A Sound of Thunder: The Rise of the Soviet Superbooster

[Veblen Fudge]

Some more beautiful renderings and another look at the weak and pathetic Amercanskis. The comment near the end about space scepticism though is worrying to me.

The ranks of Borman’s enemies grew, and he faced growing attacks in the press for a perceived sluggishness in NASA’s response to continued Soviet success. Project Freedom, NASA’s plan to return to the Moon, was moving forward, but while NASA was signing contracts and conducting reviews, the Soviets were continuing with ever-more-impressive Zvezda missions. As NASA made brief sorties to Skylab-B every few months, the Soviets had kept Zarya 3 permanently crewed for almost three years. At a time of ballooning US deficits, what the hell was NASA doing with all that money, anyway?

Mondale - who I assume the Gipper will be running against in '84, has been (unfairly) known as something of a NASA-skeptic ever since the Philips report debacle back in 1967. OTL this was just something else for Reagan to label him as a NASA-hating loser, but here, it could actually play to his strengths.

I'm not saying this'll flip the election, or even swing any real votes, but to have the opposition party candidate advocating fiscal responsibility at a time of obvious American weakness in space can not be a good look for the program.

 

[TheKutKu]

Can't wait to see what TTL's equivalent of the Complementary ELV and Medium ELV launch vehicle programs (Titan IV/Delta II...) are!
At least with TTL NASA accepting the end of the Shuttle's monopoly more easily nobody will have to suffer the proposition of SRB-X or any other SRB-derived LV in the 80s lol.

 

[Sasza]

Shuttle-C has done its job, and that's a good thing, because it means a possible reduction in SRB and ET costs.



I would like to see new ELV vehicles that will replace the Titan much faster. Perhaps this will also speed up work on new engines for LOX and RP-1, and there will be no need to buy from Russia (although there is no RD-170 in this world, but there will be the proven NK-15)

 

[prolemasses]

Second the hope that the Shuttle just keeps the numerical naming system. Really excited to see how Skylab develops! Wonder if it will get its own unofficial call sign soon, like how early ISS flights called it "Alpha".

 

[TimothyC]

That image looks quite familiar.
Great update.

 

[22000 Kevin]

I'm kinda sad that Borman ended up resigning from NASA after Reagan's reelection, I can't really blame him though since the job was obviously being far too stressful, hopefully for the sake of the US Shuttle and lunar programmes his successor does not erode the safety-first culture that Borman has built up...

although there is no RD-170 in this world,

TTL the kerolox Vulkan rocket and the OTL Zenit rockets are currently being developed by Valentin Glushko since the mid 1970s.

With development of his kerolox Vulkan rocket stalled by engine problems and budget cuts, even as Mishin as Kuznetsov reaped plaudits for their moon mission, Glushko’s reputation as an effective Chief Designer was on the line.

Although I'm doubtful that Vulkan will actually have a chance to fly as an alternative to the N-1/Groza rocket since the Soviet military are already cutting its budget, with the OTL engine problems in the development of Energia rocket plaguing it, at least for Glushko only the second stage of the massive rocket requires hydrogen fuel, with kerolox being used for the massive first stage.

Zenit with its RD-170 engine will certainly fly as the replacement for the Proton rocket that the Soviets are trying to retire with the future Slava missions using this rocket.

These amazing 3D models from Nick Stevens gives us a sense of the absolute scale of the Vulkan rockets when compared to the OTL Buran/Energia rockets we historically had.

If Vulkan does fly I can only imagine the absolute confusion from the Western world when the Soviets publicly unveil a SECOND super heavy-lift launch vehicle and soon after unveil their Biakal space shuttles. I can only imagine the West will believe that the Soviets seriously want to build a city on the moon and send a man to Mars, the theory that the space program was responsible for collapsing the Soviet Union will be far more believable and popular in that timeline..

