A Sound of Thunder: The Rise of the Soviet Superbooster

[Bahamut-255]

Frank Borman? Interesting choice, though I see just 4 years on the job there.

Another wonderful update to A Sound Of Thunder. As much I like Borman (rip), his proposal for phase-two lunar missions seems... insufficient? Sending fewer crew on a more complicated mission seems like a recipe for failure or apathy. If they're looking for a way to upstage the Soviets, this doesn't seem like it'll be it.

As I see it, the repeated pushing for Grandiose Missions with Price Tags to Match could well have done more to cripple Post-Apollo efforts than any other single factor - to go back to my earlier mention of 'Apollo's Toxic Legacy'.

Borman here IMHO is being ruthlessly pragmatic, knowing (or at minimum, having a very good idea of) what he's got to work with, he spearheaded a design that could be approved, and built in a way that allows for later evolutionary upgrading without too much additional expense, chiefly by adhering to the No-New-Launch-Vehicles Rule.

From my perspective, this gives this particular mission profile the greatest likelihood of success down the line. Whether it does, and to what extent. That, is the question.

 

[JamesHunter]

The plus side of refurbishing Enterprise rather than building Endeavour from the structural spares left over from Discovery and Atlantis is if/when an orbiter is destroyed either from the highly likely foam strike, the less likely SRB seal malfunction or a new and interesting catastrophe, and the Shuttle architecture has the potential for a few of those, there are still those structural spares lying around that could be used to build a replacement orbiter.

True although with Shuttle C eating alot of payload needs and a Moonshot to support they may decide (as OTL) they can get by with four birds.

 

[Thoresby]

As I see it, the repeated pushing for Grandiose Missions with Price Tags to Match could well have done more to cripple Post-Apollo efforts than any other single factor - to go back to my earlier mention of 'Apollo's Toxic Legacy'.

Borman here IMHO is being ruthlessly pragmatic, knowing (or at minimum, having a very good idea of) what he's got to work with, he spearheaded a design that could be approved, and built in a way that allows for later evolutionary upgrading without too much additional expense, chiefly by adhering to the No-New-Launch-Vehicles Rule.

From my perspective, this gives this particular mission profile the greatest likelihood of success down the line. Whether it does, and to what extent. That, is the question.

They great advantage of this profile is it is actually going to deliver US boots on the moon within the decade (Reagan didn't say it but it should be relatively quick to develop) and within a realistic budget profile. The downside is that with the possible exception of the direct return capsule nothing is reused. The other plus side is that even if it is mostly expendable it should be relatively cheap on a per mission basis. It's vulnerable to being abandoned in the nineties when the Soviet competitor is no longer there, but maybe it could be combined with Barmin's moonbase when the Soviet can no longer afford to get there. ISS on the moon? 🤔

 

[22000 Kevin]

The plus side of refurbishing Enterprise rather than building Endeavour from the structural spares left over from Discovery and Atlantis is if/when an orbiter is destroyed either from the highly likely foam strike, the less likely SRB seal malfunction or a new and interesting catastrophe, and the Shuttle architecture has the potential for a few of those, there are still those structural spares lying around that could be used to build a replacement orbiter.

Honestly I do wonder if we are going to see a different Shuttle loss in this timeline. A catastrophic failure during the re-entry into the atmosphere is sadly guaranteed to happen at some point in the future, any kind of disaster will undoubtedly delay Nasa's plan to return to the moon.

The Space Shuttle iceberg video does a good job of listing the close calls we had with the Space Shuttle in OTL.

 

[TheKutKu]

So Shuttle C, Skylab 2, A capsule R&D (as BOTH cislunar capsule, Lunar habitat and Crew return vehicle, but without ascent LES), a fifth shuttle that early and a two stage lunar insertion stage? All that on a budget that is... only $850 million higher than IRL 1982...


Yeah something will have to give in, lots of things actually


Planetary IUS is dead as IRL, Shuttle-Centaur is probably cancelled early (there were budget cuts around that time) or merged with the lunar insertion stage (i imagine the descent stage could maybe have comonality with a shuttle hydrogen kick stage, maybe, if the diameter allows it), although maybe USAF interest could keep it barely alive? Not sure.

