alternatehistory.com

NASA future (4) Mars ?
dreaming of Mars on both sides of the Iron Curtain

"As early as 1968 North American Rockwell already imagined what the flight test program of a Mars Excursion Module (MEM) should be !


For a Mars shot in 1986, testing of the Mars Excursion Module should start circa 1981.

A typical Orbital Flight Test - OFT - would happen in March 1982.

The second vehicle to roll out of the production line, MEM-02 would be launched unmanned into earth orbit atop a powerful Saturn V. It would soak in space for 200 days, simulating a trip to Mars. After what an impulse from the ground would have the machine reenter Earth atmosphere for a landing at the White Sands space harbor, New Mexico.
Further flight testing would follow.
A mission would have another 200 days flight soak by MEM-03; near the end of the mission the ship would be joined by an Apollo for dockingand crew transfer.

After a thorough checkout, MEM-03 would be abandonned in earth orbit with the crew returning earth aboard their Command Module. That mission would be rather reminiscent of Apollo 9, including on-orbit firings of the lander ascent and descent stages; much like the Lunar Module, MEM-03 would be unable to reenter Earth atmosphere.
(Hello ! In Baxter Voyage this mission is flown by Ralf Gershon and Adam Bleeker in August 1984 - with mixed results)

MEM-04 would fly a similar mission profile - minus the soak. After a ten days only mission an Apollo astronaut would remain aboard to pilot the lander to White Sands.
In order to fly across the much thicker, denser Earth atmosphere MEM-02 and MEM-04 would feature a reinforced structure.
It has also been suggested to fly another Mars Excursion Module down to the lunar surface.

MEM-05 would be send to lunar orbit first, followed by a manned Command Module. The mission would then proceed much like the Apollo landings.

It would be a rather complex mission, made even more difficult by the Moon total lack of atmosphere - making some of MEM-05 hardware, such as parachutes and heatshield, rather unuseful. Modifications should also be made to the ascent and descent stages fuel tanks.
For all these flaws, the prospect of turning the expensive Mars lander into the successor of the Lunar Module is rather apealing.

North American Rockwell cost estimations bring MEM development at $5 billion, stretched over the next fifteen years leading to a 1986 flight..."

(excerpt from: Manned spaceflight future - communication by Wernher von Braun - August 8, 1968)

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(as say above - this is Asif Siddiqi, not mine)

One of the first Soviet-era science fiction novels was published in 1923. Authored by the well-known prose writer Aleksey N. Tolstoy, the novel was a narrative on the adventures of two Russian cosmonauts on the surface of Mars, a planet governed by a ruthless emperor.

The novel, named Aelita after its main character, the "Queen of Mars," was later turned into a movie of the same name, and it eventually became a widely popular film that was part of the cultural vernacular of the 1920s.
When the time came in 1969 to assign a cover name to the new Soviet Mars program, officials chose Aelita.


The basic requirements for the 1969 mission were to carry out a Mars landing during a 630-day (or 1.7-year) mission, with thirty days spent orbiting Mars.

A total of six cosmonauts would be aboard the ship: three of them would spend at least five days on the surface.

The primary propulsion system on the Martian ship would be electric rocket engines using nuclear power sources for the main part of the journey and liquid-propellant rocket engines for operations near Mars Earth orbit, the MEK looked like a long needle.



The 150-ton complex would be assembled in Earth orbit after two launches of a modified N-1 booster. The first rocket would carry two components: the Martian Orbital Complex (MOK) and the Martian Landing Complex (MPK).

The second N-1 would carry a fully functioning low-thrust electric rocket engine powered by two nuclear reactors. Each reactor was installed on one extreme end of the complex and protected from other systems by a "shaded shield": the cone-shaped propellant tanks for the electric rocket engines would provide additional protection to the crew from radiation from the reactors, The actual propulsion nozzles would be placed between the shade and the tanks.


