alternatehistory.com
Apollo 8 - part 3 (NRO)
Apollo 8 - time to start serious business
Continuing with the alternate Apollo 8 and that mysterious ballast. You can try and guess what it is with a little google search
Best is to come. It was an OTL program, yet it was straight out of a James Bond movie - although much, much better than Moonraker.
Little spoiler: Moonraker will be evidently impacted ITTL. But this is a story for much later (1977 is a decade ahead, and there many, many things to happen before).
NOTE: I try to avoid walls of text. I want the story to be easy to read, with space between paragraphs. It takes some times clearing the text after I paste it from my HD.
December 23, 1968
Public Affairs Officer
"This is Apollo Control Houston, we estimate another 7 or 8 minutes before Apollo 8 Command and Service Module will separate from the S-IVB. We have not heard from the crew in the last few minutes, they're busy doing post TLI duties and we are looking at data here and everything we see is quite comforting. That is the next major event, separation from the booster, three hours and twenty minutes into a historical flight..."
003:20:28 Collins:Roger. We have you about 30 seconds prior to separation, and everything's looking good.
003:20:33 Borman:Roger. Call you again after separation, Houston.
(onboard Apollo 8)
003:20:39 Lovell :Okay, I'm coming up on 15 seconds to Sep.
003:20:42 Borman:Alright.
003:20:45 Lovell:10 seconds to go.
003:20:48 Anders:You in Auto?
003:20:50 Borman:Yes, Auto, Auto, right.
003:20:52 Anders:Okay, at zero, turn Hand Controller counter-clockwise, plus-X, and hold.
Jim Lovell occupied the left-hand seat and has access to the Translation Hand Controller. By turning the controller and pushing it forward, he fired the plus-X thrusters.
When separation occurred the Apollo immediately began moving away from the S-IVB. After three seconds, the vehicles separated and Lovell continued firing forward for a further five seconds. A complex sequence of events now unfolded.
A guillotine severed the electrical connections between Apollo and the S-IVB; then a train of explosive cords cut the metal structure joining Apollo to the conical adapter to allow the spacecraft to come free. The conical adapter was cut into four long sections which were now only joined to the S-IVB by spring loaded partial hinges at the centre of their lower edge. Pyrotechnic thrusters, mounted within the intact portion of the adapter, forced pistons to push on the outside edge of each four section, causing them to begin rotating away from the vehicle's centreline. With the panels rotated about 45°, the hinges disengaged, allowing the springs within the hinge assembly to push the panels away.
003:21:00 Anders:3 seconds, Launch Vehicle Tank Pressure indicator, zero; CM/LV Sep; Translational Contr, Neutral; plus-X, Off; TVC Servo Power 1, Off.
Sitting on top of the now peeled-off S-IVB, and revealed for the first time was the Secondary Payload, a passenger that replaced Grumman not-yet-ready Lunar Module.
003:21:37 Lovell:There's one adapter panel.
003:21:39 Anders:After this camera [garble].
003:21:46 Borman:Man, where's the S-IVB? Anybody see it, now?
003:21:49 Lovell:There it is!
003:21:50 Borman:You found it?
003:21:51 Lovell:Right in the middle. Right in the middle of my window. There's not a panel around.
003:21:55 Borman:What a view!
003:21:58 Collins:Looks pretty good, huh?
003:21:58 Lovell:Give me the camera.
003:21:59 Anders:Well, we've got some still pictures we can take...
003:22:01 Lovell:Could you pitch a little more?
003:22:02 Borman:Yes.
003:22:03 Anders:We haven't got in here, yet.
003:22:12 Anders:We've Separated Houston. We got the S-IVB and its payload, right in sight.
003:22:16 Capcom Michael Collins: Roger, Apollo 8.
Jim Lovell turned the camera toward the payload stuck to the S-IVB, puzzled. There should have been a ballast there, a big chunk of instrumented metal called the Lunar-Module Test Article, or LTA.
With Grumman Lunar Module still months in the future NASA engineers would have had to fly the Saturn V with only the load of the Apollo on top.
And they disliked that, for good reasons.
By contrast with a near perfect maiden launch late 1967, Saturn V second flight, coincidentally set the very day Martin Luther King had been assassinated - April 4, 1968 - had been an utter disaster.
The booster suffered violent vibrations in flight, nearly tearing itself apart, shaking over its whole length like a pogo stick, with disastrous results.
Engines shut down with pieces of the booster skin falling apart; astronauts would certainly have been injured had the flight been manned.
For a moment it looked as if the next Saturn V would have to be flown unmanned again. Marshall's position after that had been that the Saturn control system was extremely sensitive to payload weight; von Braun engineers feared any change in the established weights might bring the destructive pogo back.
So further ballast was required to bring the payload's mass towards a figure that the launch vehicle's control system could handle. In simple English, a payload of seven tons had to fill the Lunar Module empty slot. Early on it had been as if a dumb chunk of metal could do the job, but soon George Low changed its mind, resulting in that payload stuck to the top of Apollo 8 S-IVB.
Lovell hold on its camera: orders had been clear enough. Taking picture of the S-IVB payload was absolutely forbidden.
Those National Reconnaissance Office paranoid officers. Lovell rolled his eyes.
He called Borman and Anders to manoeuvre Apollo so that the big rocket body masked the payload; that way he could snap as much pictures he wanted. He had a last glance at the mysterious object they had carried so far away.
The National Reconaissance Office military are really a bunch of paranoid jerks - do they fear a soviet spy hide between our couches ?
The Apollo CSM turned around 180 degrees, docked with the mysterious payload and pull it free. After that they pressed on into lunar orbit...