1981-1982 was the time of the planetary science crisis of the early 80s..

Hubble's development had some troubles around 1982, but there's hardware and international cooperation, so I do think it'll make it,
Galileo is in a tougher spot, not as far along and not really internationalisable, and there were still the Upper stages problems, if there is an early Shuttle-centaur reconsideration and no budget for the 3 stages IUS, maybe the whole probe-orbiter could be descoped?

Cassini is probably still-born as ~1982 is when discussions started, and the later 80s won't be conclusive to it, ESA or not, no saturn mission launched until the 2000s for sure.
The gap between VOIR's cancellation and Magellan or equivalent is probably longer too, but with more space confrontation with the soviets, I think a Magellan equivalent would still be funded past the Venera and Vega successes, besides there are quite enough spares from Voyagers and Galileo to have one mission.

IRL OMB favoured a lower cost Halley mission (as part of what would become the Halley armada) instead of VOIR or ISPM (which both got cancelled), but it wasn't popular among scientist and seen as redundant with Giotto, this is before the present of the timeline, but with work on Shuttle C/Skylab 2, maybe VOIR is preemptively not selected in favour of that mission, which would have better odds of surviving budget cuts

If Planetary science budget issues continued into the mid 80s, Mars Orbiter would probably be very different and much later.

There was a proposal around that time IRL to shut down the voyagers before the Uranus/Neptune fly by, with estimates that it could save $200m+, hopefully this doesn't happen.

On the positive side, Skylab 2 will probably be overall more cost and time effective than any Freedom or ISS.

---

With Spacelab being less useful, the lack of large shuttle kick stage, and the earlier end of the Shuttle's commercial subsidies, I think a lot of people are regretting not giving the space tug to the Europeans back in the 70s...

 

[Nell_Lucifer]

Speaking of interplanetary probes, I am wondering what the Soviets might launch beyond a Mars or Venus mission with the N-1? By the 1980s they should have fairly robust electronics to survive going to Jupiter or beyond, though, would they?

 

[e of pi]

Speaking of interplanetary probes, I am wondering what the Soviets might launch beyond a Mars or Venus mission with the N-1? By the 1980s they should have fairly robust electronics to survive going to Jupiter or beyond, though, would they?

Based on OTL Soviet probe electronics up to the end of the USSR and beyond, hoping for robust electronics to last to and through Jovian radiation may be....optimistic.

 

[22000 Kevin]

but with more space confrontation with the soviets, I think a Magellan equivalent would still be funded past the Venera and Vega successes, besides there are quite enough spares from Voyagers and Galileo to have one mission.

Speaking of interplanetary probes, I am wondering what the Soviets might launch beyond a Mars or Venus mission with the N-1? By the 1980s they should have fairly robust electronics to survive going to Jupiter or beyond, though, would they?

Speaking about Venera and Vega that reminds me of the Soviet missions to Mars in this TL.

We should see more developments from Georgy Babakin's N-1 launched Mars probes in this story. I assume that the Soviets will attempt to complete a successful Mars 4NM-3 mission that will be named Mars 10, with the hope of a functional Marsokhod rover travelling across the surface of the Red planet, using the 1979 launch window or later dates in the 1980s to launch the rover, the purpose of these missions is to surpass the american Viking lander missions and to test out the technology of the deployable aeroshell and rocket powered descent lander for the future Mars 5NM mission.

Following the 4NM mission the Soviets will attempt to repeat the OTL successes that they had with the lunar sample return missions by launching a gigantic 98 ton probe to Mars with the help of the N-1 rocket for the 5NM sample return mission, the ambitious plan will attempt to capture 200 grammes of Martian dust, arriving back to Earth in a 15 kg capsule after a audacious 3 year journey in Space...

