacelab. Upon arrival, the Block III+ stack would dock to Spacelab just as the basic Block III would by using the second axial port at the front of the MM. The Mission Module would be discarded before entry just as the service module was. The idea was something of a combination of the rescue Skylab and Russian Soyuz concepts, but on a larger scale. The Mission Module would be roughly 2 m in diameter and 3 m long, massing about 3.8 tons and offering roughly 10 cubic meters of additional volume, though some of that would be taken up by lockers, a waste disposal system, and other fittings. However, this would still offer the Block III+ crew about as much personal space as Apollo Block III would. Faced with the rumbles within NASA and the diplomatic ramifications of even threats of an ESA pullout of Spacelab, managers signed off on the plan, and money was included in the FY 1979 budget to begin the estimated 2 year development program.
For NASA’s science contingent, this settled their major concerns. There would now be three seats for non-pilots available on each flight instead of just one, meaning they wouldn’t have to see Flight Scientists bumped to allow ESA astronauts to fly. Their plans for Spacelab use in the early 80s now focused on the best way to make use of five astronauts in the basic lab and the ERM. However, the ESA was less satisfied by the resolution to the seat wars. Though they would now be allowed to fly potentially one astronaut per mission starting in 1981 on top of the slots already promised for 1978-1980, they felt that NASA was treating them as an organization to be humored, a source of political cover as opposed to a true international partner worthy of respect. This drove them to continue to pursue development of their own launch capabilities in parallel with continuing training of their astronauts for missions in co-operation with NASA and tied back into the other major issue facing the ESA, the continuing debate over what to do about evolving the Europa launch vehicle.
The major question was whether to simply enhance Europa with more powerful boosters and a possible stretch of the first stage, or to build a whole new more powerful first-stage. Enhancing Europa to accept even more powerful boosters than the French Black Diamant boosters of the Europa 2-TA would require thickening the stage walls further, plus a stretch of the first stage to fully utilize the potential gains. A full new first stage would cost more, but would in turn offer the chance for even more evolution in the future. While both options could get payloads into the 2-4 metric ton to LEO range, the desire on the part of the ESA leadership to develop their own manned capability in the near future, both for prestige and to prove to NASA that the ESA was worth taking seriously as a partner, favored the new first stage that would potentially be able to be evolved to reach the 5,000 to 6,000 kg range that a even a minimalist manned multi-crew capsule would require. This drove the decision in 1978 to focus on a new first launch vehicle to be designated the Europa 3. The new first stage would be built with a larger diameter, and would feature four RZ2 engines redesigned by Rolls-Royce for better performance in ISP and thrust. The second and third stages would be French-built using LH2/LOX engines. With the Europa 3 slated to enter service in 1985, European designers began several studies into minimal-mass crew-launch options.
