Across the high frontier: a Big Gemini space TL
- Thread starter Archibald
- Start date
With the same issue as before.
When using NK-15/NK-33 Engines, the N1 Block B can lift the N11 off the round easily enough. But, the Block V needs more engines, or more powerful engines to get its T/M ratio past 1:1 early enough to effectively get the payload into orbit (I get less than 0.55:1 at the start of the Block V Burn climbing to 1.28:1 with my rough numbers). That and the Block G was built not for LEO Insertion but BEO burns, so it too needs substantial changes AFAIK.
That's the main reason why in Red Star, the N11 received uprated Block V engines with twice the power and a new third stage so it could be used properly as a Proton-equivalent LV.
And the N111? I don't see that even getting off the launch pad, never mind into orbit.
Archibald
Banned
Ok, I understand your criticism, this will be corrected.
I'll check the N-111 versus Soyuz.
Well, you're right for the N-111. Thant thing could replace the Tsyklon but not the Soyuz.
So thanks to Bahamut input interesting things will happen.
I had planned a transfer of the Soyuz on the N-111, but that one is too small. So the plain old Semiorka might solidier on longer. She will hard to learn how to ferry a Soyuz much higher than the Salyut orbits.
The giganomours MKBS space base will be orbit Earth +/-300 miles high - but the Soyuz can't really climb that high (not before the Mir / ISS days OTL)
Incidentally, I've asked Concured to give a try at the MKBS on Blender.
And since Glushko as been given the TKS (which can make stunning orbital manoeuvers...
What happened is that I believed that all four stages of the N-1 (A-B-V-G) all used the powerful NK-33. But the upper stand engines are weaked, so indeed that cause problem for the smaller rocket...
But the S-IVB did both jobs for the Saturn IB and Saturn V, and that worked fine.
I'll check the N-111 versus Soyuz.
Well, you're right for the N-111. Thant thing could replace the Tsyklon but not the Soyuz.
So thanks to Bahamut input interesting things will happen.
I had planned a transfer of the Soyuz on the N-111, but that one is too small. So the plain old Semiorka might solidier on longer. She will hard to learn how to ferry a Soyuz much higher than the Salyut orbits.
The giganomours MKBS space base will be orbit Earth +/-300 miles high - but the Soyuz can't really climb that high (not before the Mir / ISS days OTL)
Incidentally, I've asked Concured to give a try at the MKBS on Blender.
And since Glushko as been given the TKS (which can make stunning orbital manoeuvers...
What happened is that I believed that all four stages of the N-1 (A-B-V-G) all used the powerful NK-33. But the upper stand engines are weaked, so indeed that cause problem for the smaller rocket...
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one moment
were is third stage of the N111 ?
so far i know consist the N111 out
Block V with modified with 8 or 12 NK-9 engine (depend on source in internet)
Block G
Third stage is Second stage of R-9A ICBM
R-9A second stage
engine RD-0106
thrust 304 kN, sip 330 sec, burn time 140 sec
mass 15,900 kg to 2,500 kg
According this source it would weight 200 tons an bring 5 tons into low orbit of 185 km at 52°
i made calculation for 2001: ASTO
the N111 would have launch mass of 275 tons and need nine NK-9 engine in first stage for liftoff
with R-9A second stage, it could bring 7 tons in 185 km orbit at 52°
were is third stage of the N111 ?
so far i know consist the N111 out
Block V with modified with 8 or 12 NK-9 engine (depend on source in internet)
Block G
Third stage is Second stage of R-9A ICBM
R-9A second stage
engine RD-0106
thrust 304 kN, sip 330 sec, burn time 140 sec
mass 15,900 kg to 2,500 kg
According this source it would weight 200 tons an bring 5 tons into low orbit of 185 km at 52°
i made calculation for 2001: ASTO
the N111 would have launch mass of 275 tons and need nine NK-9 engine in first stage for liftoff
with R-9A second stage, it could bring 7 tons in 185 km orbit at 52°
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The S-IV first fired very late in the Ascent-to-Orbit burn, and only needed to add another 1,000 +/- 50m/s to permit a stable parking orbit, and with about 0.6:1 for its T/M Ratio at the start IIRC.
Without more power - say with, a second NK-39 - the Block G of the N1 won't get you more than 0.5:1 to begin with.
TKS-N11 however, renders the need for Soyuz-N111 kinda moot.
Europe in space (10)
Archibald
Banned
Skylab second life
August 15, 1973
ESA is now entirely committed to the space tug program. First flight has to happen in 1976, followed by a second mission the year after. The Agena space tug will be boosted by the lower half of France national launcher Diamant – the L-17 “Amethyste”.