I will admit the engineers at the Lavochkin bureau might have been on too much Vodka when they were planing this mission, but they never gave up on the dream of having a Mars sample return mission, even after the OTL cancellation of the N-1 denied them of the option of using a 98 ton probe to get to Mars, the Lavochkin team tried unsuccessfully to continue the sample return project by the Mars 5M project using three Proton rockets this time, that plan was even more complicated than the orginal one and although receiving approval from the Soviet Government it was able to reach the prefabrication stage but got killed by politics and the realisation that the plan was simply too ambitious. If it wasn't for the simple fact that the Lavochkin team had a historical string of successful lunar and interplanetary probe missions. Then I would've written off the chances of Mars 5NM as hopeless, I really do hope that the Soviets in the TL will be able to overcome the difficulties they had in OTL with their Mars missions and defeat the alleged curse that is apparently plaguing them.

If the Soviet are able to surpass the successes of the previous TTL Mars 9 mission and publicly announce their ambitious sample return mission then maybe just maybe NASA will receive the political justification to expand funding for the planetary science missions and keep it alive in the 1980s...

 

[SingularityG3]

hopefully the US can muster up some cool planetary probes... could be interesting to see what the Halley Armada might look like in this timeline

 

[TheKutKu]

Galileo was selected in 1977-8, before any Soviet mars mission (in the case they aren't delayed), so that's still there ITTL. If something is launched in the 1979 mars transfer windows then that could affect further budget by the timeline's present, the 1981 transfer window is too late in the year to prevent or even soften the planetary exploration cuts.

Hans Mark is still deputy administrator, and he was the main guy (within NASA) behind the Planetary exploration crisis. With the same guy, Planetary Exploration will be one of the first victim of budget cuts. There's no magic funding, even with a soviet Mars 10 landing in 1981-2, in the immediate there just won't be funding. This could indeed reorient American planetary exploration toward mars in the medium term if it happens, but again, Gallileo is there and probably the priority for the first half of the 80s as far as probes are concerned..

Optimistically, the coming storm is better anticipated and NASA doesn't go into the ISPM/Ulysses cooperation (whose cancellation strained relations with the ESA) in the first place, this would at least make future Cassini-style deep space cooperation easier.

With Borman and Mark, planetary exploration beyond Gallileo in the early-to-mid 80s will probably be underfunded and reactive to the soviet where they're most present, could be mars, venus or halley, and probably only one of those (even if it means Magellan or alternatively Mars Observer doesn't happen). CRAF and Cassini are not going to be studied extensively or developped in the 80s.

---
On the european side of things, with the soviet actively around the moon in the late 70s, there could probably be a stronger case for the Lunar Polar Orbiter (POLO) against its main competitor, Giotto, which got chosen IRL (in the 1979-1981 timeframe), its launch would be around Giotto's, a success may convince NASA to involve ESA more within the phase 2 lunar program (or maybe even before), something which it'd probably need anyway, in term of budget.

 

[PMN1]

On the european side of things, with the soviet actively around the moon in the late 70s, there could probably be a stronger case for the Lunar Polar Orbiter (POLO) against its main competitor, Giotto, which got chosen IRL (in the 1979-1981 timeframe), its launch would be around Giotto's, a success may convince NASA to involve ESA more within the phase 2 lunar program (or maybe even before), something which it'd probably need anyway, in term of budget.

Any info on that POLO?

 

[22000 Kevin]

Galileo was selected in 1977-8, before any Soviet mars mission (in the case they aren't delayed), so that's still there ITTL. If something is launched in the 1979 mars transfer windows then that could affect further budget by the timeline's present, the 1981 transfer window is too late in the year to prevent or even soften the planetary exploration cuts.

I'll note that TTL we know that the Soviets launched 2 mars missions during the 1970s in the story.

The Mars 8 mission died during its journey to Mars in 1975 and made a harmless flyby of the Red planet.

Originally intended to launch in the 1973 opportunity, the teething problems experienced by Groza, as well as difficulties in developing the probe, delayed the launch, and the probe - now named Mars 8[2] - lifted off on 12th September 1975 on Groza launch N1-11L. The launch and Earth departure were successful, but contact was lost with the probe three months later, before it reached the Red Planet. The cause was never found, but was assumed to be a failure of the electronics systems, and the back-up probe on Earth was subjected to additional testing with the hope of launching a repeat of the mission during the 1977 launch window.

Mars 9 was a repeat of the previous failed mission in 1977 with the backup probe, it was able to successfully land on the Red planet this time, however the rough landing damaged the wheels of the rover and prevented the robot from moving off the lander, at least its camera and equipment was still working...

