2001: A Space Time Odyssey (Version 2)

[Michel Van]

POST 36: Intrigue and Failure

Intrigue and Failure

It’s a public secret in the USSR, that their Spaceflight program was dominated by intrigues of Shakespearian proportions [1]
Like how Valentin petrovich Gluchko and Vladimir Nikolayeich Chelomei refused to co-operate on the Nositjel rocket Family and the L3-complex.
Thankfully Mikhall Kuzmich Yangel, was a stabilizing factor in the mess, He managed to get others OKBs in the collaborative effort into Lunar program.
Not only did his OKB-586 build the successful R-16 ICBM but also the LK moon lander
The Military customers had following saying:

[sergei] Khrushchev works for TASS, Chelomei works on crap, Yangel work for us !

Sadly Mikhall Kuzmich Yangel died during his 60th Birthday on October 25 1971.
Since his death the cracks in loyalty towards MoM[2] now showed clearly.
On one side was Sergei Khrushchev OKB-1 and Kuznetsov OKB-276 with Vladimir Barmin of KBOM and Georgy Babakin of OKB-301.
Opposed was Valentin Gluchko of OKB-456 and Vladimir Chelomei of OKB-52.
Next to them was Vladimir Fedorovich Utkin, successor of Yangel at OKB-586 and their allies in the Military under Chairman Ustinov.

Gluchko's fame was falling, he lost the lucrative R-7 engines contract, do to it's replacement by the Nositjel rocket Family with Kuznetsov engines.
He built only main engines for OKB-586, RCS trusters and small engines for rockets and spacecrafts of OKB-1.
Next to that he had high R&D costs on rocket engines working with storable fuel combinations, one was the RD-270 a monster engine in the size of american F-1.
MoM showed interest in this engine, if it worked on Kerosine/Oxygen, but Gluchko stubbornly refused demanding that Luna Block A had to be change to UMDH/NTO propellant !
And for Chelomei it was worst, his UR-500 rocket was canceled in favor of the N2 Proton in the beginning of the 1960s
His ICBM proposals were victim of the VSALT[3] agreement under Nikita Khrushchev.
Since then his OKB-52 made only hardware, satellite and guidance systems for other OKB’s, while his proposals were ignored by MoM and the Military.
That was not a surprise because of his arrogant ways, behavior with officials and talking shit about his colleagues.
Also his demands were bold, instead of trying to cooperate with OKB-1 to launch his hardware, Chelomei demand from MoM or Military the complete package: the spacecraft on a new rocket built by him with the needed launch infrastucture.

Vladimir Nikolayevich Chelomei head of OKB-52

Do to the failure of Zond 17 and the delay in Salut program, Minister of MoM, Sergey Alexandrovich Afanasysev called for Meeting of OKB Directors for solutions.
The Meeting started bad, Chelomei declare that the Luna rocket was piece of shit, that was not able to bring more mass to Moon.
Chelomei claimed it was because Khrushchev had put his junior as Head of OKB-1 !
He had the solution: a new modular Rocket of his design: the UR-700, based on his old UR-500, launching a LK-700 Lunar lander direct to Moon !
Afanasysev ask Chelomei if he had become completely mad, to scrap the working Nositjel rocket Family and waste billions of Rubles on this "toxic bandwagon" ?
Valentin Gluchko supported Chelomei's proposal, because it needed his RD-270 and other yet to be developed engines.
His explication about the unnecessary of Hydrogen oxygen rocket engine were criticize by Mishin "What are the Americans using on their Saturn V! Vodka ?“
And Kuznetsov presented Gluchko a bad surprise, OKB-276 had successful modified a NK-15 to burn Liquid Hydrogen.
Sergei Khrushchev's angrily noticed that the successor of L3 complex, the L3M will ready to fly in 1976, so there is no need to waste money to put Chelomei's LK-700 on N1 rocket.
This led to Vladimir Chelomei outbursting with obscene words about OKB-1's works and about Khrushchev family favoritism.
Khrushchev replied

"We have put soviet men first on the Moon, what have you achieved during that time? NOTHING !"

Chelomei reaction was to grab a ashtray and try trow it toward Khrushchev, but was hinder by Yefermov and Gluchko.
For minister Afanasysev this was enough and in the Russian tradition to blame some unpopular one for the mess, Chelomei was now the perfect victim.
He was dismissed as head of OKB-52 and sent to the Ukrainian Academy of Science as a teacher for rocket engineers
Gerbert Aleksandrovich Yefermov became the new head of OKB-52 that become a branch of OKB-1.

Gluchko was lucky because the Military needed him for new generation of ICBMs that had to replace the Old R-16. His expertise in engines with storable fuel was needed.
But the Military did not want the RD-270 engine, so the R&D on that was terminated immediately, while MoM cut down funding on OKB-456's very expensive R&D engines program.

OKB-52 scheduled the first Salyut to be launch on April 1973.

[1] See the International successfully 1990 Soviet TV soap opera "Intrigues of Starcity“ about Soviet Space program and Moon Race
[2] MoM = Ministry of General Machine Building aka Ministry of Space of the USSR
[3] VSALT = Volunteer Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty between USA and USSR in 1963, do to the aftermath of the French and Berlin Crisis' of 1961.
OKB = the Russian initials of "Опытное конструкторское бюро" - Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buro, meaning Experimental Design Bureau.

Zond 18
Was a repeat of Zond 17 "The Empty handed Mission“, the malicious-joy of the World Press.
This time with a veteran cosmonaut to land near Lunokhod 9.
Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov was the Pilot of LK lander, while Valeri Niklayevich Kubasov photographed the Lunar Surface from LOK.
On 6 November 1972 the Luna Rocket blasted off to bring the crew to the Moon
On 12 November, landed the LK north of Mare Fecunditatis, expected by Lunokhod 9 and it sample container.
The Moon rover had crossed the Highlands from it landing site north of Ameghino to Smithson crater in the last two months.
On the first EVA Leonov recovered the Container from the moon rover, then deployed the DALS package near the LK
The second EVA was a short trip to Smithson crater with Lunokhod 9.
After a short 5 hour mission, the LK return to Lunar orbit and docked with the LOK, where Leonov made excellent EVA back to LOK.
72 hours later the crew capsule landed in the Soviet Union.

The Result of Zond 18 and Lunokhod 9 was a surprise
The Highland samples show differences from the Apollo 16 results. Rover sample were 50% anorthosite (feldspar) instead of the basalt with 1% anorthosite found in Descartes Highlands
This pinpointed the Highland creation around 4200 million years ago, while the Mare Fecunditatis originated around 3850 million years ago.


MARS 3 & 4
The next disaster for MoM came in November 1972 with Mars probe 1971 A/B
The Investigation board pinpoint the Failure on two things: first, bad weather on Mars, which had the worst global sandstorm ever see by astronomers.
And second the fully automatic mission sequence of the Mars probes, unable to be changed by ground control.
They dropped their landing probes before orbital injection and the two probe perish during landing attempt through the dust storm.
Then they started the orbiter automatically to photograph the surface and transmitt their picture to ground control until the end of there mission.
What soviet Scientist saw was blurry pictures of dust wrapped Mars, where only the top 4 biggest volcano looked out.
In contrast, the NASA Mariner 8 mission was more flexibly controlled from the ground, it just hibernated until storm ended and start to photograph the surface and transmit pictures.
The Investigation board's recommendation was to abandon the fully automatic mission sequence and for more flexible ground control operation in the style of the Americans.

The Soviets had more successes with exploring the planet Venus as Venera 8 successfully landed on Venus for the second time (following the successful Venera 7 landing on December 15, 1970) and transmitting surface data.

Rest of World
China
One of the biggest surprises was their first manned space flight, only 3 years after first Satellite Dong Fang Hong 1 (Red East One).
But looking in detail it was not so surprising at all, the spacecraft was merely a modified Warhead Reentry Vehicle, with the nuclear warhead replaced by Man with Live support and a landing system!
That explained the short time that Directive 690 Hòng Xing (Red Star) needed until it's success.
On October 18 1972 a Dong Feng 5 ICBM brought Hóng Xing 1 with Dong Xiao Hai on board, the first "Hang tian yuan" (space navigating personnel)
After one orbit he landed safe in south China, becoming a national hero of the People Republic of China.

USA
In October, the Washington Post published an article by Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein, revealing that Vice President Spiro Agnew was accepting bribes as Gouverneur of Maryland!
On October 10, Spiro Agnew resigned from office, despite his claims to be not guilty and that it was merely "unreported Income“.
Do to the 25th Amendment the House Minority Leader had the option to become new Vice President,
President Nixon sought advice from senior Congressional leaders about a replacement, The advice was unanimous: the House Minority Leader, the republican Gerald Ford.
Ford was confirmed as Vice President by Capitol hill ( Senate 92 vs 3 and Congress 387 vs 35 votes)
Gerald Ford took over the Legacy of Agnew, the Odyssey Program and keep it running, so this remained the only scandal in Nixon administration.