The space tug however needs a target spacecraft – and NASA and ESA decided that Skylab would fit the bill. So ESA will loft a couple of space tugs to Skylab orbit and practice extensive manoeuvers, notably simulated approaches. Because the Agena isn't piloted, and because Skylab is at the end of its useful life, ESA and NASA decided they would atempt a docking. The Agena space tugs will thus carry Apollo obsolete probe-and-drogue system compatible with the old orbital workshop.
Consideration is currently given about carrying Canada's robotic arm; the Agena would grapple Skylab and ram itself into Skylab frontal docking ring.
Grappling may be necessary since Skylab lacks a beacon on which the Agena LIDAR system could home. Such a beacon might be installed by the last Apollo crew to left the orbital workshop, but time is running out pretty fast.
August 15, 1973
ESA is now entirely committed to the space tug program. First flight has to happen in 1976, followed by a second mission the year after. The Agena space tug will be boosted by the lower half of France national launcher Diamant – the L-17 “Amethyste”.
The space tug however needs a target spacecraft – and NASA and ESA decided that Skylab would fit the bill. So ESA will loft a couple of space tugs to Skylab orbit and practice extensive manoeuvers, notably simulated approaches. Because the Agena isn't piloted, and because Skylab is at the end of its useful life, ESA and NASA decided they would atempt a docking. The Agena space tugs will thus carry Apollo obsolete probe-and-drogue system compatible with the old orbital workshop.
Consideration is currently given about carrying Canada's robotic arm; the Agena would grapple Skylab and ram itself into Skylab frontal docking ring.
Grappling may be necessary since Skylab lacks a beacon on which the Agena LIDAR system could home. Such a beacon might be installed by the last Apollo crew to left the orbital workshop, but time is running out pretty fast.
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Soviets in space (12)
Archibald
Banned
More from the Soviets
The Poisk commission
By the beginning of the 1970s the Soviet Ministry of Defence initiated a research programme called Poisk ('Search') to look into future launch needs and vehicles.
Carried out by TsNII-50, the Ministry.s main space research institute, the study was completed in early 1973 and concluded that it was necessary to build a new family of dedicated space launch vehicles in four payload categories:
light rockets (payload up to 3 tons)
medium-lift rockets (10-12 tons)
heavy-lift rockets (30-35 tons) and
superheavy rockets (100 tons and more).
Current vehicles in the class were the Tsyklon, Soyuz, Proton and N-1 - very dissimilar, antiquated, with half of them using the dreaded storable propellants.
The dream of an universal family of boosters was an old one, never achieved. Korolev, Yangel, Chelomei all had failed to sell the Soviet leadership a complete family of boosters.
Mishin was ready to try again from the N-1, while Glushko had been given Chelomei empire and designed his own, new family of launch vehicles, the RLAs.
This new family of launch vehicles was to have two more characteristics.
First, in order to cut costs to the maximum extent possible, it would use unified rocket stages and engines.
Second, it would rely on non-toxic, ecologically clean propellants, with preference being given to liquid oxygen and kerosene.
What played a major role in that second rule were a series of catastrophic low-altitude Proton failures that contaminated wide stretches of land at or near the Baykonur cosmodrome. In one of the major mishap, April 2, 1969 in Baikonur the State Commission had had to run away from a deadly cloud of corrosive propellants.
The basic conclusions of the study were approved on 3 November 1973 at a meeting of the Chief Directorate of Space Assets (GUKOS), the 'space branch' of the Strategic Rocket Forces.
Although not stated specifically, the eventual goal of the programme seems to have been to phase out all existing missile-derived launch vehicles - the Tsyklon and Proton.
At first glance it seemed to Mishin that the N-1 could be cut in shorter and shorter rockets that would ultimately fill the Poisk four categories.
But, as usual, the devil was in the details. While it worked not too bad for the heavy lifter (and Proton-slayer) the N-11, the smaller two vehicles needed more modifications.
The N-111 had its share of issues, notably that it fell in payload between Tsyklon and Soyuz. Critically, it was not powerful enough to lift the Soyuz workshorse.
It essentially lacked a third stage, as suggested by Mishkaelvanski, one of Mishin deputies. With a decent third stage it could certainly loft the Soyuz.
The last member of the family - the Tsyklon class launcher or N-1111 (!) was even more marginal. A brand new first stage would have to be used, probably build using the Block V tooling with a pair of NK-33, eventually with a Block G second stage and a Block D stage 3.
