alternatehistory.com
1972: NASA hell of a year (8)
February 28, 1972
Back to Williamsburg – here we go again. Another round in NASA human spaceflight program fight for survival, started in 1968.
For Jim Gordon it was the second trip to Virginia in exactly a year. Twelve months before a similar big meeting had been held, with NASA, contractors and Air Force guys debating for two days.
One year ago we were struggling to define a fully-reusable Shuttle – twelve months later, all left are capsules and lifting bodies riding Titan IIIs.
Time is flying.
The conference had just begun, and would last all the day.
Another conference would happen the next day. USAF was absent, leaving NASA facing worried contractors alone.
James Beggs had been just confirmed as administrator of NASA.
“…NASA will fly Apollo with required upgrades until 1975, for Skylab and a joint flight with a the soviets.
Work on a proposed first-generation reusable launch vehicle has been put on the backburner, with activities limited to research, in a major change to our agency's earlier Space Transportation System.
“NASA will now push ahead with the development of six-men Crew Transfer Vehicle, launched on a Titan expendable booster to act as Space Station taxi within eight years. This will also have the potential to act as the permanent Crew Rescue Vehicle (CRV).
NASA considers ordering some more Apollo to fill the gap with the CTV. As an alternative Apollo flight schedule to Skylab could be stretched to 1975 and beyond.
"I understand that, you, contractors, have been worried about the Office off Management and Budget decision to scrap the shuttle. The Crew Transportation Vehicle is set to enter service in 1976, launched to low-Earth-orbit manned with a crew of four.
By 1980, the spacecraft will ferry six crew members to a new space station. Work on a the Shuttle will continue under the Next Generation Launch Technology programme, with a decision on development delayed until 1978 at best.
“The CTV requirements are driven by the need to increase the science performed on Skylab and to improve the safety of crews compared to Apollo.
We set up the following criteria.
The Launch vehicle should be an uprated Titan III; bidders must derived their vehicle from existing vehicles or proven shapes such as Corona or Apollo; land-landing is mandatory; on orbit duration of sixty days when docked to a space station; payload is housed in an expendable cargo module.
A crew of four is mandatory, with higher safety-levels than current Apollo, notably a two gas atmosphere. Initial operational capacity should be 1975. An upgrade to a circumlunar mission mode with a Centaur Earth departure stage would be highly desirable. This day will be dedicated to bidders entries for the CTV."
Martin Marietta representatives went first on the scene. Martin was the big winner of shuttle cancellation – its Titan had not only ousted the shuttle, it also bet the pants of the Saturn IB.
Martin lifting bodies, by contrast were fresh concepts with very little flight experience. At a time when NASA was pressed by time lifting bodies stood little chances of being chosen.
Then it was Northrop, Martin competitor for lifting bodies with their HL-10 and M2F2. Both had had agitated development paths.
The M2F2 had suffered an horrendous landing crash in May 1967, injuring test pilot Bruce Peterson “also known as the six billion dollar men”. Gordon smiled.
Lifting bodies were hard to control at landing speeds; they were even draggier than shuttle shapes, themselves known as “turkey” or “flying bricks” by aerodynamicists.
On the stage, the brave Northrop guy continued its presentation.
“…we decided to go with the more stable HL-10. As of today it is considered by Edwards test-pilots as the best lifting-body in the serie. [FONT=serif, 'Times New Roman']Our proposal called HL-20, is a scaled-up variant of the HL-10.
During launch the spacecraft would have had solid rocket motors for launch abort, with parachutes for a tail-down water landing. The space available inside for the crew and passengers would be more than found in today's small corporate business jets…"
"Lifting bodies can certainly sustain reentry at interplanetary speed." To back their claims the lifting body crowd cited project LUNEX, the Air Force moon plan that had lost to Apollo ten years before. The Northrop guy dug out a view of an ungainly aircraft with a huge conical propulsion module on the back.
Boeing and Grumman proposals were vague; Boeing presentation focused on an enlarged DynaSoar, the mythical USAF spaceplane cancelled in December 1963, eighteen months away from its first glided flight.
DynaSoar was a black, delta-shaped dart with twin tail fins and skids for landing. Unlike the cancelled shuttle, and much like old X-15s, DynaSoar did not used a heatshield.
The structure was build from inconel and titanium, and actually absorbed heat. The pilot, payload and other sensitive pieces were housed in water-cooled compartments.
Boeing and Grumman also had a study of a subscale variant of their joint H-33 shuttle design, a delta-winged orbiter with internal liquid oxygen tankage and one throwaway liquid hydrogen tank over each wing. The CTV got ride of any internal propulsion system outside small attitude thrusters.
"At the time of the shuttle cancellation studies were on the way of lunar mission for the space shuttle" they told the crowd. Their first slide entitled Cislunar Application of the Space Shuttle Orbiter showed a glowing-red shuttle reentering from interplanetary space.
Grumman and Boeing representatives also had a subscale shuttle model: an airplane shape, with a chunky body and an elegant, curved delta wing.