Sol 1

Ten minutes after landing, the Mars 9 “Marsokhod” rover unfurled its high gain antenna and pointed it towards a nondescript patch of salmon-pink sky. Circuits closed within the metal body of the probe, and a radio signal was beamed towards its waiting masters on Earth with a simple message: “I am here”.

Around the rover lay the dented carcass of the descent stage. The force of a harder than expected landing had damaged the bottom of the stage and punctured a propellant tank, which had shot away from the rest of the spacecraft, taking the low gain antenna with it. The ramps meant to grant the rover access to the surface were twisted and useless. Not that it would have mattered, as three of the rover’s wheels were themselves a crumpled mess. Still, its instruments were working, its cameras were active, and so its simple electronic brain was determined to carry out as much of its mission as possible. The first step in that mission was to let Earth know: “I am here”.

On Earth, Ivan Smirnov watched his instruments show the descent stage entering the planet’s upper atmosphere. At that same moment (if such a thing can be said to exist in an Einsteinian universe), Mars 9 sat patiently on the surface of Mars, waiting for Ivan to hear its call.

Looking back at Post 12 "Testing Times" the Soviets did not launch a Mars 10 mission in 1979, I think the Soviet engineers in the Lavochkin bureau simply didn't have a available backup probe for the 79 launch window, since the Mars 9 probe itself was the backup probe and were either busy building new 4NM probes or instead were happy enough with the limited sucess of Mars 4NM and focusing work on the Mars 5NM probe.

 

[nixonshead]

Also I assume the E will end up doing what Columbia did OTL, all the LEO grunt work with things like Spacelab?

That's the plan.

So, as noted OV-101 was heavier than the later orbiters, but she was built to the same design as OV-102, and thus would not have been heavier than her sister.

OMB's savings is a bit false because she will need to be taken apart and have her components sent back to the original factories for reconstruction to full flight configuration. This reconstruction does offer a chance at some weight savings, at the cost of time and money. Historically (and in this TL) STA-099 (Challenger) was converted as the second orbiter because there were fewer items to remove before the conversion to orbital flight status could occur. Even with increases in funding, OV-101 is not likely to be ready for flight before about 1986.

Yeah, probably the eventual saving will be slim-to-none, but at this point (before cutting metal, but with the initial assessments of what would be involved from the late '70s), I'm assuming they can point to a spreadsheet that says it will be cheap enough that they did their duty reigning in these high-spending agencies.

There were a number of changes between 101 and 102, notably around the aft fuselage which will probably have to be completely rebuilt. Also while the connections exist literally everything needs installing and the landing gear isn't even powered and will have to be removed and replaced with a proper set.

Also while not an issue right now Enterprise (like Columbia) probably won't be able to reach Russian preferred orbits which will prevent any use on a Shuttle Mir or ISS program later on.

Reaching Russian-friendly orbits with heavy payloads is not so much a concern at this point ITTL (although reaching them with an empty payload bay so you can swipe their stuff... is also not a concern, despite Russian paranoia).

The plus side of refurbishing Enterprise rather than building Endeavour from the structural spares left over from Discovery and Atlantis is if/when an orbiter is destroyed either from the highly likely foam strike, the less likely SRB seal malfunction or a new and interesting catastrophe, and the Shuttle architecture has the potential for a few of those, there are still those structural spares lying around that could be used to build a replacement orbiter.

Unfortunately not. IOTL, the spares that became Endeavour were built as part of a compromise whereby NASA agreed not to order a fifth orbiter, but made sure they had enough structural spares before shuttling down the production lines so they could build one should anything happen to one of the four shuttles (as, of course, happened with Challenger). ITTL, part of the deal of getting a fifth orbiter (even a slighlty used one) is that funding for a complete set of spares is not provided. NASA figure they can get by with a fleet of four should the worst happen, so don't fight this to the death, especially considering all the other things they're asking for to get a moon shot.

Frank Borman? Interesting choice, though I see just 4 years on the job there.