 

[Ry01tank]

Having two heavy lifters on the Soviet side would light a fire up the US's ass, Reagen would have to fund NASA more or America would look like its giving up in space, if the Soviets do do this, it would be expensive and drain the economy as 22000 Kelvin said. Personally i think if Gorbachev and his policies do enter this TL i think the Soviets would still collapse in the 90s (the machine gun independence of countries in the late 80s and early 90s), possibly the Soviet government would stay around if Chernobyl didn't happen.
Not unless hardliners take over and try to take the country into a Stalinist or Krustchev (is that spelled right) direction, which would entail purges and a willingness to shoot people, with good planning and 5 year plans the soviets could fix themselves (depends when the hardliners take over, 80-85 yes, after 90 less of a chance)

The issue with the Soviets is that Brezhnev was good militarily and good on foreign policy and stuff, but horrible with management of his government and people, Andropov was good and planned reforms that Gorbachev later used and added to (Andropov wanted economic reform, Gorbachev more clarity). but by the time Gorbachev tried to implement these changes the Union had tons of issues (rot from the inside)
I think Gorbachevs reforms would have worked had he not had the openness policy, having people realize how much your country sucks when you are trying to fix it makes the issue worse. But the privatization would result in the OTL oligarch problem which is alluded to in the show For All Mankind (soviets land before Apollo 11 and long story short the Soviets are around intact in the 2000's with Gorbachev still in charge with his policies being sucessful (kinda)

One thing to note is that in the 80s the Soviets were trying to go full nuclear in their energy industry, Chernobyl had reactors 5 and 6 in construction when 4 blew up, and had another 6 reactors planned for the complex, Chernobyl fucked alot of things up and not just prestige, it cost alot to deal with and clean up, it ended construction of new reactors and fucked up plans for manufacturing expansion and stuff as a result, there is a big reason why reactors 1 through 3 kept operating in the 80s and into the 90s. I found an ariticle that talked about this and it made me think of a TL with a Green Soviet Union lasting until today

This is just me personally but decommercializing the Shuttle THIS EARLY is a bit of a cop out and wouldn't fly with Congress, up until Challenger NASA sold the Shuttle as the "future" of american launchers, its why other expendebles were dropped, the funding of Enterprise would put more pressure on this. Congress would likely mandate commercial payloads to be a chunk of flights, and Reagan would put in a more "flight happy" director instead of Frank "safety" Borman. I am not saying safety is a bad thing, just that there has to be concessions somewhere.
Not to mention Titan isn't cheap for commerical flights, the Delta-II and Atlas's would be able to fly the payloads, but rebooting the production lines will take some time. not to mention that with no USAF payloads on Shuttle will INFURIATE the USAF and basically axe Vandenberg (USAF was kinda annoyed to be lumped into using shuttle irl)

 

[nixonshead]

I'm kinda sad that Borman ended up resigning from NASA after Reagan's reelection, I can't really blame him though since the job was obviously being far too stressful, hopefully for the sake of the US Shuttle and lunar programmes his successor does not erode the safety-first culture that Borman has built up...


TTL the kerolox Vulkan rocket and the OTL Zenit rockets are currently being developed by Valentin Glushko since the mid 1970s.



Although I'm doubtful that Vulkan will actually have a chance to fly as an alternative to the N-1/Groza rocket since the Soviet military are already cutting its budget, with the OTL engine problems in the development of Energia rocket plaguing it, at least for Glushko only the second stage of the massive rocket requires hydrogen fuel, with kerolox being used for the massive first stage.

Zenit with its RD-170 engine will certainly fly as the replacement for the Proton rocket that the Soviets are trying to retire with the future Slava missions using this rocket.

These amazing 3D models from Nick Stevens gives us a sense of the absolute scale of the Vulkan rockets when compared to the OTL Buran/Energia rockets we historically had.

If Vulkan does fly I can only imagine the absolute confusion from the Western world when the Soviets publicly unveil a SECOND super heavy-lift launch vehicle and soon after unveil their Biakal space shuttles. I can only imagine the West will believe that the Soviets seriously want to build a city on the moon and send a man to Mars, the theory that the space program was responsible for collapsing the Soviet Union will be far more believable and popular in that timeline..