"We plan to add ablative heatshield over the silica tiles, or split the reentry in phases." they added. "The orbiter would perform a braking burn halfway to Earth to reduce its atmosphere entry velocity to about 31,000 feet per second.
Upon reaching Earth, the cislunar orbiter will perform an aerobraking manoeuvre high in the atmosphere to further reduce its speed and capture into orbit. First, the orbiter will descend at a constant velocity to an altitude no lower than 250,000 feet, taking care not to exceed its maximum allowable heating rate. Next, it will maintain a constant altitude as it slows. After that, it will pull up and enter a 100-mile-high circular orbit about the Earth finally firing its braking rockets to begin a normal Shuttle reentry."
The whole concept looked dubious to Gordon.
Now its time for backward capsules to size their revenge Gordon thought, as the Lockheed representative come on the scene.
“Our CTV vehicle - internally known as CXV- is a simple capsule design based on the Corona reentry vehicles used by the American intelligence community to return film from orbit. The aerodynamics and flight characteristics of the capsule are well known, with more than 50 reentries having taken place over a period of more than 12 years.”
Early spy satellites dropped their precious photos of USSR into Corona capsules, which after reentry were snapped in midair by large aircrafts. Had NASA not taken over the manned spaceflight business in 1958, USAF may had flown manned Coronas with military astronauts.
“The CXV's shape provide for carefree reentry of the capsule. Similar to a badminton shuttlecock, the spacecraft automatically rights itself as it descend into the atmosphere regardless of its initial orientation due to the aerodynamic loads. As a result, neither human nor computer intervention is needed to stabilize the vehicle in the event that the vehicle is not perfectly aligned for reentry..."
Gordon liked the concept, but remembered a problem common with the use of a Discoverer-type capsule for crew re-entry. The direction of G-forces during launch and re-entry areopposite. The Lockheed proposal solved this through use of an innovative seat design - a type of suspended semi-rigid hammock - that could rotate 180 degrees within two seconds in order to keep the astronaut correctly oriented regardless of g-force direction.
Another dubious concept – it can certainly works, but it will take time, of which NASA has not. By the way we have better capsule than Corona.
On top of that was Lockheed dire situation, near bankruptcy. Over the last decade every program started by the firm had backfired or failed, to the point it was on the verge of sinking.
Tristars airliners did not sold, and their turbofans had nearly sunk Rolls Royce.
The Cheyenne, YF-12 and D-21 cutting edge marvels had been plagued by technical problems. The Galaxy scandal was raging – cracks on wings and immense cost overruns plagued USAF big cargo plane.
In an unprecedented move Lockheed had been kept on life-support by the Nixon administration - only because their Poseidonsubmarine launched missile represented a vital asset against the Soviet Union.
To this point, Lockheed proposal is certainly the most interesting.But here come the big boys, entering the arena. Rockwell and us - McDonnell Douglas.
Gordon somersaulted when he saw Rockwell representative.
My god - they have called Harrison Storms back, he thought. They really want this contract.
Stormy was a legend, the father of an impressive number of superb flying machines and rocketships. The Apollo program, however had nearly carbonised him. Having brought both the S-II and Apollo contracts to Rockwell, he had worked a gruelling eighty hours a week for a decade, facing immense pressure from NASA, two heart attacks and a wife attempting her life.
Storms looked battered, but he fought with energy. It was obvious he would do his best to bring the CTV to Rockwell, in the form of a Block III Apollo.
“We are the most experienced bidders. We prevails experience from the Apollo program, and we were a strong contender for the Shuttle orbiter contract. North American studied 6-men, ground-landing Apollo spacecrafts as early as 1963. These studies were grouped under the designation of MODAP. Six-man, land-landing Apollo studies continued into Apollo Extension Series (AES) in 1966, then Apollo Application Program (AAP) in 1968. They included steerable parachutes.
“As of today retrorockets sounds the most efficient system to cushion ground impact, but consideration should be given to air bags. Apollo CM shape, as Corona, has been proven over and over. It offers a lift-to-drag ratio of 0.25, enough for a cross-reentry of 18km. Truth be told, since 1968 Apollo crews have landed closer and closer from their recovery ships, to the point that NASA recently worried about possible collisions !
We recently modified an old block.1 CSM into a mockup of the new internal layout. To access the cargo compartment we first considered the option of a hatch trough the heatshield. This option was rejected on safety grounds, but also because the six-men crew Block III is too cramped for a second hatch. Our vessel will have three sections, fore to aft.
First, a six-man Command Module with modern avionics, lighter heatshield and a land-landing system.
Then a new, very light Service Module.
Third, a so-called MultiPurpose Logistic Module (MPLM).
Just after orbital injection, Apollo will detach, makes a 180° turn and pick up the MPLM very much like the Lunar Module.
The logistic module has a hatch at each end. Apollo will dock via the MPLM, the astronauts crossing the cargo module to enter the station.
