A non-wanky space WI

I think the Sea Dragon rocket has a lot of potential if NASA could be persuaded to keep funding it in the early 1960s:

an immense, sea-launched, two-stage launch vehicle designed by Robert Truax for Aerojet in 1962. It was to be capable of putting 1.2 million pounds (550 tonnes) into low Earth orbit. The concept was to achieve minimum launch costs through lower development and production costs. This meant accepting a larger booster with a lower performance propulsion system and higher stage dead weight then traditional NASA and USAF designs.

550 tons is about two complete International Space Stations...
 

Thande

Donor
I think the Sea Dragon rocket has a lot of potential if NASA could be persuaded to keep funding it in the early 1960s:



550 tons is about two complete International Space Stations...

Impressive, but the OTL recent attempted sea launches have been less than completely successful...
 
Well, the Wikipedia article on it claims water-launching tests with smaller rockets were made sucessfully, so it doesn't seem unreasonable that such problems, if they occurred, would be solvable. See also here. Have you got any references for the OTL recent attempted sea launches you mention?
 

Archibald

Banned
I think Thande mention the recent Sea Launch disaster.
The Zenit rocket made "kaboooom" just after take off, engulfing its floating launch pad into a big fireball. :eek:

Fortunately the rugged former oil-platform survived the blast... and it was unmanned.

In the end repairs took less than a year, I think their next launch is close.
And the video (albeit a bit blurry) is really nice to see :D

Another interesting, non wanky (at least in my opinion) space ATL is having private spaceflight in the 80's.

In OTL this failed because all launchs had to be made by the Shuttle.

Before Challenger diaster were things like Private Space Shuttle (Klaus Heiss) , space industries and plants (Faget Industrial Space Facility).

It seems that Reagan was first to give a legal frame to commercial space launchers thanks to an act passed in late 1984.

In my ATL Reagan become president in 1976 and pass its act around 1977.

Then the private sector manage to create a viable market aside the satellites.

There's three kind of space industries in my ATL

- unmanned microgravity research capsules (based on the Corona)
- Skyhab NASA space plant.
- Private space stations such as Faget ISF.

Of course the private sector also develop launchers to boost these payloads in LEO.

There I have fun using every interesting past concepts you can find on the web, such as Starbooster, Kistler, Beal, Truax, Percheron, Conestoga, Amroc, Pathfinder, and many, many others.
There had been lots of interesting ideas over the years :) but few of them have reach success.
Even Musk' Falcon is still far from success...
In my ATL the context is more favorable and many of them reach success...
 

Thande

Donor
I think Thande mention the recent Sea Launch disaster.
The Zenit rocket made "kaboooom" just after take off, engulfing its floating launch pad into a big fireball. :eek:
Indeed.

I don't want to be Mr Party Pooper, but it just strikes me that bigger rocket = more potential for disaster, especially for a sea launch.
 

Archibald

Banned
Imagine if a Saturn V had exploded...

From all discussed above there are various different timelines

- the Big Gemini / Saturn INT-20 timeline, with a POD in 1961 (USAF chose SLS instead of Titan III)

- the Big Gemini / Titan IIIC timeline, POD is Shuttle crushed in 1970

- the european multirole capsule instead of Hermes POD in 1987

Of course there probably zillion others scenarios!
One I like, too, is a Mars flyby in the 80's (probably more achievable than a landing).
POD would be 1963 and a different approach to nuclear power, followed by no TMI ain 1979...
 
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Imagine if a Saturn V had exploded...

they made study about that (size 928 kb)
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19700076248_1970076248.pdf

after another study by boeing would a Saturn V explosion after Liftoff from Pad 93A
destroy Launch Pad 39A and damange the other Pad 39B heavy.

- the european multirole capsule instead of Hermes POD in 1987
there was little war in ESA between "Capsule" and "Hermes" fraction.
in end of it all fraction lost war as Europan Minster killt "Hermes" in 1992
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes_(shuttle)

Major Problem is here already in 1969 ELDO made study for manned space craft
and proposed a mini-shuttle (launch with Europa III rocket)
CNES proposed Hermes in 1975 for Ariane 5 (based on Ariane 4 rocket)
 

Archibald

Banned
Major Problem is here already in 1969 ELDO made study for manned space craft
and proposed a mini-shuttle (launch with Europa III rocket)

Arf, never heard about this one before. That's really incredible!