In December Richard Nixon made his historic visit to China.
A diplomatic success for Nixon defuseing the "Chinese Nightmare“ situation between the two Nations.
The Chinese Forces redrew from position at North Vietnam border. Which led to Pro Nationalist forces dealing with the Pro China Fraction in the North Vietnamese Communist party.
In 1973 the North Vietnamese power struggle was finally won by the Pro Nationalists, 60 day later after the Peace Agreement ist signed in Paris. The last US advisor left South Vietnam
Henry Kissinger estimated how long South Vietnam would survive his answer: Around two, three years, not more…

Cambodia
The biggest loser of this conflict was the Maoist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
After they lost their allied China in 1967, then North Vietnam in 1968, there were attacks by those Pro Nationalist forces, then by Pro China Fractions, the South Vietnamese Army, Laos Military and United States Forces
As there leader "Brother number 1“ was killed during attacks in 1972, the remaining Khmer Rouge fled to Thailand, were the Organisation was no more than group of Bandits hunted down over the years by Thailand's military.

 

[Shevek23]

Intrigue and Failure....
USA...
On October 10, Spiro Agnew resigned from office, despite his claims to be not guilty and that it was merely "unreported Income“.
Do to the 25th Amendment the House Minority Leader became new Vice President. Lucky for President Nixon that was the republican Gerald Ford, so this remained the only scandal in Nixon administration.
Gerald Ford took over the Legacy of Agnew, the Odyssey Program and keep it running.
....

Is this a butterfly? Your 1960s are quite different from OTL to be sure, and the 25th Amendment was not ratified (OTL) until 1967. Therefore the ATL version could be quite different than ours.

Or I could be misreading. I read the bolded text to mean that the ATL 25th Amendment mandates who becomes the new Vice President should one be removed from office in any way.

But that is a major divergence from OTL; OTL the President merely names whomever they like (presumably someone legally qualified to become President) as their nominee for the office, then Congress, that is the House and Senate separately, ratify the nominee (or not) by majority vote in each house. Presuming the President can choose someone who is qualified and who is likely to get a simple majority in each house, their choice is otherwise not limited. This is consistent with the principle that the American people choose their Chief Executive freely, presumably on the merits this individual has for performing that office, regardless of any current ties to other offices of government; in the event the person we choose as President is unable to carry out the office, who would we sooner trust to name someone to carry out the political mandate our majority presumably had in mind when electing them, except that President themself? Therefore OTL the 25th Amendment provided that the President initiate the process and has control of whomever might be nominated; there is no way a President will be stuck with someone they didn't choose as their successor, unless of course they neglect to nominate someone that the houses of Congress would approve sooner than they themself are removed from office, by death, severe and persistent incapcacity, resignation or conviction after impeachment.

It was interesting to learn that the current line of succession after the Vice President, which is not defined in the Constitution but left to Congress to legislate, governed by a 1947 act, makes the Speaker of the House next in line after the VP, and then the President Pro Tempore of the Senate (in effect, both offices being the majority leader of the leading party in each house) because Harry Truman said he did not think the President should be able to name his own successor. Before the 1947 law, earlier laws made members of the Cabinet, in specified order, the successor after the VP. Since there was no legal mechanism for naming a new Vice President between elections, about 1/5 of the time the current President had no Constitutionally named successor, only one designated by laws Congress could change at will--and that one would indeed, until 1947, be first the Secretary of State, whom the President (or their predecessor, if the President was a former VP who let the Cabinet ride upon taking office) had indeed chosen--to be sure, subject to Senate approval.

I'm not sure why Truman felt that way, after all he was in power himself by virtue of being the hand-picked successor of FDR. (I know he found the office more a burden and duty than privilege and so his "accidental" power may have been the cause of his odd attitude).

Because the current law is the 1947 law that did reflect Truman's wishes, the President does not control who is in the third and fourth places of the current succession--those are the leaders of the dominant party in the House and Senate respectively, and a glance at history shows they are often of a different party than the President (now removed) was. But this comes in to play only if the Vice President, who ordinarily is someone the President does have some say in choosing during the nomination process before the election, is also removed. In a situation where both President and VP are likely to be removed presumably by war, a concerted program of assassination, or other violent situation such as major natural catastrophe, odds are fair that the House and Senate leaders might fall too, and sooner than new ones can be appointed, the succession falls back into the Cabinet which is full of people the President hand-picks. So Truman's effort to place some of the succession out of the current President's hands seems rather quixotic to me; by and large the principle is, the people elected the President to be their chosen agent, therefore the President should be pretty free to act as they see fit. The check that the 25th Amendment introduces compromises this principle a bit, but is comparable to Senate oversight in approving Cabinet posts--it forces the President to consider the political acceptability of their choices carefully. Considering that before the 25th Amendment was ratified, the President had no means at all of providing a new VP should there be a vacancy, on the whole the OTL version of the Amendment reaffirms the basic principle that the President as elected agent of all the people and entrusted Chief Executive should have primary say in who might succeed them during their elected term, Truman to the contrary.

Now if your ATL had not included Kennedy's assassination, the issue might have slept on taking Nixon by surprise when Agnew resigned. But OTL it was Kennedy's untimely and violent demise that once again raised the issue of some kind of provision of a new VP. It seems to me now that this serious matter was allowed to hang fire for nearly 200 years, 1/5 of which saw Presidents serving with no VP for backup, because the old traditional succession laws did provide for succession to run through the Cabinet. The Secretary of State (always, I believe, at the head of all the old lists) was definitely someone the President would have chosen carefully for consistency with their own policies and interests. With Truman upsetting this applecart by switching the succession out of Presidential discretion, the pressure was on to try to switch it back, and by the way resolve the hanging fire issue of there being no mechanism to replace the VP. With no Kennedy assassination it might have slumbered on but uneasily; by now I'd think we'd either amend the '47 law or have adopted an Amendment to provide for VP replacement.

In your ATL JFK's murder does bring the issue forward as sharply as OTL. But apparently the ATL Amendment (semi-coincidentally with the same number) makes different provisions? Why would it do that?

It is even odder that the Amendment would mandate a President must appoint the House Minority Leader! Mandating the House Majority Leader is problematic enough since it might force a President to entrust their succession to a rival party--but only if that rival party were the majority in Congress. Why mandate the Minority leader of all people? That's practically a guarantee of an unpopular and awkward situation.

I interpret it to mean that the President must choose one of the two House leaders, but is granted the freedom to prefer his own party over a rival party. But why tie his hands that way at all? And will a Congress member in such a leadership position, be it Majority or Minority, want to be removed from Congress to sit more or less idly as a Vice President instead? Why put a gun to the head of someone who has struggled to lead within Congress, to compel them to stand by to possibly step in as President, but more likely to be shunted into irrelevancy while someone else entrenches themselves in their old Congressional office? Why deprive the voters of the district that elected the Leader of their chosen Congressional Representative?

The OTL language is by far more likely regardless of the political details of the situation that prompts action to define a VP appointment process. Why put any restrictions, other than the basic eligibility for Presidential office and the need to get them endorsed by Congressional majorities, on the President's choice?

If Nixon in the ATL is a lot more popular and not dragged down by scandals of his own making (either because he didn't commit the crimes people tried to hold him accountable for OTL, or because he is immune from being accused of them presumably because he is popular due to general prosperity) then he doesn't have to choose Gerald Ford. Perhaps, of all the choices available to him, he would freely choose Ford anyway. But OTL he had to choose Ford, not because of any succession rules, but because he had to choose someone untainted by his administration's widespread shenanigans. He could have chosen a Democrat but of course there is little reason to expect that he would; among Republicans then he pretty much had to choose someone from either Congress or Senate, or conceivably a state Governor or a Federal or state high ranking judge. But a judge or Governor would be too valuable to Nixon's political agenda where they were to remove to the Vice Presidency, and with the Republicans generally falling short of a majority in the Senate the same would be true of a Senator. Congress on the other hand was a lost cause as far as hoping to get a majority there was concerned, so removing a Congressman would do least damage to the general Republican cause. That turned the choice to which Congressman had the most gravitas, which would be the Minority Leader. Also, the Democrats having the majority in both House and Senate, his choice had to be acceptable to at least some of them too, the more so the less certain he would be of 100 percent support by the Republicans.

And the elephant in the room in 1974 was, OTL Nixon was in big big trouble, facing serious impeachment charges that would certainly pass in the House if he defied them. With his Vice President part of the general shipwreck dragging him down, whomever Nixon appointed (and could get ratified) as the new VP would in fact very shortly succeed to the Oval Office themself. He wasn't buying insurance just in case, he was picking out someone the angered Federal establishment could accept as his successor before bowing out himself, as he must do like it or not. Of course he didn't like it.