We consider our option as the cheaper and easier to achieve - Apollo will fly to a space station as early as 1973. The Command and Service Module is NASA current manned spacecraft, and proved its worth”
According to the Rand Corp "THE SPACE SHUTTLE AS AN ELEMENT IN THE NATIONAL SPACE PROGRAM" dated October 18 1970,
"for those alternative space plans in which the shuttle operation would be delayed or in which there would be no shuttle, a six-man modified Apollo spacecraft would be used.
This vehicle would have a gross weight of 20,000 Ib, a development cost of $1billion, a first-unit cost of $300 million, and a launch-operations cost of $73 million." Storms quoted.
"A Titan III-M with the 7-seg segment solids can orbit can orbit 37 000 pounds - which mean the MPLM could mass as much as 17 000 pounds." he concluded.
Yeah, but Apollo has been tailored for lunar missions, not as a space station ferry, Gordon thought as he went to the stage. That service module - even trimmed down to the bones - is just unuseful. Now was perhaps the most important moment in his life.
He stared at the audience, a sea of engineers and heavyweight past and present NASA officials – former administrators James Webb and Thomas Paine, Robert Seamans, Werner Von Braun, George Low, and many others.
“The Big Gemini spacecraft is a scaled-up Gemini with a crew of three to nine. Big Gemini itself appeared for the first time late 1967. It had grown from a logical need outside Apollo – the need for a twelve-man ferry to a space station in the early 70’s. Apollo maximum capacity is six men without cargo, while the shuttle promised lot of technical uncertainties, making it unlikely before 1977 at best.
Let me quote a document
"Our existing spacecraft, being two- or three-man size, cannot economically meet space station logistic needs. Lower operational costs are essential for the future. The Gemini structure itself being an aircraft type construction readily lends itself to this add-on passenger compartment. The spacecraft was designed for low earth orbits.
To describe it in a little more depth, about 75 percent of the Gemini B flight hardware is used in the Big G spacecraft.
We have studied the development time for the Big G and we have compared it to the projected Apollo Applications Program and to a potential future space station.
Based on a 1971 beginning of operations for the workshop, and a possible followup at a later date with either additional wet or dry workshops, and sometime in the mid seventies a major new station we see that the Big G can be available in late 1972 if we assume a hardware go-ahead in 1970.
We feel the Big G is an optimum way to proceed quickly and at low development cost to a new spacecraft. It will introduce lower cost per passenger in orbit than we have seen before.
This date back from 1970, and remain pertinent today.
To house 12 men, McDonnell changed Gemini service module into a kind of passenger section – a fixed extension of the two-man original capsule.
"Two-man-Gemini’s ejection seats and hatches have been deleted. The crew enters Big Gemini crew module through two large hatches set above the passenger section.
"A cargo propulsion module is attached to the crew module for up cargo and orbital operations. Orbital transfer, rendezvous and docking, attitude control and deorbit propulsion functions are all performed by a single liquid propellant system.
The cargo block is a large, pressurised cylindrical section. It is dropped at the end of the mission, and usually burns in the atmosphere. At the aft end a pilot's station is equipped with controls and windows for manual docking with the space station.
"Although the launcher is now a stock Titan III, we made studies of Big Gemini riding atop a Saturn INT-20. It gives Big Gemini a payload and flexibility similar to the defunct shuttle through the Space Shuttle Cargo Delivery Module. The SSCDM is nothing more than an expendable shuttle cargo bay left in orbit after Big Gemini reentry module goes back to Earth.
Morphologically Big Gemini is closest from the shuttle than any proposals seen this day. A six man crew cockpit flanked by a large cargo section results in high flexibility for space station resupply.
"We studied several recovery options such as externally deployed parawing and bicycle landing gear supplemented by outriggers. Despite the paraglider fiasco we continued our research in gliding parachutes. We understood that a rigid delta wing was too difficult to deploy at landing. Flexible, lift chutes were the way to go.
“Difference between a paraglider, a parasail and a parafoil is not always easy to grasp. The paraglider as consider for Gemini was an inflatable, rigid delta wing as patented by Francis Rogallo. It had a mettalic, rigid structure - which was nearly impossible to deploy rapidly during flight.
A Parasail is a round chute - only made of cloth, without any metallic structure. It is thus much easier to deploy, with some aerodynamic tricks that give the pilot limited control; it can be steered to a precise landing area.
A parafoil is a mix of the two. Like the paraglider, it is a winged-shape, although a much different design that makes it easier to deploy. Like a parasail a parafoil is essentially made of cloth and is inflated by ambient air.
Final selection opposed a parasail with retrorockets to a parafoil with skids or undercarriage. Parasail can land a capsule on every ground; skids limit it to flat land; undercarriage obviously mean runway.
"Recovery of the crew module is by parafoil and a three skid landing gear extends from the bottom of the crew module. Design and analysis of the parafoil and landing mode were accomplished by Northrop-Ventura under a subcontract. Launch escape is provided by an Apollo-type solid rocket escape tower mounted on the spacecraft nose.