But nothing surprising in that... in the late 60's France studied VERAS, GB had Mustard, and Germany had Bumerang.

Bumerang and Mustard were lifting bodies, when VERAS looked like DynaSoar.

VERAS was to be tested using an Emeraude booster Ie a Diamant first stage.
Mustard was to use the Black Arrow.
Bumerang subscale models were to be launched by... an Europa 2 rocket.

So I'm really not surprised that ELDO considered a mini Shuttle around 1969!

Then an interesting POD would be that ELDO decide in favor of a capsule, and hoping the project survive the 1971-1973 turmoil which led to ESA and Ariane...

Au fait, what was Ariane 1 LEO payload ? :rolleyes:
 
Au fait, what was Ariane 1 LEO payload ? :rolleyes:

with out structural improvement
2700 kg in 200x1000 km orbit

with structural improvement
4720 kg in 200x200 km orbit

why that?
Ariane 1 was design to launch only 1780 kg in to 200 x 36000 km orbit
later for Ariane 4 this structural improvement was made.

Note On Ariane 5 study in beginn 1980s
a Ariane 4 first stage and 4 Liquid fuel Booster
so in total 9-8 Viking engnie
second stage a big LOX/LH2 stage H45 with HM 60 engine
third stage a H10 (from Ariane 4) or small N2O4/UDMH stage.

to Capsule
in 1980 was Proposal "SOLARIS"
(Station Orbitale Laboratoire Automatique de Rendezvous et d'Interventions Spatiales)
from Center National d`Etudes Spatiales - Toulouse france

put a Orbital Platform "Modul de servis"
on that later is dockt a Labo Modul based Space Lab tech.
to servis that it use automatic Space Craft MINOS
a Space Capsul with servis module the small N2O4/UDMH stage of Ariane 5
total weight 12000 kg in Low orbit with 2300 kg cargo
later MINOS had to carry 3 Astronaut into orbit.
1981%20solaris%2002.jpg


from SOLARIS SYSTEM survide only as MTFF for Hermes shuttle
more on MTFF Hermes and end of it
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/hermes.htm
in french
http://www.capcomespace.net/dossiers/espace_europeen/hermes/index.htm
 
I think Thande mention the recent Sea Launch disaster.
The Zenit rocket made "kaboooom" just after take off, engulfing its floating launch pad into a big fireball. :eek:

Fortunately the rugged former oil-platform survived the blast... and it was unmanned.

Oh, that one. That sounds like a normal rocket launch going bad, and happening to be taking place on a platform at sea, rather than any fundamental issue with sea launches as such. From the site they've had 3 failures out of 26 launches (~11% failure rate), compared to Ariane 5 having 4 out of 38 (~11% too), so based on that I'd say sea launch has no more issues than land launch!

Also, the Sea Dragon would actually be floating in and partially submerged under the water when it launched, so would be a different set of circumstances altogether. Which admittedly would probably have its own share of problems to be worked out, but as I said tests with a smaller rocket did seem to work so I don't see that there would be any fundamental problems with it.
 

Archibald

Banned
Here's another possible space alt-history, this time about Europe.
Whatif Europa didn't failed in the 60's ?

Europa the was first atempt to build an European launcher, and failed miserably in 1971, leading to Ariane.

At the very beginning of the program in 1961 GB wanted to build the rocket with France, as was done with Concorde later.
Trouble was french civilian rocketry was in the infancy at the time, with reduced funds. Thus help from the military "force de frappe" was needed.
This was not acceptable for the British nor the USA: the Blue Streak had been developped as a ballistic missile with american help (S-3 engines).

De Gaulle and Mc Millan nevertheless reached an agreement on 31th January 1961, but French part was troublesome.

so the two partners sought backing by others countries.

At the time Italy was more interested in launching US Scout rockets from the San Marco platform.
Germany, too, wanted US rocket instead of Europa. Its very likely that smaller european countries would have followed them.

Turning point would be november 1961 in Strasbourg. In OTL Italy, Germany and 10 others countries joined the program under British insistance.

now whatif no agreement had been found ?