Sorry for the confusion, but ITTL Vulkan is a Proton/Zenit class launcher. Glushko of course has plans for expanding it into a full family, including heavy lifters, but these have not been authorized (and are not likely to be, given N-1’s success).

 

[Sasza]

TTL the kerolox Vulkan rocket and the OTL Zenit rockets are currently being developed by Valentin Glushko since the mid 1970s.

Only here you have refined NK-15/NK-33/NK-35 engines. Which are also mass produced.

The H2/LOX engines were also work, so it can be assumed that by using 5-6 NK-33 engines in the first stage, and RD-57 in the second stage, it would be possible to create a successor to the Proton at a low cost.

 

[Nell_Lucifer]

Wasn't there a proposal for a Kerolox Proton OTL?

 

[Sasza]

Wasn't there a proposal for a Kerolox Proton OTL?

It was. It was called UR-500MK

 

[Garrison]

So to me it seems the USA is once again falling into a false perception of how far ahead the Soviets are, which will doubtless see another spurt of investment until the real balance of technology reasserts itself.

 

[TheKutKu]

This is just me personally but decommercializing the Shuttle THIS EARLY is a bit of a cop out and wouldn't fly with Congress, up until Challenger NASA sold the Shuttle as the "future" of american launchers, its why other expendebles were dropped, the funding of Enterprise would put more pressure on this. Congress would likely mandate commercial payloads to be a chunk of flights, and Reagan would put in a more "flight happy" director instead of Frank "safety" Borman. I am not saying safety is a bad thing, just that there has to be concessions somewhere.
Not to mention Titan isn't cheap for commerical flights, the Delta-II and Atlas's would be able to fly the payloads, but rebooting the production lines will take some time. not to mention that with no USAF payloads on Shuttle will INFURIATE the USAF and basically axe Vandenberg (USAF was kinda annoyed to be lumped into using shuttle irl)

The shuttle isn't being decommercialised, it's just that its monopoly on commercial launches is ending... Which is what happened IRL in 1984 with the Space Commercialisation Act.

 

[jlckansas]

Since IOTL they used Titan II that were took out of service and repurposed them to launch vehicles for space, would the USAF be looking at them as a way to get some of their payloads to orbit? You already had the infrastructure at Vandenburg and Kennedy to handle them and would just need to change some of the support structure to bring the program on line.

 

[22000 Kevin]

Sorry for the confusion, but ITTL Vulkan is a Proton/Zenit class launcher. Glushko of course has plans for expanding it into a full family, including heavy lifters, but these have not been authorized (and are not likely to be, given N-1’s success).

Oh okay.

The reason why I assumed that OTL Vulkan was happening was because of the line from a Part 1 paragraph that mentioned that Glushko has plans to expand his RLA rocket family to include a heavy launch vehicle that would rival the N-1.

If I had read the paragraph again I would've noticed that what Glushko was actually developing a modular kerolox rocket to just replace the Proton booster and not competent against the N-1.

Speaking about the Proton replacement, what ever happened to Mishin's plans for the N11 launcher, since I'm certain this is the first and only time it ever gets mentioned in this entire story.

By mid-1973, with the MKBS and N1-L3M programs both experiencing delays, engineers at TsKBEM became concerned that the lack of large payloads for the N-1 in the near term may leave it vulnerable to cancellation. These fears were heightened following Glusko’s appointment as head of TsKBM and his plans to not only accelerate the Almaz space station program, but to replace the Proton booster with a new modular kerolox design. This would leave MKBS vulnerable to replacement by Almaz, while a new Proton replacement threatened Mishin’s plans for the N11 launcher in the same class. Glushko’s ambitions to expand his RLA rocket family to include a heavy launch vehicle could even prove a challenge to the N-1.

So yeah I'm apparently cursed/blessed with having an impeccable memory for remembering random lines of dialogue in Alternative history timelines... Ironically I'm the person who usually forgets things around him, so why I have this ability to remember all this stuff in AH.com is a mystery to me.

 

[Ash19256]

So yeah I'm apparently cursed/blessed with having an impeccable memory for remembering random lines of dialogue in Alternative history timelines... Ironically I'm the person who usually forgets things around him, so why I have this ability to remember all this stuff in AH.com is a mystery to me.