"A flight test Min-Mod vehicle could be launched 37 months from go-ahead and first operational vehicle could be launched 43 months from go-ahead. The Advanced Big G schedule add three months to these figures.
"Cost estimations are $1.5 billion for developing the Big Gemini capsule and its launcher, along with approximately $2.25 billion in recurring operational costs, for a total of $3.75 billion. Late 1969 the Bureau of Budget agreed that Big Gemini reduced development cost allowed the parallel build-up of a space station in the year 1980, even if NASA budget was cut to $2.5 billion per year over the next decade…”
Gordon had noted some nervous laughs in the assistance, and he knew why. The name Big Gemini really sounded bad – fat Castor, big Pollux ! He had the answer to that. He had found it late December, in a chat with Chamberlin.
“Jim, now that we have a spaceship to replace Apollo, we’re going to need a new name. Something to link this ship to former capsules – Mercury, Gemini, Apollo.We just can’t really stand with Big Gemini – or else some day some facetious journalist will call it fat Castor !
“So, how did the capsules names came about ?”
“Mercury and Apollo were picked up by Abe Silverstein in 1958 and 1960. At the time early Apollo blocks were to succeed Mercury – Gemini come later, after Kennedy trumpeted the Moon as NASA great endeavour for the decade. The name Gemini was picked up by some obscure McDonnell technician, on the ground that Gemini was a two-men Mercury.”
“What were the reasons driving Silverstein choices then ?”
“Well, Abe dabbled on classical myths. Plus the fact that Von Braun named its rockets Jupiter and Saturn”.
“But Von Braun chose those names from planets, not because of Greek gods.”
“Yep, you’re right. And Silverstein missed this point. Mercury was the son of Zeus and grandson of Atlas.
It had winged sandals and helmet and caduceus. Had a mythologist been consulted, perhaps the additional associations of Mercury with masterful thievery, the patronage of traders, and the divinity of commerce would have proven too humorous for NASA.”
“Indeed. What about Apollo ?”
“In Silverstein own words the image of the god Apollo riding his chariot across the sun gave the best representation of the grand scale of the proposed program." So Apollo it was. Now, what alternate names do we have ?”
“Well, if we ever go back to the Moon, Artemis might be appropriate, as goddess of Earth satellite.
And if we reach Mars, the name Ares just fits like a glove to any ship going there.
But we are not going to any of those destinations, not now.
So, what other Greek deity may fit to our ship ? We can’t seriously call it Dionysus, nor Aphrodite !”
Gordon looked at the assistance.
With the shuttle dead, the future of manned spaceflight hanged to the proposals made this day. Because of that, even Boeing or Grumman dubious, vague projects were of interest.
He took a deep breath and concluded its presentation.
“I’m very aware that Big Gemini sounds bad. So we checked the Greek mythology to find a better name.
Once upon a time was a god. The son of a Titan, he was closely identified with Apollo. Each day he drove the chariot of the sun across the sky, circling Earth.
Not only he drove the chariot, he was identified with the sun itself. Thanks to his location right in the middle of the sky he had an eye on everything happening on Earth.”
"Gentlemen, we will name our ship Helios.” He had finished with his presentation.
The room was noisy; everyone thought the day was over, but there were still a last presentation to be heard. Gordon was surprised when he heard that General Electric was also in the race. Their presentation was brief, although intriguing; it dealt with an original ship that consisted of three modules latched together.
"Unlike aircrafts rockets makes large use of expendable stages. It has been found that the optimal number of rocket stages is three to four; this max performance. Well, not only rockets benefits from staging; for a manned spaceship it give the crew more volume for an overall lower weigh. Our D-2 consists, fore to aft, of a large orbital living module, a small reentry bell-shaped capsule, and a service and propulsion unit."
What the hell ? Gordon thought this thing's a Soyuz !
He was stricken by the weight summary data, and tried to ran some maths in his head. Others contractors were deriding the concept.
How do you abort with a massive module above the astronaut heads ?The more separation or staging events, the higher risk of failure. We don't want to fly American astronauts aboard a clunky Soyuz. Leave that for the joint flight, ha ha !
Gordon took rapid notes.
The launch abort system stood on top of the rocket payload shroud, and the shroud was linked to the three-module ship, from top to bottom: a roomy orbital module, the astronaut can, and an unmanned service module located at the base.
During an abort the escape tower would pull the shroud - and the two upward modules linked to it - out of the failing rocket. Then once at a safe distance the astronaut tin can would literally separate and fall like a rock through the shroud open base - before deploying the landing chutes and retrorockets.
And then everything else - the orbital module, shroud and escape tower - would be left crashing into the ground.
It was a clever, if not complicated, abort system. Gordon had never heard of anything like that before.
The day was over. James Beggs had a kind word for everyone, and a brief elocution that concluded the first round. For contractors a hellish bidding race had now started, although it was rather obvious that Apollo and Big Gemini were over the rest of the pack.