French national agency (the CNES) was founded on 1st march 1962. This solved the problem of having the french military rocketry in the program.

Thus France and GB decide to build Europa.

The Blue Streak first stage is topped by Diamant Emeraude as second stage. Emeraude can also be used as boosters.
Alternative booster are french MSBS solid-rocket motors from the force de frappe.
France and Great Britain had a wide range of solid or liquid rocket motors to be used as third stage.

The rocket is called the Prince for two reasons.
Black Prince was the OTL British launcher based on the Blue Streak.
And the word Prince is the same in english and french, as Concorde or Jaguar...

The Prince rocket is much more successfull than the OTL Europa 2 and fly with success around 1965.

Later the Emeraude second stage is replace by a cryogenic, hydrogen-fueled second stage.

Europe have a Delta / Atlas class launcher in the late 60's.
 

Archibald

Banned
Thank you!

Black Arrow was not so bad. It used H2O2 propellant, which is very dense, resulting in small launchers.
Mind you USAF discovered the virtues of this fuel (dense, non cryogenic) for its Black Horse inflight-refueled spaceplane of the 90's...
Mitch Burnside Clapp, author of the Black Horse study, stated the name come from the British launchers (Black - something)

Btw there's another launcher aside the Prince, a smaller one.
France and Great agree to merge the Black Arrow and Diamant small rockets, giving birth to the... Black Diamant.
This one is a real-world project, a proposal from 1969 which never saw the light of the day.
Only result was the last Diamants launched in 1975 had the Black Arrow large shroud (or fairing, don't know the eaxct word. I mean the aerodynamic thing which protect the satellite at take off and is ejected later in the flight).

Here the project goes ahead in 1961. Diamant first stage were first the Emeraude already mentionned; later it was replaced by the more powerfull Améthyste, with a Valois engine.

So an Améthyste is used to boost a Black Knight, and later Black Arrow upper stages.

Even better : someone show me recently an incredible project. A Diamant launched from... an Avro Vulcan bomber! :eek:

Black Arrow and Diamant were small and light rockets, enough to be carried by this bomber, which had a good payload and lot of fuel (you can get ride of some fuel to rise payload).

So in my ATL the Black Diamant is air dropped from a Vulcan flying at
60 000ft.
Not too far from Kourou is Cayenne international airport, so the Vulcan is based there.
 

Archibald

Banned
Please, go ahead.

This is a nonwank because, although there would be more and cheaper launches than OTL (and more people in space) the lack of the shuttle's cargo capacity would obviate some of the triumphs we've had in OTL (probably the Hubble Space Telescope...)

Let's go back to this one, and forget the shuttle/ lifting body thing.

Instead, I had imagined a scenario three years ago, a bit similar to this
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=1485584

F*ck, I've just discovered that this was not only alt-history (Alatair VI blog is just fantastic!) :eek:
http://altairvi.blogspot.com/2008/04/skylab-salyut-space-laboratory-1972.html

I think this is one of the most realistic scenarios if we compared it to OTL.

Jim Fulton died of a heart attack during winter 1969-1970. With his death last hopes of saving the Shuttle program vanished.
Now the congress Subcomitee of space (which had shuttle destiny within his hands) was clearly against the program.
So no one was suprised when, on 23th April 1970 the Space Shuttle program was cancelled.
This left NASA with only three options, all based on Titan IIIC rocket
- USAF lifting body
- Apollo CM block.3 (with a new Service Module)
- Big Gemini

In the end Big Gemini was the winner. It would enter service around 1975, too late for Skylab 1 or ATSP.

Seven-segments SRB were developped for the Titan (in OTL they were developed for MOL in the 60's, forgotten for 20 years then resurrected for Titan IV in the late 80's).

Bigger projects were now set up. As Shuttle would have been very expensive to build, at least its cancellation had free a big chunk of NASA budget.

These funds were only partially needed for the unexpensive, already-proven Big Gemini, so they were invested in others sectors.

NASA wisely decided to invest in Space Station, particularly Skylab follow-ons.
Then someone noted that Saturn SA-514 and SA-515 had still no payloads.