In your ATL, Nixon can barring assassination or an ATl disease that kills him before his second term ends expect to hold office until January 1977. Whomever he picks to replace Agnew will almost certainly not act as President themself, and so Nixon can appoint almost anyone. He may want to appoint someone whom he can groom for a successor to be elected in 1976--but perhaps a suitable successor will be a stronger candidate then if they are not serving as VP but rather establishing an independent track record as a Senator or Governor.

It may be that his free choice falls on Ford because Jerry Ford is, despite his status as Minority Leader, pretty much a non-entity and expendable in his current position. Will Ford see it that way though?

So it is I suppose that either you have been confused by mixing up the 25th Amendment with the Congressionally legislated succession rules of 1947, or perhaps in view of the fact that if Nixon had a free hand he would not choose Ford, have therefore made the ATL Amendment tie his hands to automatically name one of the Congressional leaders his successor, as the closest thing to someone else sort of elected, if indirectly, by All the People.

Unfortunately I just can't see how or why the political machinery of the 1960s would choose to go down such a mindless and mechanical route, when the simple option of just letting the President name his own successor, Truman be damned, is available and traditional.

If there were no JFK assassination, or if the political culture had simply neglected to resolve the issue, procrastination and no 25th Amendment at all would force Nixon at this juncture to get along with no VP at all, and know if that if something happened to him, whoever was the House Majority Leader--surely some Democrat and someone he'd fought many hard battles against--would be forced to take the office from his dead or otherwise incapacitated hands. That crisis surely would demand some sort of VP replacement process to be enacted, if too late for Nixon. The flip side is that we have little reason to doubt Nixon would serve out his whole term, and probably the Amendment that belatedly provides for VP replacement would bear his stamp. And if it did, I'd bet anything that it leaves the matter to Presidential discretion, perhaps even going farther--allowing Congress to block the appointment only by 2/3 majority in both houses, for instance, or even omitting all oversight whatsoever. If you can't trust your President, who can you trust, after all?

 

[Michel Van]

Thanks for reply Shevek23

In this TL
John F Kennedy was killed in 1963 in Dallas, 1963.
Robert Kennedy was killed in Los Angeles, 1968.
Ted Kennedy had car accident in Chappaquiddick in 1968… we deal with that matter at Mondale Vice nomination on July 1976 (Post 46 ?)

so the 25th Amendment is sign in 1967.

observant reader notice there is no Watergate scandal in TL !

In Post 29 i notices that Mark Felt become head of FBI after John Edgar Hoover died.
OTL Mark Felt was "Deep Throat" the Informant of Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein, because Felt not become Head of FBI.
and in Post 36 Bob Woodward and Carl Berstein publish the corruption of Spiro Agnew

The security guard Frank Wills not see a piece of duct tape on one of the door locks in Watergate office building
Seems that burglars were this time professional...

But Nixon has problems also in this TL, Vietnam War, The Spiro Agnew Scandal, The Chinese Nightmare, US lost the Moon race and Odyssey Program, Med Care.
Senat and Congress hostility toward the two last programs and there is the Yom Kippur war and Oil price shock in 1973.
To take moderate Gerald Ford is best option Nixon has, Ford worked very well with Democrats or Republicans likewise and was esteemed by both political parties.

Check our Key date at Wiki Page of 2001:A Space-Time Odyssey LINK HERE

For reading older post of 2001: A Space-Time Odssey LINK HERE

 

[Shevek23]

So--the 25th Amendment, as in OTL, allows the President to nominate anyone they like for VP when the VP office has gone vacant? And you were not saying the Amendment compelled him to name only one of the two House leaders?

Because the way it was written, it looked like it said that he had to nominate Ford, then remarked that it was lucky Ford was the one he'd pick freely anyway.

But actually Nixon did pick Ford freely, under the circumstances?

 

[Michel Van]

Because the way it was written, it looked like it said that he had to nominate Ford, then remarked that it was lucky Ford was the one he'd pick freely anyway.

But actually Nixon did pick Ford freely, under the circumstances?

source Wiki:

Nixon sought advice from senior Congressional leaders about a replacement, The advice was unanimous, House Speaker Carl Albert recalled later "We gave Nixon no choice but Ford"

in OTL after Ford was confirmed as Vice President by Capitol hill ( Senate 92 vs 3 and Congress 387 vs 35) happened Watergate scandal i
so it change nothing in ITTL same result for Ford, but no Watergate.

I will re edit the Post for more clarity.

 

[Shevek23]

source Wiki:


in OTL after Ford was confirmed as Vice President by Capitol hill ( Senate 92 vs 3 and Congress 387 vs 35) happened Watergate scandal i
so it change nothing in ITTL same result for Ford, but no Watergate.

I will re edit the Post for more clarity.

The revision is technically accurate; Ford had the "option" of being named by Nixon as his successor, and so did any US born citizen over the age of 35! Ford had a more realistic option, being a prominent Republican politician--if Nixon sought the advice of any any Democratic leaders, some might have been bold enough to suggest some Democrat with a straight face. But there would be a lot of more or less suppressed laughter at such a suggestion; of course Nixon would pick a Republican.

The thing is, if Nixon is not going down in flames of scandal, he's in a very different situation than OTL at this point. Instead of being a liability the Republicans not directly in his Administration are keen to cut loose before he brings them all down, he is at the pinnacle of party leadership, and indeed as "the President" he pretty much automatically commands respect even from his most committed rivals. We Americans today probably cannot quite imagine how seriously the person of a sitting President was respected, before the Watergate scandal of OTL removed the aura of universal national leadership the office formerly represented.

Vice versa, the actual scandal of the Watergate break-in itself was only the detonator of the bomb that blew the Nixon Administration apart. Very quickly the scandal moved on past the issue of a gang of thugs hired to break into a psychiatrist's office so as to gather useful dirt on Democratic opponents, and moved on to throwing a spotlight on a broad, persistent pattern of such abuses of power. The President's own apparent refusal to be held accountable in one small thing became the issue; the question appeared to be, was the President a limited term dictator, free to act both within and outside of the law as he saw fit for his notion of the national good, or was he too a citizen subject to scrutiny and legal curbs?

It may well be that Nixon did little that other Presidents before him did not do--but the more that point was made, the more the whole facade of the dignity and majesty of the office as such was eroded and rotted away.

If Nixon OTL was not in fact behaving much differently than other Presidents, then the question of why and how the "Watergate" scandal blew up so spectacularly and in such short time becomes pretty murky. Clearly some of the reaction against him was in fact long in building and related as much to national disillusionment about Vietnam and national security state in general.

Whatever the true story of the Watergate debacle (in its larger form in which the particular burglary that gave it its name was essentially forgotten), whether it was the rebellion of the common people against the security state and the whole corporate-bureaucratic complex, or the work of partisan insiders who disdained Nixon personally and were not afraid to tear down the whole edifice of governmental dignity to have their petty revenge on him, or what, it seems to me where there was so much smoke there must have been fire. If the tectonic pressure of public discontent, or the sordid plotting of opportunistic enemies of Nixon, did not find the Watergate break-in a handy point of attack, surely, if Nixon's administration had the same broad character as OTL, other points of controversy would flare up fed by the same fuel instead.

If this is not happening in the ATL, it is either because Nixon's henchmen did a better job of putting out fires--or because the character of the administration and its public relations, and intra-elite relations, was different and less irritating.

Which points to Nixon having a lot of legitimacy. Nixon would not be in the position he was OTL of being guided by Republicans in the Senate and Congress; rather, he would guide them.

The appointment of the new VP is a lot less important than it was OTL, since what the Republican leadership was really doing OTL was telling Nixon who would be acceptable to replace Nixon himself outright, as the person who surely would, within weeks, inherit the Oval Office Nixon by then knew he would have to vacate, for the good of his party and his country. Here, the question is merely who would be Vice President, presumably to hold that office and nothing more until January 1977.

For Ford to step up to the White House via a brief stint as Nixon's second VP would be one proposition; for him to rusticate away as the mere VP and then become a private citizen when Nixon finished out his term would be essentially a big step down for him. Someone else would have to replace him as Congressman from his district, someone else (not his freshman and short-term replacement from Michigan) would become House Minority Leader, and come January 1977 Ford would be out of a job. Why would he want this? Perhaps Nixon would offer to smooth the way for him to be the Republican candidate in 1976, and with Nixon having handily won re-election in '72 and apparently being far more popular in the ATL, this offer might sweeten the deal for Ford. But trying for a third Republican term would surely seem like a risky long-shot; not impossible, but Ford would be definitely rowing upstream, with the political pendulum likely to turn against his whole party even if the nation was feeling in a better mood than OTL's early '70s.