Back to Williamsburg – here we go again. Another round in NASA human spaceflight program fight for survival, started in 1968.
For Jim Gordon it was the second trip to Virginia in exactly a year. Twelve months before a similar big meeting had been held, with NASA, contractors and Air Force guys debating for two days.
One year ago we were struggling to define a fully-reusable Shuttle – twelve months later, all left are capsules and lifting bodies riding Titan IIIs.
Time is flying.
The conference had just begun, and would last all the day.
Another conference would happen the next day. USAF was absent, leaving NASA facing worried contractors alone.
James Beggs had been just confirmed as administrator of NASA.
“…NASA will fly Apollo with required upgrades until 1975, for Skylab and a joint flight with a the soviets.
Work on a proposed first-generation reusable launch vehicle has been put on the backburner, with activities limited to research, in a major change to our agency's earlier Space Transportation System.
“NASA will now push ahead with the development of six-men Crew Transfer Vehicle, launched on a Titan expendable booster to act as Space Station taxi within eight years. This will also have the potential to act as the permanent Crew Rescue Vehicle (CRV).
NASA considers ordering some more Apollo to fill the gap with the CTV. As an alternative Apollo flight schedule to Skylab could be stretched to 1975 and beyond.
"I understand that, you, contractors, have been worried about the Office off Management and Budget decision to scrap the shuttle. The Crew Transportation Vehicle is set to enter service in 1976, launched to low-Earth-orbit manned with a crew of four.
By 1980, the spacecraft will ferry six crew members to a new space station. Work on a the Shuttle will continue under the Next Generation Launch Technology programme, with a decision on development delayed until 1978 at best.
“The CTV requirements are driven by the need to increase the science performed on Skylab and to improve the safety of crews compared to Apollo.
We set up the following criteria.
The Launch vehicle should be an uprated Titan III; bidders must derived their vehicle from existing vehicles or proven shapes such as Corona or Apollo; land-landing is mandatory; on orbit duration of sixty days when docked to a space station; payload is housed in an expendable cargo module.
A crew of four is mandatory, with higher safety-levels than current Apollo, notably a two gas atmosphere. Initial operational capacity should be 1975. An upgrade to a circumlunar mission mode with a Centaur Earth departure stage would be highly desirable. This day will be dedicated to bidders entries for the CTV."
Martin Marietta representatives went first on the scene. Martin was the big winner of shuttle cancellation – its Titan had not only ousted the shuttle, it also bet the pants of the Saturn IB.
Martin lifting bodies, by contrast were fresh concepts with very little flight experience. At a time when NASA was pressed by time lifting bodies stood little chances of being chosen.
Then it was Northrop, Martin competitor for lifting bodies with their HL-10 and M2F2. Both had had agitated development paths.
The M2F2 had suffered an horrendous landing crash in May 1967, injuring test pilot Bruce Peterson “also known as the six billion dollar men”. Gordon smiled.
Lifting bodies were hard to control at landing speeds; they were even draggier than shuttle shapes, themselves known as “turkey” or “flying bricks” by aerodynamicists.
On the stage, the brave Northrop guy continued its presentation.
“…we decided to go with the more stable HL-10. As of today it is considered by Edwards test-pilots as the best lifting-body in the serie. [FONT=serif, 'Times New Roman']Our proposal called HL-20, is a scaled-up variant of the HL-10.
During launch the spacecraft would have had solid rocket motors for launch abort, with parachutes for a tail-down water landing. The space available inside for the crew and passengers would be more than found in today's small corporate business jets…"
"Lifting bodies can certainly sustain reentry at interplanetary speed." To back their claims the lifting body crowd cited project LUNEX, the Air Force moon plan that had lost to Apollo ten years before. The Northrop guy dug out a view of an ungainly aircraft with a huge conical propulsion module on the back.
Boeing and Grumman proposals were vague; Boeing presentation focused on an enlarged DynaSoar, the mythical USAF spaceplane cancelled in December 1963, eighteen months away from its first glided flight.
DynaSoar was a black, delta-shaped dart with twin tail fins and skids for landing. Unlike the cancelled shuttle, and much like old X-15s, DynaSoar did not used a heatshield.
The structure was build from inconel and titanium, and actually absorbed heat. The pilot, payload and other sensitive pieces were housed in water-cooled compartments.
Boeing and Grumman also had a study of a subscale variant of their joint H-33 shuttle design, a delta-winged orbiter with internal liquid oxygen tankage and one throwaway liquid hydrogen tank over each wing. The CTV got ride of any internal propulsion system outside small attitude thrusters.
"At the time of the shuttle cancellation studies were on the way of lunar mission for the space shuttle" they told the crowd. Their first slide entitled Cislunar Application of the Space Shuttle Orbiter showed a glowing-red shuttle reentering from interplanetary space.
Grumman and Boeing representatives also had a subscale shuttle model: an airplane shape, with a chunky body and an elegant, curved delta wing.