The Poisk commission
By the beginning of the 1970s the Soviet Ministry of Defence initiated a research programme called Poisk ('Search') to look into future launch needs and vehicles.
Carried out by TsNII-50, the Ministry.s main space research institute, the study was completed in early 1973 and concluded that it was necessary to build a new family of dedicated space launch vehicles in four payload categories:
light rockets (payload up to 3 tons)
medium-lift rockets (10-12 tons)
heavy-lift rockets (30-35 tons) and
superheavy rockets (100 tons and more).
Current vehicles in the class were the Tsyklon, Soyuz, Proton and N-1 - very dissimilar, antiquated, with half of them using the dreaded storable propellants.
The dream of an universal family of boosters was an old one, never achieved. Korolev, Yangel, Chelomei all had failed to sell the Soviet leadership a complete family of boosters.
Mishin was ready to try again from the N-1, while Glushko had been given Chelomei empire and designed his own, new family of launch vehicles, the RLAs.
This new family of launch vehicles was to have two more characteristics.
First, in order to cut costs to the maximum extent possible, it would use unified rocket stages and engines.
Second, it would rely on non-toxic, ecologically clean propellants, with preference being given to liquid oxygen and kerosene.
What played a major role in that second rule were a series of catastrophic low-altitude Proton failures that contaminated wide stretches of land at or near the Baykonur cosmodrome. In one of the major mishap, April 2, 1969 in Baikonur the State Commission had had to run away from a deadly cloud of corrosive propellants.
The basic conclusions of the study were approved on 3 November 1973 at a meeting of the Chief Directorate of Space Assets (GUKOS), the 'space branch' of the Strategic Rocket Forces.
Although not stated specifically, the eventual goal of the programme seems to have been to phase out all existing missile-derived launch vehicles - the Tsyklon and Proton.
At first glance it seemed to Mishin that the N-1 could be cut in shorter and shorter rockets that would ultimately fill the Poisk four categories.
But, as usual, the devil was in the details. While it worked not too bad for the heavy lifter (and Proton-slayer) the N-11, the smaller two vehicles needed more modifications.
The N-111 had its share of issues, notably that it fell in payload between Tsyklon and Soyuz. Critically, it was not powerful enough to lift the Soyuz workshorse.
It essentially lacked a third stage, as suggested by Mishkaelvanski, one of Mishin deputies. With a decent third stage it could certainly loft the Soyuz.
The last member of the family - the Tsyklon class launcher or N-1111 (!) was even more marginal. A brand new first stage would have to be used, probably build using the Block V tooling with a pair of NK-33, eventually with a Block G second stage and a Block D stage 3.
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Molten Salt Reactors
Archibald
Banned
October 1973 – February 1974
...In response to American aid to Israel, on October 16, 1973, OPEC raised the posted price of oil by 70%, to $5.11 a barrel. The following day, oil ministers agreed to the embargo, a cut in production by five percent from September's output and to continue to cut production in five percent increments until their economic and political objectives were met.
On October 19, Nixon requested Congress to appropriate $2.2 billion in emergency aid to Israel, including $1.5 billion in outright grants. Libya immediately announced it would embargo oil shipments to the United States. Saudi Arabia and the other Arab oil-producing states joined the embargo on October 20, 1973. At their Kuwait meeting, OPEC proclaimed the embargo that curbed exports to various countries and blocked all oil deliveries to the US as a "principal hostile country".
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"...before too many years have passed, corner gasoline stations may be replaced by ammonia or methanol stations
Notwithstanding the new oil fields in Alaska, some sort of synthetic fuel is inevitable if a synthetic fuel could be manufactured cheaply enough and if it could be stored and transported with safety, the modifications to our transport industry would be rather minor
Gasoline has always been abundant and cheap in the United States. Despite this fact, the United States Army seriously considered "energy depots" in the 60's. The basic objective was simplification of fuel logistics by switching to fuels that could be synthesized on the spot from air and water. Hydrogen and ammonia were the primary fuels considered. Hydrogen was to be derived from water through electrolysis, using electricity generated in a mobile station built around a small nuclear reactor. Liquid hydrogen would be used built around a small nuclear reactor and used directly as fuel or, more likely, converted into ammonia, which is easier to handle. The fact that the energy depot and the host of vehicles it supported would not pollute the atmosphere was not an important consideration.
The modern version of the energy depot would be useful in two ways. First, because it would greatly relieve urban pollution and, second, because eventually gasoline will have to be replaced as our primary vehicle fuel regardless of environmental considerations
When petroleum becomes scarce, perhaps half a century from now, nuclear heat can be employed to gasify coal and further extend the sway of fossil-fueled internal combustion engines and their turbine counterparts. All that is needed is a source of electricity to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen. Nitrogen, if needed, would be taken directly from the atmosphere. If an easily handled fuel, such as ammonia, is synthesized, the fuel plants could be located well away from city centers.