Borman was apparently a name considered IOTL, but didn't float to the top (I'm not clear on the reasons). ITTL, I thought it would be a good fit, especially given his views on the importance of beating the Soviets (as seen in the OTL quote at the top of the post). As a side benefit, this is before Eastern Air Lines ran into problems IOTL, so his CV will look a lot better ITTL's 1985 than IOTL.

They great advantage of this profile is it is actually going to deliver US boots on the moon within the decade (Reagan didn't say it but it should be relatively quick to develop) and within a realistic budget profile. The downside is that with the possible exception of the direct return capsule nothing is reused. The other plus side is that even if it is mostly expendable it should be relatively cheap on a per mission basis. It's vulnerable to being abandoned in the nineties when the Soviet competitor is no longer there, but maybe it could be combined with Barmin's moonbase when the Soviet can no longer afford to get there. ISS on the moon? 🤔

The shuttle orbiter launching the crew/ascent module is re-used

So Shuttle C, Skylab 2, A capsule R&D (as BOTH cislunar capsule, Lunar habitat and Crew return vehicle, but without ascent LES), a fifth shuttle that early and a two stage lunar insertion stage? All that on a budget that is... only $850 million higher than IRL 1982...


Yeah something will have to give in, lots of things actually

Keep in mind the FY1982 budget was proposed by the president around Q2 1981, before the Interagency Working Group had reported, so there was no firm programme to request funding for at that point. The administration knew something was coming that would need more cash, so kept the budget stable instead of reducing it (which is what happened IOTL). ITTL most of that extra FY1982 money will go into early definition work for the new programmes. You can be sure that the FY1983 and later requests will be larger.

On the topic of interplaterary probes, and space science in general, I'm afraid to say there will be slim pickings in Part 2. Like NASA in the 1980s, I had to rationalise where to focus my writing effort, and space science lost out to the cool, sexy crewed missions. Hopefully I can redress this imbalance at a later stage.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Surely regolith is no match for dialectical materialism!

Dialectal materialism meet dielectric material-ism

Welcome back, NERVA.

Making lots of people NERVAous about nukes in space.

Oooh boy. As much as I’m all for going back to the moon, “quick and cheap” sounds a lot like “flags and footprints” to my ears. And here’s me pulling for at least a lunar outpost…

Quick and cheap. Yeah.

Also didn't NASA and anybody with a brain already know by this point that anything close to sixty flights a year was a complete no hoper?

Ah, what they knew (or should have known), and what they'd admit are two different things.

the rapid privatisation.....of the legacy expendable launch vehicles that STS was slated to replace.

My memories of the time were that expendable launch vehicles weren't to be privatized but completely abandoned. Firstly because the 'reusable' shuttle was going to be so much 'cheaper', and secondly because they needed to steal every single US payload to get the flight rates up to the numbers needed to make them cheap.
I am not going to insist my memories of 40 years ago are completely accurate....

 

[RanulfC]

My memories of the time were that expendable launch vehicles weren't to be privatized but completely abandoned. Firstly because the 'reusable' shuttle was going to be so much 'cheaper', and secondly because they needed to steal every single US payload to get the flight rates up to the numbers needed to make them cheap.
I am not going to insist my memories of 40 years ago are completely accurate....

Spot on, so your memory is good. Shuttle was to carry everything at a cheaper rate than the expendables but in a bit of a twist it was found that Delta and Atlas still had a commercial 'niche' but they were scheduled to be 'retired' along with everything but the Scout.

Randy

 

[Sasza]

Will the DOD or USAF be tempted by some lower version of the Titan?

A very logical path for NASA, although I am slightly concerned whether the proposed capsule will be too small.

 

[JamesHunter]

Will the DOD or USAF be tempted by some lower version of the Titan?

A very logical path for NASA, although I am slightly concerned whether the proposed capsule will be too small.

Logic was a bit of an issue with NASA in the 1980's. Having bet the farm on the STS (and not understood until to late it was at least two decades to early for reuse to be truly possible) they took along time to see that all those eggs in one basket was a very bad idea. In any case the most powerful Titan can't loft anything much bigger than the MOL and that only into a temporary Earth orbit so its probably not much use for manned flight at this point. Besides the idea is the capsule goes up on Shuttle (at least so far) which should allow something a bit bigger than Apollo.