"We plan to add ablative heatshield over the silica tiles, or split the reentry in phases." they added. "The orbiter would perform a braking burn halfway to Earth to reduce its atmosphere entry velocity to about 31,000 feet per second.
Upon reaching Earth, the cislunar orbiter will perform an aerobraking manoeuvre high in the atmosphere to further reduce its speed and capture into orbit. First, the orbiter will descend at a constant velocity to an altitude no lower than 250,000 feet, taking care not to exceed its maximum allowable heating rate. Next, it will maintain a constant altitude as it slows. After that, it will pull up and enter a 100-mile-high circular orbit about the Earth finally firing its braking rockets to begin a normal Shuttle reentry."
The whole concept looked dubious to Gordon.
Now its time for backward capsules to size their revenge Gordon thought, as the Lockheed representative come on the scene.
“Our CTV vehicle - internally known as CXV- is a simple capsule design based on the Corona reentry vehicles used by the American intelligence community to return film from orbit. The aerodynamics and flight characteristics of the capsule are well known, with more than 50 reentries having taken place over a period of more than 12 years.”
Early spy satellites dropped their precious photos of USSR into Corona capsules, which after reentry were snapped in midair by large aircrafts. Had NASA not taken over the manned spaceflight business in 1958, USAF may had flown manned Coronas with military astronauts.
“The CXV's shape provide for carefree reentry of the capsule. Similar to a badminton shuttlecock, the spacecraft automatically rights itself as it descend into the atmosphere regardless of its initial orientation due to the aerodynamic loads. As a result, neither human nor computer intervention is needed to stabilize the vehicle in the event that the vehicle is not perfectly aligned for reentry..."
Gordon liked the concept, but remembered a problem common with the use of a Discoverer-type capsule for crew re-entry. The direction of G-forces during launch and re-entry areopposite. The Lockheed proposal solved this through use of an innovative seat design - a type of suspended semi-rigid hammock - that could rotate 180 degrees within two seconds in order to keep the astronaut correctly oriented regardless of g-force direction.
Another dubious concept – it can certainly works, but it will take time, of which NASA has not. By the way we have better capsule than Corona.
On top of that was Lockheed dire situation, near bankruptcy. Over the last decade every program started by the firm had backfired or failed, to the point it was on the verge of sinking.
Tristars airliners did not sold, and their turbofans had nearly sunk Rolls Royce.
The Cheyenne, YF-12 and D-21 cutting edge marvels had been plagued by technical problems. The Galaxy scandal was raging – cracks on wings and immense cost overruns plagued USAF big cargo plane.
In an unprecedented move Lockheed had been kept on life-support by the Nixon administration - only because their Poseidonsubmarine launched missile represented a vital asset against the Soviet Union.
To this point, Lockheed proposal is certainly the most interesting.But here come the big boys, entering the arena. Rockwell and us - McDonnell Douglas.
Gordon somersaulted when he saw Rockwell representative.
My god - they have called Harrison Storms back, he thought. They really want this contract.
Stormy was a legend, the father of an impressive number of superb flying machines and rocketships. The Apollo program, however had nearly carbonised him. Having brought both the S-II and Apollo contracts to Rockwell, he had worked a gruelling eighty hours a week for a decade, facing immense pressure from NASA, two heart attacks and a wife attempting her life.
Storms looked battered, but he fought with energy. It was obvious he would do his best to bring the CTV to Rockwell, in the form of a Block III Apollo.
“We are the most experienced bidders. We prevails experience from the Apollo program, and we were a strong contender for the Shuttle orbiter contract. North American studied 6-men, ground-landing Apollo spacecrafts as early as 1963. These studies were grouped under the designation of MODAP. Six-man, land-landing Apollo studies continued into Apollo Extension Series (AES) in 1966, then Apollo Application Program (AAP) in 1968. They included steerable parachutes.
“As of today retrorockets sounds the most efficient system to cushion ground impact, but consideration should be given to air bags. Apollo CM shape, as Corona, has been proven over and over. It offers a lift-to-drag ratio of 0.25, enough for a cross-reentry of 18km. Truth be told, since 1968 Apollo crews have landed closer and closer from their recovery ships, to the point that NASA recently worried about possible collisions !
We recently modified an old block.1 CSM into a mockup of the new internal layout. To access the cargo compartment we first considered the option of a hatch trough the heatshield. This option was rejected on safety grounds, but also because the six-men crew Block III is too cramped for a second hatch. Our vessel will have three sections, fore to aft.
First, a six-man Command Module with modern avionics, lighter heatshield and a land-landing system.
Then a new, very light Service Module.
Third, a so-called MultiPurpose Logistic Module (MPLM).
Just after orbital injection, Apollo will detach, makes a 180° turn and pick up the MPLM very much like the Lunar Module.
The logistic module has a hatch at each end. Apollo will dock via the MPLM, the astronauts crossing the cargo module to enter the station.