The complex would also have an extensible telescopic thermionic radiator for the energy sources, which would have a node to allow for docking and undocking to the MOK and MPK.

The MOK formed the main areas of living for the crew. From one end to the other, the complex had seven sequential sections: the instrument-aggregate compartment, the working compartment, the laboratory compartment, the biotechnology compartment, the living compartment, the "salon" compartment, and the orientation engine compartment.

The MPK had an unfurlable aeroshell for aerodynamic braking into the Martian atmosphere. It was located behind the "shaded shield" of the main spacecraft.

After separating from the main spacecraft complex in Martian orbit, it would discard its docking apparatus used for operations in Earth orbit and then use a liquid-propellant rocket engine to soft-land on the surface of the planet.

The aeroshell encased a cylindrical "living compartment" linked to the main crew quarters via a hatch, as well as a two-stage ascent stage with a spherical cabin, the MEK also contained the main crew return apparatus for returning the crew to Earth.


The capsule was essentially a larger version of the "headlight-shaped" Soyuz descent apparatus with a lift-to-drag ratio of about 0.45, sufficient to significantly reduce g-levels upon terrestrial reentry. The capsule had a base diameter of 4.35 meters and a height of 3.15 meters.



The MOK and MPK would dock in Earth orbit with the electric rocket engine plus nuclear reactor payload. Docking would be followed by the ignition of the electric engines to begins a slow acceleration into ever larger spirals around Earth.

After the complex cleared Earth's radiation belts, a Proton rocket would launch a 7K-LI Zond-type spacecraft into Earth orbit with a crew. The Blok D fourth stage would accelerate the Zond to meet with the MEK in high orbit.



Having entered the MEK, the crew would verify the operation of all systems on the complex with the option of abandoning the vehicle if there were serious problems. After reaching transplanetary velocity, the MEK would "shoot" out of Earth orbit in a trajectory toward the Red Planet. The electric engines would shut down at this point and stay in "cold storage. ''


Calculations at the time had allowed engineers to compute the cumulative dose of radiation during periods of high solar activity that doctors believed would be acceptable for interplanetary crews. Based on these data, the crew of the MEK would stay in the special radiation shelter, which was in the form of a passage in the main instrument-equipment bay of the ship.

The workload of the cosmonauts during both the outbound and inbound trips would be reduced as much as possible by making operations almost fully automated.

Computers would deliver information on the spacecraft systems' operation based on an algorithm producing three values: "normal," "not normal," and "failure." The crew would be able to carry out any in-flight repair of the ship's radio and electronic equipment, designed to be easily accessible in the form of replaceable units.



The effects of long-term gravity on the crew was still a potential unknown in 1969, and one option engineers seriously considered was the use of artificial gravity by rotating individual portions of the giant spacecraft around its axis. Research later proved that such rotations would be harmful to the body because of the appearance of "Coriolis" acceleration that distorted the human perception of gravity.'


The coast to Mars would take 150 days, after which the electric engines would start operating again to perform Mars orbit insertion. The MEK would take sixty-one days to brake into high orbit and a further twenty-four days to shift to low orbit.

The crew would spend an additional week surveying possible landing sites for the MPK. Three of the six cosmonauts on board would then enter the lander and touch down on the surface.



After about a weeklong mission on the surface, the ascent stage of the MPK would lift off and automatically rendezvous with the MOK. The crew would transfer from the former to the latter's living compartment, and the no-longer-needed lander would be discarded.



A week later, the crewmembers would begin their return trip in the MOK--seventeen days to escape Mars and another sixty-six days to gather velocity to reach Earth.

During passive flight, the spaceship would pass as close to the Sun as possible, flying between the orbits of Venus and Mercury to accrue more velocity.
Another seventeen days of active engine firing would lead to a second passive phase. Three days before reaching Earth, the electric rocket engines would be switched on again.

The crewmembers would separate from the main MEK spacecraft in their return apparatus and land by parachute back on Earth with the results of their scientific experiments and Martian soil samples.
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