 

[e of pi]

(and not understood until to late it was at least two decades to early for reuse to be truly possible)

I...really object to this characterization. There was little actual new technology in Falcon 9 that wasn't available in the 1970s, you could argue computers might have been questionably capable of vertical landing (though one can point out Viking, LM, and Surveyor all managed pretty well under more challenging circumstances), but you don't have to land vertically. The problem was the architecture and funding which was provided which required that architecture, not the underlying technology.

Besides the idea is the capsule goes up on Shuttle (at least so far) which should allow something a bit bigger than Apollo.

You can fit something a little larger diameter than Apollo into the Shuttle payload bay, more like 4.5m than 4m of Apollo, but that's not a huge difference, and you have the issue that every kilogram in the capsule has to not just go to lunar orbit and back like Apollo, but to the lunar surface and back, so there's also a lot of pressure on keeping the weight down.

 

[JamesHunter]

I...really object to this characterization. There was little actual new technology in Falcon 9 that wasn't available in the 1970s, you could argue computers might have been questionably capable of vertical landing (though one can point out Viking, LM, and Surveyor all managed pretty well under more challenging circumstances), but you don't have to land vertically. The problem was the architecture and funding which was provided which required that architecture, not the underlying technology.
You can fit something a little larger diameter than Apollo into the Shuttle payload bay, more like 4.5m than 4m of Apollo, but that's not a huge difference, and you have the issue that every kilogram in the capsule has to not just go to lunar orbit and back like Apollo, but to the lunar surface and back, so there's also a lot of pressure on keeping the weight down.

Yeah true I guess but by the time NASA realized what was needed for an actual cheap and working reusable launcher (pretty much what you described in Right side up) it was already to late they were locked into a bucket of bolts that not only could never deliver what they claimed and was barely reusable in anything but the outer hull and was also fundamentally lethal and killed the greater majority of those who have died in the entire space program world wide.

Also if they'd gone for a Saturn based shuttle it would have literally been a matter of putting the bits back together when they wanted to go to the Moon later on as the first and third stages would still be in use and on orbit assembly becomes easy at that point.

 

[RanulfC]

Will the DOD or USAF be tempted by some lower version of the Titan?

By the early 80s it was clear to Air Force leadership, (in no small part to being directly TOLD by both the Carter and now Reagan administrations) that the future was the Shuttle they AF pretty much embraced the idea wholeheartedly. (Really didn't have a choice and worse the OMB was nosing around the supposed "cheap" Titan budgets and asking some awkward questions) So likely not. More so by the mid-80s when the Titan's propellant combination becomes (still likely to happen) and public concern)

Logic was a bit of an issue with NASA in the 1980's. Having bet the farm on the STS (and not understood until to late it was at least two decades to early for reuse to be truly possible) they took along time to see that all those eggs in one basket was a very bad idea. In any case the most powerful Titan can't loft anything much bigger than the MOL and that only into a temporary Earth orbit so its probably not much use for manned flight at this point. Besides the idea is the capsule goes up on Shuttle (at least so far) which should allow something a bit bigger than Apollo.

The "logic" was actually pretty "sound" given the background, (we're seeing the same thing currently with SpaceX* which is why everyone is still paying "alternates" to provide more than one choice) but reuse was perfectly plausible and worked fine for the architecture envisioned. (More so with the addition of the Shuttle C actually) Titan had actually been heavily studied as a basis for a 'reusable' booster technology, (in a large part because most of the boosters in a large part actually survived to land in the Atlantic and the Air Force was having to pay the Navy to 'sink' much of the wreckage) but as it would compete with the Shuttle it was dropped. (The Air Force had always held out hope of getting their own Orbiters after all )

NASA never really gave up on plans to make the STS MORE reusable with Liquid Rocket Boosters to replace the SRBs, (not going to happen as long as the Utah delegation had any say in the matter ) or the construction of possible whole new booster system. They were still hoping for a totally reusable system but there was never enough Congressional and/or public interest in such a move.

Randy
*= SpaceX is currently trying to follow the same "logic" with even less economic justification and much more shaky "reuse" plans