Most of us think of ammonia as pungent and rather disagreeable, hydrogen has a reputation for being explosive and dangerous. The chemical and space industries, however, have tamed both fuels in recent years. In some ways, anhydrous ammonia is just as safe to handle as gasoline; and liquid hydrogen is becoming common as a high- performance rocket fuel.
Ammonia is most often encountered (as far as the nose is concerned) in household cleaners. It is less well known that fully 80 percent of the world's fertilizer requirements are met by synthesizing ammonia from natural gas and steam. It is less well known that fully 80 percent of the world's fertilizer requirements are met by synthesizing ammonia from natural gas and steam. Roughly 40 million tons of ammonia are consumed annually in agriculture.Consumption increases almost exponentially. Thus, we can conceive of ammonia production plants that will "fuel" both farms and cities...
Source: Man and atom: building a new world through nuclear technology, Glenn T. Seaborg - 1971.
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Seven U.S. Senators, all members of the Senate Commerce Committee (the delegation included Vance Hartke, Howard Cannon, Frank Moss, James Pearson, Howard Baker, Glenn Beall, and Robert Griffin) meet for more than three hours with Leonid Brezhnev today, April 22, 1973.
Senator Cannon (D.-Nev.) met with Sergey S. Pavlov, Chief Administrator for Foreign Relations, USSR Ministry of Civil Aviation, as well as various staff personnel.
Senator Baker (R.-Tenn.) met with Andrey M. Petrosynants (sic), chairman of the State Committee for Utilization of Atomic Energy.
While the Senators had requested a meeting with Brezhnev, none expected such a lengthy visit. Newsmen present during a session before the talks said Brezhnev was in a jovial mood greeting the seven senators
Are you going to report back to the President, Brezhnev asked Sen Vance Hartke the leader of the group.
Not only the President but the Congress Hartke replied.
Hartke said the group had seen some of Moscow in addition to meeting with Soviet officials since their arrival last Thursday .
According to Senator Baker, Secretary Brezhnev "talked very frankly and didn't evade any issues, including the Jackson Amendment and the Jewish question."
The talk covered the development of trade and a number of other facets of Soviet-American relations. General Secretary Brezhnev noted the Soviet Union's readiness to broaden and deepen trade and economic ties with the United States, and put them on a long-term basis. He stressed that such ties, as well as others, must rest on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. The U.S. Senators, in turn, expressed considerable interest in developing trade and other forms of economic relations between the USSR and the USA.
Among those participating in the discussion were Andrei Gromyko, member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR; Nikolai Patolichev, Minister of Foreign Trade of the USSR, and Andrei Brezhnev.
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The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) at Oak Ridge nuclear Laboratory, Tennessee operates at around 650 degree Celsius. Future MSR operating temperature will belimited only by material considerations. As materials improve, the temperature can be raised, and the thermal efficiency still further improved. At 850 degree C, we can disassociate hydrogen from water efficiently and produce hydrogen-based fuels.
Source: Report on the MSRE - letter, Oak Ridge director Alvin Weinberg to Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Glen Seaborg - 1968
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"One significant military effort of the 1960s was the Army's NuclearPowered Energy Depot - an early experiment in the hydrogen economy, according to a paper international hydrogen conference, dubbed The Hydrogen Economy Miami Energy (THEME) held in Miami, March 1974.
"Because of increased mechanization, petroleum supply has become one of the major problems of military logistics, especially in Army operations where small, dispersed energy demands often necessitate an extensive, vulnerable fuel supply complex. The nuclear powered energy depot, conceived as a potential solution to the problem, will utilize a nuclear reactor to produce a chemical fuel for vehicle and aircraft engines. The energy depot, logistically independent for a year, would operate with or near the consumer in the field and considerably broaden Army capabilities
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"In November 1963, an Army study submitted to the Department of Defense (DOD) proposed employing a military compact reactor (MCR) as the power source for a nuclear-powered energy depot, which was being considered as a means of producing synthetic fuels in a combat zone for use in military vehicles. MCR studies, which had begun in 1955, grew out of the Transportation Corps' interest in using nuclear energy to power heavy, overland cargo haulers in remote areas. These studies investigated various reactor and vehicle concepts, including a small liquid-metal-cooled reactor, but ultimately the concept proved impractical.
