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Europe in space (11)
this one is for E of Pi (and his new TL)
On 23rd and 24th October, 1975 the launcher division of the CNES hold a meeting in Beaugency. There was studied the feasibility of using Ariane for manned flight.
It was found feasible to orbit a capsule with a mass of 8000 to 12000 pounds and a diameter of 3 m – a craft somewhere between the American Gemini and the Soviet Soyuz.
It appears that the CNES engineers were more or less split into two opposite camps; one supported a Dyna-Soar type hypersonic glider, the other a Gemini- or Apollo- shaped capsule.
Some bitterly noted it was a little annoying to repeat Gemini missions twenty years late; as for the hypersonic glider, his fate was sealed by the death of of the space shuttle, which weighed heavily in the decision. The capsule supporters used the same argument - wasn't the Dyna-Soar design as "antiquated" as a capsule ? they said ironically.
A real breakthrough would have been a reusable launcher, some said.