We consider our option as the cheaper and easier to achieve - Apollo will fly to a space station as early as 1973. The Command and Service Module is NASA current manned spacecraft, and proved its worth”
According to the Rand Corp "THE SPACE SHUTTLE AS AN ELEMENT IN THE NATIONAL SPACE PROGRAM" dated October 18 1970,
"for those alternative space plans in which the shuttle operation would be delayed or in which there would be no shuttle, a six-man modified Apollo spacecraft would be used.
This vehicle would have a gross weight of 20,000 Ib, a development cost of $1billion, a first-unit cost of $300 million, and a launch-operations cost of $73 million." Storms quoted.
"A Titan III-M with the 7-seg segment solids can orbit can orbit 37 000 pounds - which mean the MPLM could mass as much as 17 000 pounds." he concluded.
Yeah, but Apollo has been tailored for lunar missions, not as a space station ferry, Gordon thought as he went to the stage. That service module - even trimmed down to the bones - is just unuseful. Now was perhaps the most important moment in his life.
He stared at the audience, a sea of engineers and heavyweight past and present NASA officials – former administrators James Webb and Thomas Paine, Robert Seamans, Werner Von Braun, George Low, and many others.
“The Big Gemini spacecraft is a scaled-up Gemini with a crew of three to nine. Big Gemini itself appeared for the first time late 1967. It had grown from a logical need outside Apollo – the need for a twelve-man ferry to a space station in the early 70’s. Apollo maximum capacity is six men without cargo, while the shuttle promised lot of technical uncertainties, making it unlikely before 1977 at best.
Let me quote a document
"Our existing spacecraft, being two- or three-man size, cannot economically meet space station logistic needs. Lower operational costs are essential for the future. The Gemini structure itself being an aircraft type construction readily lends itself to this add-on passenger compartment. The spacecraft was designed for low earth orbits.
To describe it in a little more depth, about 75 percent of the Gemini B flight hardware is used in the Big G spacecraft.
We have studied the development time for the Big G and we have compared it to the projected Apollo Applications Program and to a potential future space station.
Based on a 1971 beginning of operations for the workshop, and a possible followup at a later date with either additional wet or dry workshops, and sometime in the mid seventies a major new station we see that the Big G can be available in late 1972 if we assume a hardware go-ahead in 1970.
We feel the Big G is an optimum way to proceed quickly and at low development cost to a new spacecraft. It will introduce lower cost per passenger in orbit than we have seen before.
This date back from 1970, and remain pertinent today.
To house 12 men, McDonnell changed Gemini service module into a kind of passenger section – a fixed extension of the two-man original capsule.
"Two-man-Gemini’s ejection seats and hatches have been deleted. The crew enters Big Gemini crew module through two large hatches set above the passenger section.
"A cargo propulsion module is attached to the crew module for up cargo and orbital operations. Orbital transfer, rendezvous and docking, attitude control and deorbit propulsion functions are all performed by a single liquid propellant system.
The cargo block is a large, pressurised cylindrical section. It is dropped at the end of the mission, and usually burns in the atmosphere. At the aft end a pilot's station is equipped with controls and windows for manual docking with the space station.
"Although the launcher is now a stock Titan III, we made studies of Big Gemini riding atop a Saturn INT-20. It gives Big Gemini a payload and flexibility similar to the defunct shuttle through the Space Shuttle Cargo Delivery Module. The SSCDM is nothing more than an expendable shuttle cargo bay left in orbit after Big Gemini reentry module goes back to Earth.
Morphologically Big Gemini is closest from the shuttle than any proposals seen this day. A six man crew cockpit flanked by a large cargo section results in high flexibility for space station resupply.
"We studied several recovery options such as externally deployed parawing and bicycle landing gear supplemented by outriggers. Despite the paraglider fiasco we continued our research in gliding parachutes. We understood that a rigid delta wing was too difficult to deploy at landing. Flexible, lift chutes were the way to go.
“Difference between a paraglider, a parasail and a parafoil is not always easy to grasp. The paraglider as consider for Gemini was an inflatable, rigid delta wing as patented by Francis Rogallo. It had a mettalic, rigid structure - which was nearly impossible to deploy rapidly during flight.
A Parasail is a round chute - only made of cloth, without any metallic structure. It is thus much easier to deploy, with some aerodynamic tricks that give the pilot limited control; it can be steered to a precise landing area.
A parafoil is a mix of the two. Like the paraglider, it is a winged-shape, although a much different design that makes it easier to deploy. Like a parasail a parafoil is essentially made of cloth and is inflated by ambient air.
Final selection opposed a parasail with retrorockets to a parafoil with skids or undercarriage. Parasail can land a capsule on every ground; skids limit it to flat land; undercarriage obviously mean runway.
"Recovery of the crew module is by parafoil and a three skid landing gear extends from the bottom of the crew module. Design and analysis of the parafoil and landing mode were accomplished by Northrop-Ventura under a subcontract. Launch escape is provided by an Apollo-type solid rocket escape tower mounted on the spacecraft nose.