I'd think, given his freedom to choose very broadly, he would not want Ford, not because anything was wrong with him from Nixon's point of view, but because Ford was more useful where he was, in Congress, and Ford would readily agree he'd rather stay there. I'm not sure whom Nixon would most want to be his successor, to groom for a run to be elected in his own right in 1976--nor am I at all sure he'd be looking for that in whomever he picked for VP. He'd be pretty free to put in anyone he wanted; it's not like Spiro Agnew was a person of national prominence in 1968.

I'm wracking my brains to think of who would be a protege of Nixon, someone whom Nixon would trust as a follower and who would also have enough traction in politics to bear the standard of Nixonian Republicanism in '76. I suspect this would be an empty set; Nixon was enough of an egotist that he wouldn't want to cultivate any possible rivals.

Anyway if he did confer with Republican leaders in 1973, while he was riding high and had coattails, they would agree with him that he shouldn't pick someone who was making good political headway on their own steam; he should either extend his hand gracefully to someone at a dead end of their political career like Nelson Rockefeller (whom Ford appointed OTL) or else give a hand up to some young up-and-comer, particularly one who had had some bad breaks.

 

[arrowiv]

I remember Reagan was being groomed for the 1976 election and could have had an earlier administration.

 

[Shevek23]

Continuing on this subject of Ford's ATL induction into the VP office is a bit counterproductive, I know. The TL belongs to the authors and any dang thing they figure is necessary or desirable can happen. I wonder whether they want Ford at this point because he had strong pro-space credentials that were masked OTL by the situation he inherited.

But I'm afraid a major weakness of this TL is in its current and its previous version, historical implausibility. It seems quite often here that stuff happens politically out of a blue sky. I'm not sure at all how plausible the ATL direction the People's Republic of China went in is for instance. But that is water long under the bridge. I don't know how to judge ATL events in France--they seem rather "cool" to me so I tend to give them a pass, and again the early 60s are long ago by now. But in the juncture of Agnew's resignation, I'm afraid that as an American (and one who was witnessing these events personally, though as a very young child) I just think that the chances that Nixon would appoint Ford, or that Ford would accept the appointment, are effectively zero.

As for Reagan being named instead--well, I had someone else in mind, and talk on his behalf was something I edited out of my last post. But now that Reagan's name comes up, and I read up more on just what Reagan and my personal candidate, George H.W. Bush, were doing in the Nixon years, I feel I have to bring some further evidence to the bar.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a fan of these or any other modern Republicans--not Nixon, Reagan, nor any of the Bushes for sure! But I think if we compare OTL actions and the likely mindsets of all these and other Republicans in the context of Nixon's second term being untarnished by scandal focused on the President himself, I for one think that Bush and not Ford would be the one Nixon would nominate. Or perhaps not Bush, but if not Bush, then someone in a broadly similar situation--being a loyal but rather marginally powerful and important Republican, someone fairly new on the political scene with an established relationship to Nixon but not too close to him either.

I have to reiterate that the OTL situation in late 1973 and early '74 was radically different than what we are being presented with here. Here is the first really major divergence of the American scene from OTL in the timeline, and the authors, no matter what they decide regarding Nixon's late term VP, must face the fact that in declaring Nixon's term largely untainted by OTL scandal, they have completely transformed all American politics for generations to come.

In particular and at the moment, Nixon is in a very opposite position than he was at this stage OTL. OTL he was taking orders from Republican leaders whom he had hitherto bypassed and sought to dominate; OTL association with the Nixon administration and Nixon's favor was toxic. Ford was favored because he was not closely associated with Nixon's agenda or legacy, and he was willing to step "down" from a powerful and prestigious position as Minority Leader to the dead-end position of Vice President because Nixon's blood was in the water and his doom was approaching fast; as VP Ford would soon, very likely, be President himself, one tasked with the mission of redeeming the entire Republican Party from association with Nixon's misdeeds and wrong direction.

In the ATL, Nixon is successful. He is not loved by everyone, but he inherits the respect and deference Presidents have had since Washington and in the current historical phase, since Franklin Roosevelt's 4 elected terms. In his second term, which here starts and proceeds pretty smoothly, he cannot aspire to remain President past this term which ends in 1977. OTL the question of whom he might have chosen to groom for a successor is clouded by the fact that not long after his reelection his star began to fall, and fall rapidly and deeply, so OTL first he was distracted from the question and secondly pretty soon all Republican hopefuls would avoid his favor as a kiss of death.

Actually, I think that had he avoided scandal as he does here, he still wouldn't have had a strong favorite, because of his personality. He was not a man who was personally chummy, and he felt that his life was a hard struggle against disdain. He probably felt that if someone else wanted to fill his shoes that someone had better fight for it the way he had had to do and if the Republican Party wanted to control the Oval Office in the later Seventies it was their problem to win it, not his. I'm sure that he also would have made some effort to put a Republican in power, but it would not have been a top priority of his. And his followers were rather infamously toadies and yes-men none of whom stood out as particularly Presidential material. I'm sure he liked it that way, having something of a Stalinesque mentality that the worst threat to himself would be competent and well-liked people close to him.

I imagine that if Agnew had managed to avoid being caught in scandal of his own, Nixon would have in a perfunctory manner backed him for the nomination, and that the Republicans would have fallen in line pretty automatically--to do otherwise would be to discredit Nixon's own Presidency.

OTL of course Nixon's Presidency was quite thoroughly discredited long before the campaign year of 1976, and such was the disarray of American politics that the Democrats were also much disrupted; it was a whole new ball game, and putting distance between a candidate and the Nixon legacy was a key point to win. Jimmy Carter emerged as a credible candidate out of this political storm; in this ATL he will not be and would be best advised to seek to continue on as Georgia's governor. Whoever whatever Republican candidate faces in 1976 it won't be Carter and it is beyond me right now to guess who it might be.

Now look at Nixon's place on the political spectrum. Among leading Republican contenders for top office he was one of the "moderates." To his left, more or less, stood Nelson Rockefeller in 1968. Reagan on the other hand was by this time known for his standing pretty far to the right. Insofar as Nixon gave serious thought to what the country and his party needed after his term expired, he surely would not think Reagan would be the best man for the job. In terms of ideology, one would think he'd favor another moderate like Romney--but other moderates were the people Nixon had to fight like a pit bull to win the nomination in 1968, and the bad blood would such that surely Romney's name would never come up. What to do if he didn't want to see the party veer either too far to the left (not very likely, because that would be intruding on Democratic turf and weaken their distinct stand) nor too far to the right--which, had he been a prophet, might have seemed a winning move, but even an agent of America's right-wing turn such as Nixon probably could not foresee how strong the American right might become, and "common sense" based on the New Deal legacy plus Goldwater's disastrous failure in 1964 would see a rightward turn as steering onto perilously shallow shoals in terms of getting and keeping broad support. Neither a Rockefeller nor a Reagan be, then, and predictably Nixon would have favored some moderate.

Well, Gerry Ford was quite a moderate, was he not? Could the authors be correct in guessing that Nixon might well have wanted Ford to be his heir apparent? And that Ford would take the offer, because it led to the Presidency?

When I put it that way I suppose I can grudgingly accept the idea that maybe this could happen. Note that if it did, it would not require Nixon consulting with Republican leaders. He'd make the decision himself, and put the proposition directly to Ford, with no need for any conclaves with lesser Republican lights. That's more the Nixon we know!

But I don't think Ford would take the deal. He might possibly wind up being elected President in 1976, perhaps. But he'd certainly lose the position he struggled to get, as leader in the House of the Republican caucus. If he did not win in '76, his career would be pretty much washed up.

Nor am I sure Nixon would want him, just because he is a moderate. How compatible Ford would have been with the completed Nixon Administration I don't know. But as Republican Minority Leader, Ford was more useful to Nixon's needs and interests as President than he would be doing make-work jobs as a Vice President.

Pretty much by definition, he wouldn't want to upset the applecart of any Republican in a high and important position; he needed them all where they were. This obviously includes the Governor of California, one Ronald Wilson Reagan.

I should note that California's Governorship has some peculiarities associated with it that can be a stumbling block for Presidential hopefuls taking that route to the nomination. For one thing it is offset from the main US Presidential 4 year cycle; elections for Governor are every 4 years, but in the off-term year. Thus Nixon ran for (and lost) California governor in 1962 after losing the Presidency in 1960. Reagan ran and won in 1966. Had Reagan managed to win the Republican nomination for President in 1968, he would have, had he won the Presidency anyway, been forced to abandon his first term as Governor half-way through, after a mere two years. Surely the California voters on whom he'd be depending to support himself for President would have mixed feelings about his leaving the earlier job they elected him to half done?