The energy depot, however, was an attempt to solve the logistics problem of supplying fuel to military vehicles on the battlefield. While nuclear power could not supply energy directly to individual vehicles, the MCR could provide power to manufacture, under field conditions, a synthetic fuel as a substitute for conventional carbon-based fuels.
The nuclear power plant would be combined with a fuel production system to turn readily available elements such as hydrogen or nitrogen into fuel, which then could be used as a substitute for gasoline or diesel fuel in cars, trucks, and other vehicles. Of the fuels that could be produced from air and water, hydrogen and ammonia offer the best possibilities as substitutes for petroleum.
By electrolysis or high- temperature heat, water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen and the hydrogen then used in engines or fuel cells. Alternatively, nitrogen can be produced through the liquefaction and fractional distillation of air and then combined with hydrogen to form ammonia as a fuel for internal-combustion engines. Consideration also was given to using nuclear reactors to generate electricity to charge batteries for electric-powered vehicles—a development contingent on the development of suitable battery technology.
By 1966, the practicality of the energy depot remained in doubt because of questions about the cost-effectiveness of its current and projected technology. The Corps of Engineers concluded that, although feasible, the energy depot would require equipment that probably would not be available during the next decade. As a result, further development of the MCR and the energy depot was suspended until they became economically attractive and technologically possible."
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To: Howard H. Baker, Jr., V.S. Senate, Room 2107, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.
Dear Senator Baker,
Thank you for your letter of February 9, 1973, concerning the planned termination of the Molten Salt Breeder Reactor (MSBR) and the radioisotopes development programs at the Atomic Energy Commission's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
The decision to terminate the MSBR was taken after careful consideration of the backup efforts to the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) program. The LMFBR, as you know, represents the President's top-priority program to meet the growing national needs for clean energy and will require large Government expenditures to accomplish the President's objective of successful demonstration by 1980.
In light of the current budget stringency, it was decided that of the two backup efforts the MSBR was the less promising and would require very large future expenditures for completion.
We are not unaware of the difficulties imposed on the affected personnel as a result of terminating these programs at ORNL. However, we think that the impact of these decisions will be minimized by the increased FY 1974 funding for uranium enrichment activities at Oak Ridge and as a result of the decision to build the large LMFBR demonstration plant adjacent to the Oak Ridge reservation. We appreciate the opportunity of being able to provide this information, which we hope will be useful to you.
Sincerely, Frederic V. Malek, Deputy Director.
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To: Melvin Price, chairman, Joint Committee on Atomic energy
Washington, DC
Dear Mel,
During my visit to the Soviet Union in April 1973, I had an opportunity to discuss nuclear power developments with Professor Andronik M. Petrosyants, Chairman, USSR State Committee on the Utilization of Atomic Energy.
He specifically asked me about our efforts in molten salt reactor development.
He indicated his interest in the concept by stating that in his view the molten salt reactor is an excellent area for cooperation between our two countries - much like the Apollo-Soyuz docking.
He seems to be very open to international cooperation, repeatedly citing excellent relations with past AEC Chairman Glenn Seaborg.
In view of the potential of the reactor concept and the opportunity to benefit by an exchange of information, should such agreement be reached, I urge that the Committee authorize the necessary funds to continue this effort at a effort at a reasonable pace.
Sincerely yours,
Howard H. Baker, Jr - United States Senator from Tennessee – May 1973
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BIOGRAPHICAL DATA
WILLIAM A. ANDERS
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
1973-Present.—Commissioner, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Appointed by the President with Senate confirmation. Responsible along with four other Commissioners for national programs of nuclear energy and weapons R&D and regulation for public health and safety.
Alternate U.S. Representative to the Seventh General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, in September 1973.
Chairman of the U.S. Delegation of the U.S./U.S.S.R. Committee on Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy established under Article 5 of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Atomic Energy Agreement of June 21, 1973.
1969-1973
Executive Secretary, National Aeronautics and Space Council. Appointed by the President with Senate confirmation as director of an independent agency within the Executive Office of the President. Participated as a senior member of U.S. negotiating teams developing programs with the U.S.S.R., Japan, and Europe. Acted as a spokesman to Congress and industry on many R&D policy areas. Directed extensive policy studies in such fields as applications satellites, the aerospace and air transport industries, foreign military sales, international cooperation in space^ and launcher licensing. Worked with the Vice President, Cabinet officers, key White House staff members, and agency heads to insure successful implementation of Presidential policy throughout the aeronautics and space fields.
1964-1969 – NASA. Engineering duties—Gemini and Apollo spaceraft responsibilities for environmental control systems design, test, and procedures.