My guess would be that N11 was sacrificed so Mishin's design bureau could focus on making N-1 reliable enough for regular missions, as well as getting the support for the upgrades it desperately needs to keep up with weight growth on future payloads - as well as limited engine output from Kuznetsov's bureau, meaning that trying to replace Proton with a rocket that uses the same engines as N-1 wasn't industrially practical.

 

[Sasza]

My guess would be that N11 was sacrificed so Mishin's design bureau could focus on making N-1 reliable enough for regular missions, as well as getting the support for the upgrades it desperately needs to keep up with weight growth on future payloads - as well as limited engine output from Kuznetsov's bureau, meaning that trying to replace Proton with a rocket that uses the same engines as N-1 wasn't industrially practical.

We are still talking about producing almost a hundred engines a year. If you want to enable Baikal to take off at least 4 times, that gives you almost 120 engines a year.

So increasing the production capacity of these engines or spreading them to other plants than building a new production line for a new category of engines.

 

[nixonshead]

Second the hope that the Shuttle just keeps the numerical naming system. Really excited to see how Skylab develops! Wonder if it will get its own unofficial call sign soon, like how early ISS flights called it "Alpha".

The simple numerical naming will continue to be used for STS.

That image looks quite familiar.
Great update.

That launch shot has become a bit of a signature image for me (see also here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here or here!)

So yeah I'm apparently cursed/blessed with having an impeccable memory for remembering random lines of dialogue in Alternative history timelines... Ironically I'm the person who usually forgets things around him, so why I have this ability to remember all this stuff in AH.com is a mystery to me.

I tend to forget stuff that I have written, so I am in awe of your memory The text you quote is fully accurate - it was (and is) Glushko's ambition to expand Vulkan into a full family, including an N-1 killer. Whether he will gain the resources to realise those ambitions is another matter.

My guess would be that N11 was sacrificed so Mishin's design bureau could focus on making N-1 reliable enough for regular missions, as well as getting the support for the upgrades it desperately needs to keep up with weight growth on future payloads - as well as limited engine output from Kuznetsov's bureau, meaning that trying to replace Proton with a rocket that uses the same engines as N-1 wasn't industrially practical.

Glushko got the Proton-class replacement along with Zarya/MKBS as part of the horse-trading that saw Mishin lead the high profile moon shot and shuttle projects. It doesn't make much engineering or economic sense to have Glushko develop a separate kerolox engine and launcher (apart from dissimilar redundancy, I suppose), but it's what worked politically.

Incidentally, for those interested in N11, there is some new information (and images) on a 1970s version using the Blok-Sr upper stage at Nick Steven's Soviet Space Substack.


Sorry no Interlude this week. I had one planned on the upgrades for Enterprise, but didn't get it completed in time, and it anyway would pretty much just cover information that can be found from OTL sources (mainly, of course, Space Shuttle: Developing an Icon”, by Dennis R. Jenkins). So we'll skip straight to Post 5 on Friday.

Happy holidays!

 

[Nell_Lucifer]

Glushko got the Proton-class replacement along with Zarya/MKBS as part of the horse-trading that saw Mishin lead the high profile moon shot and shuttle projects. It doesn't make much engineering or economic sense to have Glushko develop a separate kerolox engine and launcher (apart from dissimilar redundancy, I suppose), but it's what worked politically.

Well the Soviets had from what I've seen a policy of always having two manufacturers compete with similar products. Though, wouldn't he attempt to push for his higher performance Pentaborane engines at least as an upper stage? It would be safer, I guess, than flourine or current hypergolic fuels at least.

 

[TheKutKu]

Well the Soviets had from what I've seen a policy of always having two manufacturers compete with similar products. Though, wouldn't he attempt to push for his higher performance Pentaborane engines at least as an upper stage? It would be safer, I guess, than flourine or current hypergolic fuels at least.

The source for the RD-270M is... dubious. Of course pentaborane in propellants was studied, including by glushko, but for this one it's dubious.
Beside what flew in the 60s wouldn't in the 80s.