The obvious move was to launch Skylab 2 after 1975, but what to do with SA-515 ?
Two ideas were studied
- ATSP follow on, docking a Salyut to Skylab 2
- adding a 110 module to the two stations using SA-515.

Smaller modules (18 tons) could complete the station, launched by either Titan IIIC or Proton rockets.

In January 1974, Nixon announced the building of a large "International Skylab Station" or ISS :p

Skylab 2 was launched on 21th september 1975.
Skylab International followed on july 4th 1976

Soviet president Kossygine (Brejnev had been assassinated on january 22th 1969) aproved the US plan, and Saliout 4 joined the ISS on 28th December 1977.

TKS (Kossygin was more Chelomei-friendly than Brejnev before him, thus cancelled Soyouz after the june 1971 disaster) and Big G spacecrafts ferried crews and cargo until 1981, when, after Kossygin death, Andropov invaded afghanistan.
Newly-elected president Reagan was furious, and from this moment the space complex fall a bit into disarray.
Fortunately Gorbatchev managed to restore US- USSR relations around 1985, thus the Station was revived.
 
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So in my ATL the Black Diamant is air dropped from a Vulcan flying at 60 000ft.
Not too far from Kourou is Cayenne international airport, so the Vulcan is based there.

that work perfect!

back to ELDO-ESRO Fisaco
so wat went wrong ?

technical problem
The ELDO-A (Europa) rocket was build from three countrys
putting the stage together was major problem
Blue streak manual was in english and Imperial system (foot, pound...)
Corallie manual was in french and Metric system (meter, kg...)
Astris 2 manual was in english and german
and Technicians how assembly the Rocket had also Language problems
only hardware tat work 100 % was the Belgium Selfdestruct system ;)

allready Testflight F6/1 F6/2 show the electrical system problems
Corallie autopilot shut down durning launch
Testflight F7 and F8 the third stage explode at stage seperation
the stage seperation system trigger the Selfdestruct system

Testflight F9 was almost a sucess but a poorly secured electrical connector.
lossing durnig Launch so the Payload envelope was not drop
and third stage with Italian test-sat within Payload envelope fall in atlantic :(

Testflight F10 was chanceld
Testflight F11 made from Kourou and used first time on board Inertial navigation, (F1 to F9 was radiocontroll)
but because bad system Integration and fact they ignored the air humidity,
at Kourou (woomberra is dry desert)
the air humidity create electro static build up durnig launch, wat create a short circuit in the Inertial navigation...
Testflight 12 was delivert ot Kourou but EUROPA Program was chanceld.

Politcal Problem
the ELDO Manager had NEVER control on Program
it was Minster of Science of Europe how control the ELDO!
how pay the most, get bigges part of Program so more control on program...

1965 france made agressive Approaching
drop ELDO-A Rocket and Build ELDO-B with LOX/LH2 stages
(of curse with French LOX/LH2 engine payed by ELDO)
this delay the program for one year
1966 England drop the Bomb with Statement "to redraw completly from ELDO"
because cost overrun, delay in Program by France
(the Labor goverment wanted US rocket instatt Europe rocket)
in end ELDO-B was pust to future study and EUROPA-2 Rocket taken)

1967 Europan leader call for fusion of ELDO-ERNO to One Europan Space agency
(ESA 7 year earlier !)

1968 England Labor goverment refuse payment and further participation in future projects
in end England only gave support for Blue Streak prodution for EUROPA-2
the ELDO wandet to call in Den Haag "International Court of Justice"
to sue England to respect Treaties and Payment, but chance thery mind.
one of the victims was Test launch F-10 how was cut

1970 beginn of the end
England tory minister Fredrick Corfield (only some week in office)
came unprepared to meeting, his harsh statements on Program was a dead blow
he refuse to pay EUROPA-III, EUROPA-2 Flight, Europa-NASA join venture.

1971 after F11 fiasco
was ELDO Manager blame for that...

1972 the NEW Britsh minister of Transport, industry, aerospace ! Michael Heseltine
try to chance and save the program but next year he lost his office.

in 1972 German kill ELDO-ESRO in Science Minister meeting
and they made follow decision
Fusion of ELDO-ESRO to New agency called ESA
chanceld of EUROPA-III Program and take of L3S "Ariane" Program
(defacto a transform EUROPA-III :D )
ESA-NASA Joinventure (Spacelab)
 

Archibald

Banned
1967 Europan leader call for fusion of ELDO-ERNO to One Europan Space agency

God bless this man !