Space Operations duties
Back-up crew for Gemini 11; Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 8 (1st lunar flight) - spacecraft systems experiments specialist; Back-up Command Module Pilot for Apollo 11 (1st lunar landing).
1962-1964.—Nuclear Engineer—USAF Officer.
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" In January 1968 Robert Seamans resigned from NASA to become a visiting professor at MIT. During that period at MIT, Seamans also served as a consultant to the administrator of NASA. In 1969 he became Secretary of the United States Air Force, serving until 1973.
In May 1973, at the time of Seamans's resignation to become president of the National Academy of Engineering, President Richard M. Nixon said that his administration was most fortunate to have had a person of Seamans's leadership and managerial ability directing the development of sophisticated new aircraft and helping to improve U.S. missile systems. Nixon credited Seamans with keeping the Air Force modernization program costs so very close to projected estimates and for creating an environment in which people serving in the Air Force believed they could realize their potential.
Seamans served as president of the National Academy of Engineering until December 1974, when he became the first administrator of the new Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), a post he held until 1977 and the creation of the Departement of Energy.
The ERDA is a byproduct of the Atomic Energy Commission breaking up. It had been decided the monolithic commission could no longer handle both promotion and safety of nuclear power, two goals that had become mutually exclusive.
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“Despite emphatic denial by NASA Deputy Administrator George Low, rumors have circulated that the Lewis Research Center would sever what is now a very tenuous connection with NASA and become part of the new Energy Research and Development Administration, where the major part of its research programs were concentrated.
The ERDA succeeded the controversed Atomic Energy Commission, and coincidently his director Robert Seamans was NASA deputy director until 1969.
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"The Senate has confirmed the appointment of Robert Seamans Jr. as chief of the new Energy Research and Development Administration. Seamans, 56, is a former Air Force secretary and deputy administrator of the space agency. The Senate on Thursday also approved by voice vote and without debate the nomination of former astronaut William Anders as a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
There is a practical logic to the appointment of veteran NASA officials to the energy and nuclear administrations. As Congress put it, "The urgency of the nation's critical energy problems will require a commitment similar to that of the Apollo project. It will require that the Nation undertake, at a minimum, a ten-year $20,000,000,000 research development and demonstration program including a greatly expanded effort in nonnuclear energy technologies."
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...William Anders for his part is a team player, accustomed to situations in which a great deal depends on cooperation and obedience. In the formless, directionless Atomic Energy Commission of 1973, he stepped into what should have been the chain of command.
According to Anders himself
"On June 21, 1973 I become the Chairman of the newly created U.S. Delegation of the U.S./U.S.S.R. Committee on Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy - established under Article 5 of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Atomic Energy Agreement enacted that day.
Commissar Andronik Petrosyants and I, David Anders, were the cochairmen.
The first year the Soviets came in America; during the second we traveled to the Soviet Union. For some unknown reasons, every time that I and Robert Seamans met that Petrosyants, he spoke about a so-called Molten Salt Reactor and insisted heavily we should have a joint program. So did Petrosyants deputy Morozov.
Their insistance picked my curiosity - what the hell was that molten salt reactor, and why were the Soviets so excited by it ?"
I come to understood that Soviet interest for molten salt reactor was the result of a visit by Tennessee Senator Howard Baker in April 1973. The Molten Salt reactor in Oak Ridge nuclear laboratory pet project. And Oak Ridge is located in Tennessee... so it is Baker job to defend Oak Ridge bread and butter programs."
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In 1970 with the molten salt reactor starved of funds I had declared that Oak Ridge was sufficiently interested in the concept that if there were anyone anywhere, including the Soviet Union or Red China that was going to build a molten salt reactor, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory would be interested. The next step is more important than who makes it. Indeed the times had changed; in the era of détente, the Soviets were a bit less the ennemy and as concerned as we were about proliferation.
So I had my friend Howard Baker pitching the molten salt reactor to them during a trip to the Soviet Union in April 1973. In fact I prepared a true sale pitch he was to deliver to the Soviets.
Not only Baker insisted on the proliferation aspects; by making the MSR a joint project with the Soviets we also made it slightly more visible on the agenda.Of course that was a risky business.
"We are not developing a thorium cycle in the Soviet Union and for the time being we are not prepared to deal with one," Ivan Morozov, deputy chairman of the State Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, later said. It explained why his superior, Petrosyants, had been so eager to cooperation on Molten Salt Reactors - much like us, most of Soviet nuclear money was pumped into their breeder program. International cooperation would provide a breath of fresh air to other programs !
Of course all this didn't went very far, at least at the beginning.
Then, the next year, in 1974 things started to move in a pretty unexpected direction.
