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Europe in space (8)
meanwhile in Europe

The period between October 1971 and September 1972 was hectic.

It saw the definitive burial of the space shuttle; a frantic selection of its capsule successor; and a return of the space station.

Unfortunately Europe was caught into that blizzard at a period that was one of the most difficult, too, in its young history. The Europa launcher had failed miserably while Europe desesperately tried to find a role in NASA uncertain post-Apollo future.

Of the three major space players – France, Great Britain and Germany – Germany was particularly affected by the never-ending changes in NASA post-Apollo future.

A turning point happened mid-June 1972. Up to this point NASA hasn't decided what contribution did it wanted from Europe. Two major elements were being considered.

Very early on NASA made clear that, of the shuttle orbiter itself there was nothing to share. Only the space tug and sortie lab were areas open to international collaboration. When the shuttle was canned, the sortie lab evolved into a full-blown space station module related to Big Gemini cargo section.

Option 1 turned Big Gemini cargo module into a 15 ft diameter “narrow” space station module.

Option 2 was the space tug, now a low-performance Agena to ferry space station modules.

As far as option 1 was concerned NASA had to rapidly froze a space station design, reviewing many options.

The space tug found a new role as a space station module ferry. Yet Germany was not entirely happy with the space tug, particularly when it was downrated to a Lockheed-build Agena. What Germany wanted was a space station module of their own. Germany was particularly interested in the Option A/B/C Big Gemini Cargo Module Laboratory. That was the true heir of the shuttle sortie lab; Germany hoped they could manufacture that under licence from Douglas, and outfit the cargo modules as makeshift European laboratories, with a dedicated astronaut corps.

Unfortunately for Germany a hard-pressed NASA rapidly moved away from the Cargo Module Laboratory. Instead they would build five - no more - 25 ft, Skylab-derived modules.

That number was tailored to the remaining Saturn IB. It couldn't be augmented. And the modules were too big, and of Skylab legacy, so Europe couldn't do them.

So on June 16, 1972 at a meeting with ESRO NASA told the Europeans they wouldn't build any space station module. They were given the space tug, or bust.

At the end of the day Germany had to swallow its pride and acept the space tug. But the tug wouldn't need a dedicated astronaut corps. German astronauts, if any, would be merely passengers aboard Big Gemini. There would be no European, German space station module.

That left a scar that was long to heal.

In fact that trauma pushed Germany into the arms of the French – in the sense of autonomous space flight independant of the American space station. The Agena space tug was typical of that trend.
Somewhat ironically, option 1 German cargo module laboratory flew in the second joint flight with the Soviets, in 1976.

Even more ironically, later in the 70's the Italian space agency had bilateral agreement with NASA to fly a truncated Big Gemini cargo module. It would be mated to the Agena space tug and use for logistics. That was called the MPLM – Multi-Purpose Logistic Module.

In the end Europe found itself in a strange quandary. They had been givent he Agena space tug, and that, by itself, was a mixed blessing.

Fundamentally, Europe was frustrated by the lack of an European module on Liberty. They felt excluded from the space station. Being an autonomous vehicle, the space tug somewhat comforted Europe in that position. Because they were excluded from the main space station, and because they had the space tug, Europe sought to complete Liberty with free-flying, co-orbiting platforms.

The next question was wether these platforms were to be man-tended or not. Should they feature a pressurised module or not ?

In the late 70's Italy MPLM initiative gave Europe experience in pressurised modules. There were many options on hand.

The co-orbiting platform could be unpressurised and operated via the space station robotic arm only. Or it could be pressurised, and dock with the space station. In both case the experiements would be retrieved by the space station crew, and brought back to Earth via Big Gemini.

France however saw things differently. The platform could very well fly on an orbit different from the space station, (a polar orbit) with the experiments brought back through a return vehicle – a capsule. And of course that capsule could later be used for manned spaceflight. But Europe had no experience with capsules. Somewhat incredibly, it was Rockwell that gave Europe a capsule on a silver plate, through their ill-fated space station lifeboat effort...
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