"A flight test Min-Mod vehicle could be launched 37 months from go-ahead and first operational vehicle could be launched 43 months from go-ahead. The Advanced Big G schedule add three months to these figures.
"Cost estimations are $1.5 billion for developing the Big Gemini capsule and its launcher, along with approximately $2.25 billion in recurring operational costs, for a total of $3.75 billion. Late 1969 the Bureau of Budget agreed that Big Gemini reduced development cost allowed the parallel build-up of a space station in the year 1980, even if NASA budget was cut to $2.5 billion per year over the next decade…”
Gordon had noted some nervous laughs in the assistance, and he knew why. The name Big Gemini really sounded bad – fat Castor, big Pollux ! He had the answer to that. He had found it late December, in a chat with Chamberlin.
“Jim, now that we have a spaceship to replace Apollo, we’re going to need a new name. Something to link this ship to former capsules – Mercury, Gemini, Apollo.We just can’t really stand with Big Gemini – or else some day some facetious journalist will call it fat Castor !
“So, how did the capsules names came about ?”
“Mercury and Apollo were picked up by Abe Silverstein in 1958 and 1960. At the time early Apollo blocks were to succeed Mercury – Gemini come later, after Kennedy trumpeted the Moon as NASA great endeavour for the decade. The name Gemini was picked up by some obscure McDonnell technician, on the ground that Gemini was a two-men Mercury.”
“What were the reasons driving Silverstein choices then ?”
“Well, Abe dabbled on classical myths. Plus the fact that Von Braun named its rockets Jupiter and Saturn”.
“But Von Braun chose those names from planets, not because of Greek gods.”
“Yep, you’re right. And Silverstein missed this point. Mercury was the son of Zeus and grandson of Atlas.
It had winged sandals and helmet and caduceus. Had a mythologist been consulted, perhaps the additional associations of Mercury with masterful thievery, the patronage of traders, and the divinity of commerce would have proven too humorous for NASA.”
“Indeed. What about Apollo ?”
“In Silverstein own words the image of the god Apollo riding his chariot across the sun gave the best representation of the grand scale of the proposed program." So Apollo it was. Now, what alternate names do we have ?”
“Well, if we ever go back to the Moon, Artemis might be appropriate, as goddess of Earth satellite.
And if we reach Mars, the name Ares just fits like a glove to any ship going there.
But we are not going to any of those destinations, not now.
So, what other Greek deity may fit to our ship ? We can’t seriously call it Dionysus, nor Aphrodite !”
Gordon looked at the assistance.
With the shuttle dead, the future of manned spaceflight hanged to the proposals made this day. Because of that, even Boeing or Grumman dubious, vague projects were of interest.
He took a deep breath and concluded its presentation.
“I’m very aware that Big Gemini sounds bad. So we checked the Greek mythology to find a better name.
Once upon a time was a god. The son of a Titan, he was closely identified with Apollo. Each day he drove the chariot of the sun across the sky, circling Earth.
Not only he drove the chariot, he was identified with the sun itself. Thanks to his location right in the middle of the sky he had an eye on everything happening on Earth.”
"Gentlemen, we will name our ship Helios.” He had finished with his presentation.
The room was noisy; everyone thought the day was over, but there were still a last presentation to be heard. Gordon was surprised when he heard that General Electric was also in the race. Their presentation was brief, although intriguing; it dealt with an original ship that consisted of three modules latched together.
"Unlike aircrafts rockets makes large use of expendable stages. It has been found that the optimal number of rocket stages is three to four; this max performance. Well, not only rockets benefits from staging; for a manned spaceship it give the crew more volume for an overall lower weigh. Our D-2 consists, fore to aft, of a large orbital living module, a small reentry bell-shaped capsule, and a service and propulsion unit."
What the hell ? Gordon thought this thing's a Soyuz !
He was stricken by the weight summary data, and tried to ran some maths in his head. Others contractors were deriding the concept.
How do you abort with a massive module above the astronaut heads ?The more separation or staging events, the higher risk of failure. We don't want to fly American astronauts aboard a clunky Soyuz. Leave that for the joint flight, ha ha !
Gordon took rapid notes.
The launch abort system stood on top of the rocket payload shroud, and the shroud was linked to the three-module ship, from top to bottom: a roomy orbital module, the astronaut can, and an unmanned service module located at the base.
During an abort the escape tower would pull the shroud - and the two upward modules linked to it - out of the failing rocket. Then once at a safe distance the astronaut tin can would literally separate and fall like a rock through the shroud open base - before deploying the landing chutes and retrorockets.
And then everything else - the orbital module, shroud and escape tower - would be left crashing into the ground.
It was a clever, if not complicated, abort system. Gordon had never heard of anything like that before.
The day was over. James Beggs had a kind word for everyone, and a brief elocution that concluded the first round. For contractors a hellish bidding race had now started, although it was rather obvious that Apollo and Big Gemini were over the rest of the pack.
- Archibald
- Word Count: 3.9k