Europa was clearly a nightmare vecause of three stage = three differents countries foolish thing.

that's why I prefered having an anglo-french program only. Good thing with European 60's program is, it's not too difficult having PODs with them.
Just imagine that they never reach consensus!

I actually have two Europa-based ATLs.

First have a POD in 1961, no Europa at all, just an aglo-french rocket.

The other have a POD mid- 1969. I imagined total failure of Europa F7 and F8 launches leading to total breakup of ESRO and death of Europa 2.

Europa 2 is replaced by two anglo-french rockets :
- a Blue Streak with an european cryogenic stage (Eldo-B is back, there was also the blue Streak/centaur project).
- the Black Diamant / Vulcan.

Later Germany join the program to develop a Blue Streak replacement with France.
Thus ESA is created around 1971, and the "Cryogenic Blue Streak" avoid the 8 years gap we had in OTL (1971 -1979).
 
this are my PoD in ELDO-ERNO

PoD Politcal
1958
CERE and Not ELDO-ESRO
next to Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire CERN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN

are formt in 1958 Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Espace CERE
Aka Europan Research Organization for Space EROS :D
with member of Europe country and other nation (like CERN)

1967
ELDO-ESRO fusion togetter to Europan Research Organization for Space EROS

PoD Australia associate member become full member of ELDO 1968
in that case ELDO get money from Australia
and F10 and F11 Fly and no Inertial navigation disaster at Kourou


PoD Technical

ELDO take Primary contractor instatt serveral by there member country.

ELDO-A Rocket use modifde Black Arrow first stage to replace Corallie !
there were vage plans about this.

Testflight F9 has secured electrical connector. and made first Orbital launch
the success from F9 chance the program with tory minister Fredrick Corfield
"with first [europan] Satellit in Orbit we [England] support the Program"

the Radiocontroll system are move from Woomberra to Kourou
no Inertial navigation disaster at Kourou and F12 is a success

so EUROPA-1 & 2 works so wat next ?
the Rocket fly until 1979 wen EUROPA III is Ready

F13 last Test launch
F14 SYMPHONIE 1
F15 SYMPHONIE 2 (advance version)
F16 COSB or GEOS
F17 GEOS or SYMPHONIE B
F18 SYMPHONIE b or Helios
F19 Helios.
end of EUROPA-2 Program

L01 First Launch of EUROPA-III with CAT-01
L02 Failure burn instablty in engnie of first stage. - CAT-02 & Feuerrad lost
L03 Testlaunch with new Fuel mixture in first stage - CAT-03
L04 Testlaunch with CAT-04
L05 Failure Turbopump in Second stage explode - Marecs 1 CAT-04 lost
L06 -> L09 Launch without problems

L10 First Launch EUROPA-IIIB improved version (more trust and booster)
L11 success
L12 success
L13 test with third Stage with Liquid Fluorine/LH2 engine (test for Giotto mission)
L14 Kourou Disaster 1985
a EUROPA-IIIB with third Stage and Giotto Mission
due long delay in contdown, the corrosive Fluorine Eating away its tank seals !
the Liquid Fluorine escape and flow on on hydrogen tank the second stage eating away its tank also
As Fluorine reach the hydrogen the Rocket explode heavy destroing the Launch pad also
 

Archibald

Banned
btw in my ATL Ariane 1/2/3/4 looks quite different from the rocket we knew from 1979 to 2003.

It's because Lutz Kayser influence its design thanks to its OTRAG project.

Ariane, as OTRAG, become a cluster of cheap, pressure-fed, reusable boosters burning cheap propellants (LOX / kérosene).

Of course there's only four or eight boosters clustered, not dozens like OTRAG.
Each booster has a thrust of 80 tons, as Ariane Vikings.

By clustering four of these boosters, we have soemthing equivalent to Ariane 1 /2 / 3 /4.
With eight of them, its like Ariane 44L : 8 engines, 10 tons in LEO.
 
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