Baker sale pitch impressed Petrosyants enough he discussed the matter with his American counterparts – William Anders first (before the AEC was disbanded), then Robert Seamans (after the ERDA was created).
Coincidentally both were former NASA officials; and at the time the space agency was actively cooperating with the Soviets to link their Soyuz to an Apollo.
It also happened that at the time NASA own nuclear lab, the Lewis Research Center, was being transferred to Seamans energy agency.
The end result of all this was that Anders, followed by Seamans, decided to ask NASA-Lewis nuclear scientists their opinion over Molten Salt Reactor technology. To mask their intentions they disguised the study under application of the reactor to the space program. With or without the Soviets, in summer 1976 Lewis was given a contract to study potential of the molten salt reactor for space applications.
Some weeks passed and then Seamans called me. He told me the NASA nuclear scientists were very excited. The molten salt reactor, they told Seamans, was just perfect for space – it had high power densities, high temperature operation without pressurization, high fuel burn up and plenty of other characteristics that were just ideal for a space fission system.
To make a long story short, fluoride-salt mixtures suitable for use in power reactors have melting points in the temperature range 850 to 900°F and are sufficiently compatible with certain nickel-base alloys to assure long life for reactor components at temperatures up to 1300°F.
Thus the natural, optimum operating temperature for a molten-salt-fueled reactor is such that the molten salt is a suitable heat source for a modern steam power plant. The principal advantages of the molten-salt system, other than high temperature, in comparison with one or more of the other fluid-fuel systems are (1) low-pressure operation, (2) stability of the liquid under radiation, (3) high solubility of uranium and thorium (as fluorides) in molten-salt mixtures, and (4) resistance to corrosion of the structural materials that does not depend on oxide or other film formation.
The molten-salt system has the usual benefits attributed to fluid-fuel systems. The principal advantages over solid-fuel-element systems are (1) a high negative temperature coefficient of reactivity, (2) a lack of radiation damage that can limit fuel burnup, (3) the possibility of continuous fission-product removal, (4) the avoidance of the expense of fabricating new fuel elements, and (5) the possibility of adding makeup fuel as needed, which precludes the need for providing excess reactivity.
The high negative temperature coefficient and the lack of excess reactivity make possible a reactor, without control rods, which automatically adjusts its power in response to changes of the electrical load. The lack of excess reactivity also leads to a reactor that is not endangered by nuclear power excursions.
That, in a nutshell, is why it made a fantastic space power system.
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Udet said, “We tried to shut down. But the moderator was too far out of the core to have any immediate effect. The hydrogen in the core and the jacket boiled quickly and started to expand…”
“And now you’ve got a runaway,” Muldoon continued. “Because the reactor was designed with a positive temperature coefficient.”
Michaels sighed and locked his hands behind his head. “Just pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Muldoon grinned tightly. “I know. It took me a while to figure this stuff out. Look: suppose the temperature of your core rises. And suppose that the core is designed so that when it heats up, the reactivity drops — that is, the reaction rate automatically falls. That’s what’s meant by a ‘negative temperature coefficient.’ In that case you have a negative feedback loop, and your reaction falls off, and the temperature is damped down.”
“Okay. It’s kind of self-correcting.”
“That’s right; the whole thing is stable. That’s how they design civilian reactors. But in the case of NERVA, that coefficient was positive, at least for some of the temperature range. So when the temperature went up, the reactivity went up, too—”
“And the rate of fission increased, leading to a further temperature rise.”
“And so on. Yes.”
Michaels glared at Udet. “I can see the fucking headlines now, Hans. Why the hell did we fly an unstable reactor?”
Udet sat forward, his face pale, a muscle in his neck rope-taut with anger. “You must understand that we are not building a reactor to supply domestic electricity, here. We are not heating coffeepots. NERVA 2 is a high-performance booster, a semiexperimental flight model. Stability is not always the condition we require.”
Michaels frowned. And you just hate having to answer these asshole questions, don’t you, Hans? “Why do we need instability? What do you mean?”
Seger put in, “It’s like a high-performance aircraft, Fred. A ship that’s too stable will wallow like a sow. So you might design for instability. If a bird’s unstable, it can flip quickly from one mode to another; if you can control that, you’ve gained a lot of maneuverability”
“But that’s a big if, Bert. And evidently, when it got to the wire, we couldn’t control it. Hans, why didn’t you beef up the control system to cover for this?”
Udet punctuated his words by thumping the edge of his hand on Michaels’s desk. “Because — of — unacceptable — weight — penalties.”