They wouldn't feel so bad of course if he left behind him in Sacramento another Republican to succeed him. But in California--here is the other stumbling block!--the office of Lieutenant Governor is a separate one one from Governor. People vote for them in the same year, but historically the Democrats, even when their grip on the Governor's office is weak, have been able anyway to secure this office for one of their own. (I'm not aware of the reverse ever being the case, with a Democratic governor but Republican Lt-Gov--this makes sense when we remember that in California, as in the nation at large, there have always been since the Depression anyway more registered Democrats than Republicans. Republicans can often persuade independents and enough Democrats to win they are the stronger candidate for executive power--but the less glamorous Lieutenant position is pretty much captive of the regular, determined-to-vote every election partisans and the Dems outnumber the Republicans). Therefore a Republican governor who ascends to the Presidency while still in office hands over the executive leadership of his state to his Democratic rivals.

Thus, Nixon needed Reagan to stay where he was, in Sacramento. True, it was nearing the end of his second term there and perhaps if Reagan had been a good friend and/or a strong asset to the Nixon administration as VP, or a fantastic candidate to groom for '76, it might have seemed worthwhile to risk a lame-duck Democrat taking over briefly.

But Nixon and Reagan were not pals. I've already addressed the question of whether Nixon would see Reagan's hard-line conservative positions as an asset--not really. Though he might have reflected that Reagan talked a hard-right talk but as Governor of California wound up endorsing a lot of liberal legislation--just as he himself had built a reputation as a hard-line Cold Warrior and law-and-order defender of "the Silent Majority" against scary beatnik hippies and "effete intellectual snobs...nattering nabobs of negativity..."--no wait, that was Agnew actually. Surely Tricky Dick of all people could see the value of someone whom conservatives saw as their bold champion who yet could work with a liberal majority! One can't entirely write off Reagan then.

But if we look at the relationship between Reagan and Nixon in these years OTL, it isn't a very cordial one, considering they are both Republicans from the same state. In 1968, despite the fact that Reagan had only served 2 years of his first gubernatorial term, Reagan did put himself forward as a "Stop Nixon!" candidate for the Presidential Republican nomination. In the 1964 election Reagan's political career was pre-charged by his strong support for Goldwater and his die-hard defense of that candidate after he was soundly defeated--Nixon too supported Goldwater but from a much more moderate position. OTL (in the very different situation from this ATL) he opposed Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976.

I think then that Nixon would have little confidence in Reagan as a "number two" man whom he would be comfortable grooming for the Presidency, and would have little confidence that Reagan could actually win against any strong Democrat in 1976. He might have been surprised if he took the risk, but why would he take the risk? Reagan I suppose might have accepted the VP position, but he'd have to think twice bearing in mind the California governorship would then go to some Democrat.

Now let's look at George Herbert Walker Bush. In OTL 1974, Bush's entire elected political career was to win two terms to a seat in the House of Representatives, in 1966 and 1968, becoming the first Republican ever to represent Houston, Texas. We don't know if he would have been re-elected in 1970--because President Nixon asked him to take a risk on his behalf, and run against Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough, who was a gadfly of Nixon's administration. In fact Bush had locked horns with Yarborough back in 1964 when, from his prior position as Chairman of the Harris County, TX Republican Party he ran against Yarborough then--and lost. At Nixon's bequest he tried and failed again--not to Yarborough but Lloyd Bentsen, who had edged out Yarborough in the Democratic primary but picked up his endorsement. (Bentsen would later oppose Bush as Michael Dukakis's Vice Presidential candidate, and still later served in the Clinton cabinet).

But Nixon rewarded Bush with the office of Ambassador to the United Nations, and then when (OTL) the political skies darkened for him, asked him to take on the risky and thankless task of Chairman of the Republican National Committee. OTL it was Bush who had to give him the bad news that his impeachment and subsequent conviction were effectively certain and he had best resign. OTL Ford later appointed him head of the CIA, having previously considered him on the very short list of his own Vice Presidential nomination, before settling on Nelson Rockefeller instead.

So we see that OTL, GHW Bush dared to run for President in 1980, and wound up accepting the position of Reagan's running mate, with no more electoral victories in hand than he had managed up to 1974--just two Congressional terms. His political assets, such as they were, lay mostly outside the realm of public elections then.

But these, especially from the Republican point of view, were considerable. He was a World War II veteran, and one who like John Kennedy was attacked by enemy fire in combat. He was the son of Prescott Bush, former US Senator. He was connected by family ties to much of the wealthy elite and had made a modest fortune himself in the Texas oil business. From Nixon's point of view he would look a lot like a Kennedy, except this alternate brand of "Kennedy" was not only a loyal Republican but also a loyal subordinate to Nixon, willing to take risks and again be "shot down" for the good of his party and President. Clearly not only Nixon but Ford regarded him as competent to run such offices as liaison to the UN and the Central Intelligence Agency. He could flexibly bridge gaps between hard-core conservatives, moderates and even liberals.

I think for the most part, Bush stands out as the person, or anyway the kind of person, Nixon would appoint to the VP office at this juncture in the ATL. More successful and prominent Republican office holders would have more to lose risking political irrelevancy in the Vice President's office, and Nixon would have more to lose removing them from their former positions. Yet also Nixon would most likely have engaged in political rivalry with these heavyweight Republicans, and would have little trust of them. Also, they would each represent some faction or other of the Party out of phase with his own brand of Republicanism. Bush, or someone equally obscure at this point, would probably be more malleable and more loyal to their patron President--OTL Bush certainly demonstrated both qualities, to a fault one might suggest.

Now I can think of one strong counterargument to the idea that it would have to be Bush...the very recent behavior of his oldest son, G. W. Bush, in his Air National Guard service. There was much controversy about this in the 2004 election cycle, but it seems perfectly clear that the younger Bush did not perform his service to normal standards, missing dates of service without compensating for them, failing to fully account for himself, being dropped as a certified pilot after failing to report for mandatory medical examinations. Beyond that there is the question of why, in the years 1968-74, when the Vietnam War was at its height, GW opted for the ANG rather than serving in the regular military. Of course he was under absolutely no legal obligation to volunteer to serve, nor is there anything wrong with serving in the Guard (provided, anyway, that one meets one's minimal legal obligations once having volunteered). But considering his father's political position on the war, it might have been embarrassing for the Vice President's son to have turned out to have gotten into a much-desired post safe from the prospect of active combat service, and still more so to have failed to meet minimum obligations in that service. The next layer of scandal would be if in fact one reason the younger Bush did not meet all his obligations was that he was incapacitated due to illegal drug use (cocaine, it has been alleged)--which his mandatory medical examination might have disclosed, leading not only to dishonorable discharge but criminal prosecution. This has obviously never been proven OTL. But it does seem that GW might have proven quite the albatross around Nixon's neck had he replaced one VP who resigned due to scandals relating to abuse of power, only to take on another whose son was evidently, or even merely apparently, the beneficiary of political string pulling to exempt him from risk of dying in a war the new VP and the President he served defended the need for Americans to serve in. If then said favored son proved either incompetent or unreliable in his favored role, and perhaps there were allegations this was because of criminal drug abuse (not to mention the conjunction of using cocaine while actually flying a supersonic F-102 interceptor around the Gulf Coast...)...well, presumably Nixon would regret such scandal, and will have done his homework about the elder Bush enough to warn him he'd run such a risk in elevating the elder to the VP office.

Mind, in this same period OTL Bush did serve as Ambassador to the UN, chair of the Republican National Committee, and soon after head of the CIA. And it is his son's alleged misdeeds at issue, not his own (except in the matter of just how young GW got the TANG appointment in the first place--which both Bushes hotly deny, OTL, they had any knowledge of any string pulling regarding. That is what they say). I'd think though that the level of scrutiny, by rival politicians of both parties, by the press, and by the President's own security and political agencies, would be a lot higher for a VP candidate than for the other offices. Then again Bush was in fact closely considered by Gerald Ford for the VP office; I don't think, if Ford were made aware of GW's sowing of wild oats with its dubious implications, it much impacted his decision to go with Rockefeller instead, since Ford very soon after put the elder Bush in charge of the CIA. So either the whole scandal might have been overlooked completely, or it was considered and not supposed to be serious enough a political risk to worry too much about OTL.

In the ATL, a lot of things might change--perhaps GW enlists in the regular Air Force and either washes out, or shapes up at least enough to pass a cursory muster. Perhaps he becomes a 'Nam war hero, or gets captured by the North. Perhaps he dies, in combat or by accident, in Vietnam, elsewhere in the USAF, or in TANG. Perhaps he does the TANG service to more creditable standards. Or he defies the whole "obligation to serve" theme and becomes a hippie black sheep, who is an embarrassment to his veteran and conservative hawk father but, you know, "Kids these days, what are you gonna do?" Even if it all plays out exactly as OTL, it is possible the whole scandal might just slide past (as it largely did for 30 years OTL, until GW Bush himself was up for re-election). Perhaps the Nixon White House, desiring to name the elder Bush to the VP office but worried about the risk of the scandal, orders a secret but effective cover-up operation, erasing or falsifying the records that do exist today OTL, effectively killing the issue with disinformation. (And they keep an eye on young GW, who knows he is safe within certain bounds but if he steps too far out of them and makes too much noise doing so, he'll be written off and thrown under the bus. He gets warnings and interventions when he strays too close to those boundaries).