Continuing with the alternate Apollo 8 and that mysterious ballast. You can try and guess what it is with a little google search
Best is to come. It was an OTL program, yet it was straight out of a James Bond movie - although much, much better than Moonraker.
Little spoiler: Moonraker will be evidently impacted ITTL. But this is a story for much later (1977 is a decade ahead, and there many, many things to happen before).
NOTE: I try to avoid walls of text. I want the story to be easy to read, with space between paragraphs. It takes some times clearing the text after I paste it from my HD.
December 23, 1968
Public Affairs Officer
"This is Apollo Control Houston, we estimate another 7 or 8 minutes before Apollo 8 Command and Service Module will separate from the S-IVB. We have not heard from the crew in the last few minutes, they're busy doing post TLI duties and we are looking at data here and everything we see is quite comforting. That is the next major event, separation from the booster, three hours and twenty minutes into a historical flight..."
003:20:28 Collins:Roger. We have you about 30 seconds prior to separation, and everything's looking good.
003:20:33 Borman:Roger. Call you again after separation, Houston.
(onboard Apollo 8)
003:20:39 Lovell :Okay, I'm coming up on 15 seconds to Sep.
003:20:42 Borman:Alright.
003:20:45 Lovell:10 seconds to go.
003:20:48 Anders:You in Auto?
003:20:50 Borman:Yes, Auto, Auto, right.
003:20:52 Anders:Okay, at zero, turn Hand Controller counter-clockwise, plus-X, and hold.
Jim Lovell occupied the left-hand seat and has access to the Translation Hand Controller. By turning the controller and pushing it forward, he fired the plus-X thrusters.
When separation occurred the Apollo immediately began moving away from the S-IVB. After three seconds, the vehicles separated and Lovell continued firing forward for a further five seconds. A complex sequence of events now unfolded.
A guillotine severed the electrical connections between Apollo and the S-IVB; then a train of explosive cords cut the metal structure joining Apollo to the conical adapter to allow the spacecraft to come free. The conical adapter was cut into four long sections which were now only joined to the S-IVB by spring loaded partial hinges at the centre of their lower edge. Pyrotechnic thrusters, mounted within the intact portion of the adapter, forced pistons to push on the outside edge of each four section, causing them to begin rotating away from the vehicle's centreline. With the panels rotated about 45°, the hinges disengaged, allowing the springs within the hinge assembly to push the panels away.
003:21:00 Anders:3 seconds, Launch Vehicle Tank Pressure indicator, zero; CM/LV Sep; Translational Contr, Neutral; plus-X, Off; TVC Servo Power 1, Off.
Sitting on top of the now peeled-off S-IVB, and revealed for the first time was the Secondary Payload, a passenger that replaced Grumman not-yet-ready Lunar Module.
003:21:37 Lovell:There's one adapter panel.
003:21:39 Anders:After this camera [garble].
003:21:46 Borman:Man, where's the S-IVB? Anybody see it, now?
003:21:49 Lovell:There it is!
003:21:50 Borman:You found it?
003:21:51 Lovell:Right in the middle. Right in the middle of my window. There's not a panel around.
003:21:55 Borman:What a view!
003:21:58 Collins:Looks pretty good, huh?
003:21:58 Lovell:Give me the camera.
003:21:59 Anders:Well, we've got some still pictures we can take...
003:22:01 Lovell:Could you pitch a little more?
003:22:02 Borman:Yes.
003:22:03 Anders:We haven't got in here, yet.
003:22:12 Anders:We've Separated Houston. We got the S-IVB and its payload, right in sight.
003:22:16 Capcom Michael Collins: Roger, Apollo 8.
Jim Lovell turned the camera toward the payload stuck to the S-IVB, puzzled. There should have been a ballast there, a big chunk of instrumented metal called the Lunar-Module Test Article, or LTA.
With Grumman Lunar Module still months in the future NASA engineers would have had to fly the Saturn V with only the load of the Apollo on top.
And they disliked that, for good reasons.
By contrast with a near perfect maiden launch late 1967, Saturn V second flight, coincidentally set the very day Martin Luther King had been assassinated - April 4, 1968 - had been an utter disaster.
The booster suffered violent vibrations in flight, nearly tearing itself apart, shaking over its whole length like a pogo stick, with disastrous results.
Engines shut down with pieces of the booster skin falling apart; astronauts would certainly have been injured had the flight been manned.
For a moment it looked as if the next Saturn V would have to be flown unmanned again. Marshall's position after that had been that the Saturn control system was extremely sensitive to payload weight; von Braun engineers feared any change in the established weights might bring the destructive pogo back.
So further ballast was required to bring the payload's mass towards a figure that the launch vehicle's control system could handle. In simple English, a payload of seven tons had to fill the Lunar Module empty slot. Early on it had been as if a dumb chunk of metal could do the job, but soon George Low changed its mind, resulting in that payload stuck to the top of Apollo 8 S-IVB.
Lovell hold on its camera: orders had been clear enough. Taking picture of the S-IVB payload was absolutely forbidden.
Those National Reconnaissance Office paranoid officers. Lovell rolled his eyes.
He called Borman and Anders to manoeuvre Apollo so that the big rocket body masked the payload; that way he could snap as much pictures he wanted. He had a last glance at the mysterious object they had carried so far away.
The National Reconaissance Office military are really a bunch of paranoid jerks - do they fear a soviet spy hide between our couches ?
The Apollo CSM turned around 180 degrees, docked with the mysterious payload and pull it free. After that they pressed on into lunar orbit...
- Archibald
- Word Count: 1.1k