Or of course, for this reason or some other reasons entirely, Nixon doesn't decide to elevate George Herbert Walker Bush to his side.

In that case, I would be at a loss just who he does pick, but I seriously doubt it would be either Ford or Reagan. It could well be someone other than Bush or those two, who is much more obscure OTL because their careers never took them farther than Congress member or mayor of some city OTL and thus only a really well informed political historian might guess at their identity and why they'd be attractive to Nixon. (Frankly though aside from the George W/TANG scandal, it is hard for me to imagine who could be more alluring to Nixon than GHW Bush).

If the authors require, or merely desire, that it must nevertheless be Ford, I suppose if I squint, I can see that in an ATL where Nixon is riding high, free of scandal once Agnew is gone, the election prospects for someone seen by November 1976 as heir to Nixon's legacy might look quite good--and if those happy days for Nixon continue, might indeed be quite good come election day. And that Ford might be close enough to Nixon initially, and malleable and flexible enough, to have a good working relationship with Nixon, be given resume-building assignments that he doesn't screw up, and be elected in his own right. If Ford is very confident this can happen, he might risk giving up his position in Congress. And surely the Republican congressional delegation will put someone else in his place that serves themselves and Nixon well enough. Unlike Reagan or Romney or Rockefeller there is no political bad blood between Nixon and Ford I am aware of.

I still think Nixon would see more utility and more glittering prospects of an exciting campaign image in Bush than in Ford, but I have to admit Ford is not absolutely impossible. Just a very odd and problematic choice (even though his son is not currently an AWOL cokehead).

 

[Michel Van]

Thanks, Shevek23

But I'm afraid a major weakness of this TL is in its current and its previous version, historical implausibility.

yes that's true, i and SpaceGeek work hard on edge of implausibility.

- A healthy "liberal" USSR and East block
- Nixon enter into History books as President who end Vietnam War and not as THE Crook of White House.
- US Presidency still have authority, it had before Watergate.

i can't not spoil on coming event in TL, but in 1976 Odyssey is running at full speed, mean allot of US state will get allot of Tax money from it.
And this will influence the Election Campaign at Democrats and Republicans, also in 1980.

Gerry Ford was quite a moderate, was he not?

Yes, he was and that was the Glue that Keep Capitol Hill together after Watergate, imagine Spiro Agnew would had be still Vice president...

Again on R Reagan and GHW Bush. that for 1980s of this TL

 

[Michel Van]

No Post for moment, i'm to Busy for moment because holidays

But This Day History was made in Space Flight:
Falcon 9 first stage made perfect landing at KSC
Congratulation to Team of SpaceX

 

[Michel Van]

Post 37 Apollo 18 and Skylab Missions

NASA won several battles at the end of 1972.
Finally Capitol Hill voted for the Odyssey program's full funding after 2 years of political battle and Nixon's vetoes.
Essential to securing NASA the lead in Space Race it included Apollo J-class and Skylab missions, a necessity for competing with both the USSR and China (however modest their entry into the space race was). Thanks to an international collaboration the United States had signed a treaty with Canada, Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy for cooperation with NASA over the Odyssey program.

The other battle won was the Internal rivalry between Johnson Space Center (JSC) and Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), over who controls the US Manned Spaceflight program?
George E. Mueller and Low finally managed to end this with a decree: MSFC would develop and build the flight hardware, while JSC will run the Mission on that Hardware.
Also ended was the conflict between Jet propulsion Lab, Langley and Ames over who runs Planetary program?
JPL would do Planetary Orbiter and Flybys, Langley would do Landers, while Ames Research Center would focus on unmanned Interplanetary missions from now on.
So Pioneer 10 & 11 would be last Planetary Probe of Ames, but they fight for one ambition mission: Pioneer 12

It would use the Backup of Pioneer 10 & 11 for a Jupiter fly-by which would bring it into a high polar orbit around the Sun, where it would study the Sun's magnetic field
Off course the needed Fly by at Jupiter would bring also research data about the Giant Planet, before the Outer Planet Grant Tour Project take place.
This "out of the Ecliptic“ Mission would end in an orbit of 1.2 AU by 5 AU with each 3.5 year passing one of Sun poles at 1.85 AU.
The radio isotopic generator would give the mission a duration of decades
But there was a problem, it needed more expensive Saturn IC, instead of the cheaper Atlas Centaur used on Pioneer 10&11
NASA look into options for April 1974 launch.

The Skylab failure investigation board show that the program had rushed too fast into completion, failures were made like on Micrometeoroid Shield design,
The Board recommended for the Space Station II project to modify the Skylab B to prevent Skylab A's problems and improve it's mission capacity.

Skylab-3
on February 28th 1973 the next mission went to Skylab
Alan L. Bean, Owen K. Garriott, and Karol j. Bobko.
Bobko a former USAF astronaut, was a veteran for Skylab, he spent 56 days in Skylab Medical experiment altitude Test in 1971.
The Apollo CSM had been loaded with 546 kg of food, new Sun shield and spare parts like tape recorder and video cameras who failed on Skylab-2 mission.

On Day 9 the new Sun shield was installed, replacing the provisional one installed by Skylab-2's crew.
Also, the first successful EVA of a new spacesuit, the Garrett AiResearch EX-1A was conducted. It featured higher operational Air pressure of 5 psi compared to 3.7 psi of the A7LB.
EX-A1 was far more mobile for the Human body than the Apollo A7LB suits were capable off.
It feature also new entry system, abandoned the back Zipper by a two piece suit with mid entry, so one astronaut can put it on.
The E-1A would replace the A7LB suits from Apollo 20 on.
Also tested by the crew was the Astronaut Maneuvering Unit inside of the station, allowing a zero-G simulation of a tetherless spacewalk.
In the mean time the Station had problems, like the waste disposal system malfunctioning several time.
The Apollo spacecraft also had problem like losing cooling fluid, and had lost of 2 RCS cluster but was able to return to Earth.
After a record breaking 56 days the crew returned back to Earth on 27 April.
They returned with 500 hours of experimental data on medical, solar and Earth science

Skylab-4
The third and Last Mission to first US space station was launched 12 May.
Robert F. Overmeyer, Edward G. Gibson and Donald Holmquest.
Overmeyer, a former USAF astronaut was the development Engineer of the Skylab Station, he was valued help for the aging station.
Holmquest is Bachelor degree in physician, electrical engineer and Law !
Gibson a scientist for Solar physics and an electrical engineer.

Entering the Station they found a surprise by the previous Crew, three dummies in flight suits.
The first day the crew suffered from space sickness.
After a week tensions began between Ground control and the all-rookie Crew, about the hard work schedule,
But Holmquest manage to reason with ground crew to do a modified the work schedule.
During mission two of the three main Gyroscopes failed, including other systems.
Gibson managed the first film recording of a Solar Flare on Sun.
The crew made in total 22 hours of EVA,
The last task before un-docking was the Apollo CSM deorbit burn for the station.
After a record mission of 83 days Skylab-4 returned to Earth, on 4 August.
Also the Skylab Station itself several weeks later, with help of the remaining RCS fuels reserve the station was plunged into indian ocean near Australia.

Apollo 18
The first lunar mission with a geologist on board
Richard F. Gordon, Vance D. Brand and Harrison Schmitt were launched on 17 June 1973
it's target is spectacular: the Copernicus Crater
With the Skylab-4 mission, again there were 6 American astronauts simultaneous in Space.
On 19 June LM-13 Polaris descended to it's target
Again the first EVA was standing through the top hatch taking breathtakingly panoramic photos of crater interior.
During the second EVA the next day they left the LM with Richard Gordon's first words on moon:

„Harrison [Schmitt] let’s go unpack the equipment"

During the offloading of the Rover they broke it's right rear fender off, they deployed the ALSEP package and put the US flag on the lunar surface.
The first ride with the Lunar rover was dirty, Gordon and Schmitt were covered with dust do to the lack of the right rear fender.
A problem the two had on all EVAs was moon dust, it stuck onto their suits, the rover, even got inside their LM, which Gordon and Schmitt described as the smell of gunpowder.
But they had there fun during their EVA, Geologist Schmitt made his best study of surface.
During the second EVA Schmitt and Gordon repaired the right rear fender with duck tape and a geological map.
The second rover trip went one km west of the LM to a hill believed to be volcanically formed after carter was formed, but at arrival it was huge disappointment
After a difficult clime in their spacesuits to the top, Schmitt just found a meteor crater. One of a freakish coincidence the US astronauts found during their missions on Moon.
On the third EVA they drilled deep core samples down to 4 meter deep.
Thee fourth EVA start with again deep drill core sample , sadly do going overtime the rover trip was cut short to a roundtrip of 10 km south of LM.
Schmitt enter last the LM saying famous words "I’ll be Back“ (He returned to the moon, becoming the first human visiting the Moon's surface multiple times)
They started into lunar orbit with a total of 120 kg of lunar samples.
The CSM-115 Windjammer was busy in lunar orbit scanning the surface with radar and spectrographs completing the Geological Map of Apollo 15, 16 and 17.
On the return trip to earth, Vance Brand made a EVA to the SIm Bay to recover the films
The landing on 26 June was rough for the crew, The capsule rolled upside down because of a ballon deployment system malfunction.
The recovery crew from the aircraft carrier USS New Orleans had work hart to get capsule & Crew on board.

Saturn IC test launch.
On November 16, the first Saturn IC was launch, as AS-301 using anold S-IB stage with the new S-IVC stage as it's payload.
The goal was to test the S-IVC stage in orbit and do several restarts of the J-2S engine.
The flight was a full success the stage made several adjustments to it’s orbit by restart the J-2S with the remaining fuel.

Aftermath
Despite it’s problems Skylab was huge Success for NASA,
It showed they could handle several manned mission simultaneous in space and gain new scientific knowledge do to research in space
The Apollo 18 mission showed that the crater floor was mostly made out olivine stone and the crater is 823 million years old.
The biggest surprise was the discovery of Diamonds in samples, which implied that the Copernicus asteroid that hit moon contained carbon and hydrogen.
The Apollo CSM problems revealed some issues with quality control, what led to intensification of inspections on CSM and LM.
Edward G. Gibson wrote a textbook "The Quiet Sun“ which become a revered handbook for solar astrophysics.

 

[Astronomo2010]

another Great Part , The US , NASA as reached the Moon , i hope they make great discoveries . lets see when NASA and ESA , maybe will build a Moonbase . Cant hardly wait for the next part.

 

[Michel Van]

another Great Part , The US , NASA as reached the Moon , i hope they make great discoveries . lets see when NASA and ESA , maybe will build a Moonbase . Cant hardly wait for the next part.

Thanks, Astronomo2010
The Fate of TL Europe Space Program will be explained soon-

The Garrett AiResearch EX-1A Space Suit in Detail

The Picture show the Suit without cover garments, the men inside is Bill Elkins the chief engineer on EX-1A suit project

It featured higher operational Air pressure of 5 psi compared to 3.7 psi of the A7LB spacesuit
EX-A1 was far more mobile for the Human body than the Apollo A7LB suits were capable off.
It feature also new entry system, abandoned the back Zipper by a two piece suit with mid entry, so one astronaut can put it on.
The E-1A should have replace the A7LB suits from Apollo 20 on.

Video showing the EX-1A suit in action
X-Ray photo of EX-1A suit
Interview with Bill Elkins about EX-1A

James Burke explain the Apollo A7L spacesuit

 

[Michel Van]

sorry but ASTO undergoes a longer intermission as planed

Instead some art work

First Moon landing, art work by Machu

frist artwork from Chine first Manned space craft, illustration from east europa book about space flight, art work by Frantisek Skoda.

 

[Shevek23]

Oho, the Chinese are the first to go for the (apparently anyway) more sophisticated nose-first type reentry vehicle?

There was some talk on Eyes Turned Skyward of the ATL NASA toying with the idea of a "biconic" reusable manned craft. As far as I can tell, the biconic concept is that you have a cone of two slopes (blunter, wider angle on top, that sharply switches to a narrower angle for the back portion) and it enters nose-first, with one side of the double-cone oriented "down" so you put your heavier TPS there; the flat back of the cone is largely protected from the hot airflow by being in the "shadow" as it were so it needs less TPS. Presumably one guarantees the heavily TPS side of the conical face stays down by shifting the overall center of mass of the volume contained within toward it. The heavier TPS will contribute toward that goal but I'd think either you'd wind up having to cover the whole cone surface with equal TPS just in case it rolled, or else shift the center away from the axis more decisively by structurally putting a lot of the denser stuff inside as close to that side as possible. Do enough of that and pendulum moments should largely guarantee the correct side stays down, but you'd probably still get some rolling that might threaten the structure unless you could damp it out quickly.

So I gather one does install some auxiliary aerodynamic surfaces. And of course one could use reaction control rockets as well, but I'd worry about relying on them too much since one might deplete the propellant supply--RC rockets are small and don't tend to be designed for high efficiency, with rapid and precise response being the main consideration. Before the craft enters the layer of atmosphere that provides the sharpest braking, the aerodynamic forces would be weak, so RCR is the only way to go before that phase, but I'd think aerodynamic controls are desirable once reentry braking builds up to maximum force.

The point of a biconic entry system, I gather, is that by controlling the pitch angle, one can achieve a great range of lift/drag ratios. Nose on to the airstream it would produce zero lift (and the heat flux is evenly concentrated on the upper, blunter cone surface); tail-on (assuming the back side could take the heat) it would be the same, and I suppose there is some intermediate angle flying "sideways" where the lift force again falls to zero. But between that angle and nose-on, the lift as a function of the total drag will rise to a maximum at some angle, falling to zero again either lowering the angle between the cone axis and airflow or raising it to that intermediate neutral one. One would never want to do the latter! The craft then is controlled between nose-on to airflow (zero lift) and the maximum lift angle. I gather the lift/drag ratio at maximum can be considerably greater than one--better than STS Orbiter at hypersonic speeds, a whole lot better than the fractional maximum L/D the conical or headlight shaped reentry bodies traditionally used OTL before the Shuttle (and now after it) could accomplish.

I would guess another benefit is that the biconic design would typically present a larger area in total to the airstream than a tail-first cone entry would, spreading the heat over a larger area. Also since the airstream flows across elliptical surfaces rather than hitting a nearly flat plate head-on the heat is spread out over a wider area than the cross-section alone would indicate; these factors allow the TPS to be somewhat thinner, partially offsetting the fact that one must protect a greater area.

Relative to a spaceplane type vehicle, the advantage (along with actual L/D ratios at hypersonic speeds actually superior to a flat-bottomed subsonic glider shape like STS) is that one achieves effective aerodynamic control without wings.

To accomplish pitch control without constantly burning RCRs I would envision a tail flap. Splitting it into two would introduce roll control as well as pitch control.

Now an interesting feature of a biconic type entry (which strikes me as a drawback!) is that with the drag force (by aeronautical engineering definition) being along the cone axis, and coming from the front tip of the craft, and any lift force by definition being at right angles to that axis, the net acceleration inside the capsule during reentry is toward the front, with more or less deflection toward the nominal bottom side depending on how much L/D one goes for. Thus a space traveller with their seat fixed with its back to the back of the craft, like your taikonaut in the picture, is going to experience an "eyeballs out" force. Given the high accelerations a descending capsule might suffer this could be very nasty! When I first saw pictures of biconic crewed spacecraft, I was very puzzled that they often showed the crew seated "backwards," with their backs facing the tip of the cone. Now I understand why! But insofar as the craft is piloted by a human being, flying it backwards would be confusing I'd think. Whereas during launch, one hardly wants to pack the biconic craft backwards, with its flat end up, so fixing the acceleration couches that way is a bad idea too.

I'd think the solution would have to be reversible couches; they lie back to the back of the cone during launch, then in orbit one swaps them over to a cabin-front position. Even this could be very awkward if the capsule needs to be emergency-ejected from the launcher during an abort; the taikonaut (for our Chinese example) is fine during the high-G pull away, but then backward as he tries to pilot the capsule to a safe landing. The real solution then is to mount the crew couches on a rotating sphere or drum, so that the couch automatically spins around (using pendulum moments in part, damped or augmented by servomechanisms) to put the crew members at the best "back is down" angle. The essential pilot controls would have to pivot with the pilot's couch of course! This would mean that flying by direct view out a window would be "out;" the pilot must rely on instruments for this to work well, and still bear in mind they are flying backwards when flying at hypersonic speeds aerodynamically.

I've seen a couple designs for European biconic entry vehicles, and of course the Russian "Kliper" concepts largely converged on it (though typically shown with stubby supplemental wings as well).

A biconic craft would have very poor aerodynamics at subsonic landing speeds of course; I gather the plan generally is to have some combination of braking rockets or parachute type systems (including returning to the Rogallo wing concept intended for Gemini, but ultimately abandoned as too risky--a ribbon parawing might be more reliable). This would tend to limit their possible size I'd think.

Your taikonaut's craft is not strictly speaking biconic, since the forward surface is not a cone but a blunt hemisphere. I would guess it would behave somewhat like a biconic though, presumably with somewhat lower maximum lift/drag ratio at hypersonic speeds.

I gather that biconics, and other exotic more or less lifting body designs like this, derive in part from ICBM warhead designs. One problem with any nation developing one is then obvious; designing the best biconic or other such lifting body for astronaut recovery might tip their hand as to the state of the art of missile warhead design, disclosing state secrets. To be sure the goals of a warhead are somewhat different than those of a manned entry craft; the former presumably benefits from barreling in at top sustainable speed and the fact that it would crash like a meteor is irrelevant if it is going to detonate in a nuclear fireball anyway--even a penetrator design intended to punch deep into the ground before going off for an efficient "bunker buster" would presumably benefit from hitting the ground fast (though not too fast!) A manned craft has to come to a decently slow subsonic speed in the lower atmosphere, and then brake to a gentle landing. So a good design for the latter might not reveal too much about what one knows regarding the former. But it might--those of us without appropriate security clearances can only guess, while those who know would be obligated to confirm or deny nothing, or even actively mislead uncleared audiences.

The Chinese design you show looks a whole lot like missile warhead designs I have seen pictures of. I see it has not one but eight or nine aerodynamic control surfaces! I wouldn't know if typical modern missile warheads have any of those or not. They seem rather dangerous, in that they seem to be articulated by exposed lever-struts that must themselves survive high-speed entry; the western designs I've seen suggest that their articulators would be "buried" inside the hot surfaces. But I suppose they might work well enough, and being draggy is not a terrible vice in itself on an entry vehicle.

One very nifty thing about this design, or any design that enters side-forward, is that the back surface, being protected during entry (and launch, by being attached to whatever is behind it) one can place a hatch there, to give access to an airlock or a bigger crew space. Thus, it could be launched as two or more modules, with the "rear" stuff abandoned in orbit or to burn up on reentry.

I note this is a tiny little thing, presumably the Chinese version of "Mercury;" if this is the whole mass orbited then I guess the Chinese have not yet developed a very large launcher as of yet. I'd think that with Soviet help resuming in the mid-60s they'd have more launch capability by now, but there is something to be said for baby steps, especially if they are determined to demonstrate a completely independent capability.

If they were to go forward with larger versions of this entry craft, a "Soyuz" or better capability could be achieved more along the lines of Chelomei's TKS, with the entry vehicle (that crew also ride up in during launch) having access to a large orbital block, that might be a separate purely habitable volume a la Soyuz's orbital module, or integrated with the "service module" giving maneuverability in orbit like TKS's "functional block." The latter design, with habitable volume mixed in with the tankage and other equipment of a service module, can allow a docking port and viewing ports for orbital operations. TKS was supposed to use a more conventional minimum-volume conical tail-on entry vehicle.

One advantage of TKS, despite the hatch in the main TPS (which is no big problem; as e of pi IIRC pointed out in ETS, the Shuttle had many hatches in its main TPS, for landing gear and the propellant feed system) is that that primary heat shield was protected during orbital flight from fluctuating heating, radiation, and micrometeoroid impacts by being mated to the functional block. The same was true for Gemini and Apollo and Soyuz, all mated to a service module until reentry. With this lifting body design, as with the Shuttle Orbiter, the main TPS is exposed to space and indeed to the air during launch; it might take unexpected damage and become useless, dooming the taikonaut to either wait for a problematic rescue or burn up on entry!

A possible solution to that would be to attach a light fairing that remains in place until entry, to serve as a Whipple shield and thermal stabilizer, presumably it would be white to reflect away sunlight.

That would pretty well block all vision, unless a viewport is left exposed to all risks (which was the case with the capsule vehicles of OTL as well as the Shuttle, but it would have that window exposed to entry airflows as much as they were on the Shuttle). But if orbital operations involve going "back" to a larger functional block, this is little problem. A viewport for reentry would be useless anyway if the crew enter with their backs to the main G force. (And if they don't have pivoting or anyway reversible acceleration couches, the eyes-out entry forces would probably impair their piloting abilities anyway)!


I'm imagining this Chinese contribution to astronautics would lead the Soviet-Chinese bloc to develop something like Kliper pretty soon, with a more compact and more biconic capsule with a protective shroud and pivoting control couches for three or more space travelers, that can be lifted off an aborted launcher all by itself (no dragging the extra mass of the Orbital block along a la Soyuz) but is attached to a larger, nonreusable orbital block, as the standard reusable vehicle for both Communist nations (and cosmo/taiko-nauts from their various satellite nations, including (North) Vietnam, possibly the rest of Indochina, Cuba and who knows who else--possibly from nonaligned states the Sino-Soviet bloc is wooing too). Perhaps instead of launching with a separable and disposable module, the designers will instead make the basic entry vehicle incorporate everything needed for routine missions--if there are pivoting couches with associated pivoting control banks, the drum or sphere enclosing this can't fill the volume of a larger biconic too well, and the extra hab space is right there outside the couch drum, along with all the maneuvering propellent and so on. The orbital control station would still be at the back of the cone, along its circular face, with a docking port/airlock there too. Then the craft would be much bigger and harder to pull off a failing launch stack, but if all goes well, reusable except for the TPS protective shroud. Or if the TPS can be strong, resilient metal, perhaps no fairing is needed?

 

[Michel Van]

your right, Shevek23

In fact the Hòng Xing (Red Star) space craft is a modified ICBM Reentry vehicle
it's nuclear warhead replaced, by Man with Live support and a landing system
his seat then rotate prior reentry, landing vie Parachute in chines sea.
look something like this

But You see that not very practical.
So Spoilers: the Chinese develop out Hòng Xing a lifting body/biconic spacecraft connected to habitat/Laboratory and Service module.
analog to Apollo proposal of Martin from 1961

here reentry is like lifting body/biconic but final landing goes by parachute
reuse of the space craft is not consider.
i like your idea of Chinese version of Cosmos program, Shevek23
Could imagine that that North Koreans, Vietnamese and other allies could fly into space on Chinese spacecraft.
For soviet they focus on new generation of Soyuz capsule what remain back bone of manned spaceflight program.

 

[RanulfC]

Actually a "biconic" lifting body doesn't really enter "nose-first" but at an angle, see this paper:
http://www.ssdl.gatech.edu/papers/conferencePapers/AIAA-2005-5915.pdf

It is more "side-ways" than nose-first so the astronauts would feel it as "feet-down" (like the Shuttle) rather than eyes-out or on their backs as most capsule designs. Lifting bodies in general are a very diverse series of designs that tend to be a LOT more diverse than people think.

Take one of my favorites for example:
https://falsesteps.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/star-the-usafs-everything-spacecraft/
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADB143755

Most folks look at this and think it's a capsule because "obviously" something like that can't be a "lifting body" but it very much is. It's a "hypersonic" lifting body in fact which is designed to do most of it's maneuvering at hypersonic to very high supersonic speeds. But in order to do so it gives up any trans-sonic or subsonic lift and requires parachutes to land. Still pretty impressive stats being able to reentry from a polar orbit and land anywhere in the world along the equator is pretty neat. ("Cross-range" of half the world ain't bad at all )

Most lifting bodies have concentrated or at least primarily focused on supersonic and sub-sonic performance for the reasoning that's going to be the place where the final maneuver is done but if you don't focus on that specific aspect a lot of opportunities open up.

Another example I like is the "Personnel Launch Vehicle" design from Affordable Space Access, (wayback machine links):
http://web.archive.org/web/20070212102034/http://www.affordablespaceflight.com/step2.html

The PLV is a biconic lifting body and again requires parachutes (or propulsion of some sort) for the final landing phase. (And actually I'm a fan of the hypersonic Skyhook concept itself but like far to many proposals the Skunkworks design "requires" SCramjets for no good reason)

And AS for the final landing phase, if you don't like parachutes, (and they have some major issues for larger vehicles) then propulsive landing is always available. It doesn't HAVE to be retro-rockets either

Introducing PLAME:
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=11331

Think how that would work with a SERJ engine!

Randy

 

[Michel Van]

Thanks for info, Randy

 

[Archibald]

your right, Shevek23

In fact the Hòng Xing (Red Star) space craft is a modified ICBM Reentry vehicle
it's nuclear warhead replaced, by Man with Live support and a landing system
his seat then rotate prior reentry, landing vie Parachute in chines sea.
look something like this

But You see that not very practical.
So Spoilers: the Chinese develop out Hòng Xing a lifting body/biconic spacecraft connected to habitat/Laboratory and Service module.
analog to Apollo proposal of Martin from 1961

here reentry is like lifting body/biconic but final landing goes by parachute
reuse of the space craft is not consider.
i like your idea of Chinese version of Cosmos program, Shevek23
Could imagine that that North Koreans, Vietnamese and other allies could fly into space on Chinese spacecraft.
For soviet they focus on new generation of Soyuz capsule what remain back bone of manned spaceflight program.

I'm toying with the chinese space program,too. As of 1992 I give them two other spacecrafts beside the Soyuz: the TKS-VA and the Spiral lifting-body (BOR-)

 

[arrowiv]

Will we get into spaceplane designs and also orbital nukes-ASAT weapons which will lead us up to 2001?