(Stephen Baxter, Voyage)
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I realized that Bob and I had – involuntarily - made NASA a present they could not refuse. In the wake of the Apollo-Soyuz and Helios-Soyuz flights the space agency made limited studies of space molten salt reactors with the Soviets, and the results further confirmed the sheer goodness of that type of nuclear reactor for space applications.
I have to confess that I, Alvin Weinberg, had never been a great supporter of the space program; it was not my area of expertise, plus I had voiced concern that Apollo huge expense might drain money away from more pressing priorities.
With hindsight however Seamans idea was formidable. It gave the molten salt reactor a new life; it placed it out of Clinch River way (and it was as well like that, since even President Carter couldn't cancel the project !).
My only regret at the time was that the space agency had zero interest in the molten salt breeder - they prefered the non-breeding prototype Molten salt reactor, the MSRE. As Rickover told Howard Baker once - " I was asked the question one time at Oak Ridge, why don't you put breeder reactors in submarines ? Rickover answered that the Navy found it more convenient to breed ashore"
As time passed however, I come to recognize we didn't needed breeder on Earth, too, since uranium reserves were far from limited. At the end of the day the space program got the molten salt reactors out of the breeder impasse, and that was a good thing.
In the wake of the Apollo drawdown the space agency desesperately tried to make itself more useful; NASA wanted to prove that the space program could solve the energy crisis or cure pollution,or even cure cancer ! That was they called the space program spinoffs, and they made a big fuss of the thing, grossly inflating and hyping it. What they didn't realized at the time, was that with the molten reactor program they had uncovered the mother of all space program spinoffs...
I found that one NASA facility stood at the center of the agency sprawling effort to solve the energy crisis; it was the Lewis research center. The space nuclear laboratory found itself at the convergence of varied efforts; they had the molten salt reactor, and they had the Army Energy Depot. Put together the two made a stunning picture of a bright energy future where safe nuclear reactors would dissociate water's hydrogen and air's nitrogen into ammonia fuel for cars. It made for a fascinating vision.
When Jimmy Carter entered the White House, he was deeply concerned about proliferation, and willing to cooperate with the Soviets; two facts that literally send the space molten salt project into orbit.
Between 1976 and 1978 NASA and the Soviets ran a joint nuclear space initiative. The program grounded to a stop in 1979, as Cold War temperature dived once again, with each partner going his own separate way.
On the U.S side David Buden and Robin Zubert made paper studies of space molten salt reactors for the next space station and future Moon / Mars bases.
The Soviets however went much farther and actually flew a molten salt reactor into orbit as the primary power source for their giant MKBS space station. That grew as a major political and military concern for the Reagan administration.
It also explains why, in the mid-80's Buden moved from Los Alamos to the brand new SDIO – particularly to a branch called the Office of Survivability, Lethality, and Key Technologies.
At the SDIO Buden promoted Molten Salt Reactors as a power source for all kind of different applications. It was Buden that redirected the SP-100 program toward molten salt technology.
...In response to American aid to Israel, on October 16, 1973, OPEC raised the posted price of oil by 70%, to $5.11 a barrel. The following day, oil ministers agreed to the embargo, a cut in production by five percent from September's output and to continue to cut production in five percent increments until their economic and political objectives were met.
On October 19, Nixon requested Congress to appropriate $2.2 billion in emergency aid to Israel, including $1.5 billion in outright grants. Libya immediately announced it would embargo oil shipments to the United States. Saudi Arabia and the other Arab oil-producing states joined the embargo on October 20, 1973. At their Kuwait meeting, OPEC proclaimed the embargo that curbed exports to various countries and blocked all oil deliveries to the US as a "principal hostile country".
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"...before too many years have passed, corner gasoline stations may be replaced by ammonia or methanol stations
Notwithstanding the new oil fields in Alaska, some sort of synthetic fuel is inevitable if a synthetic fuel could be manufactured cheaply enough and if it could be stored and transported with safety, the modifications to our transport industry would be rather minor
Gasoline has always been abundant and cheap in the United States. Despite this fact, the United States Army seriously considered "energy depots" in the 60's. The basic objective was simplification of fuel logistics by switching to fuels that could be synthesized on the spot from air and water. Hydrogen and ammonia were the primary fuels considered. Hydrogen was to be derived from water through electrolysis, using electricity generated in a mobile station built around a small nuclear reactor. Liquid hydrogen would be used built around a small nuclear reactor and used directly as fuel or, more likely, converted into ammonia, which is easier to handle. The fact that the energy depot and the host of vehicles it supported would not pollute the atmosphere was not an important consideration.
The modern version of the energy depot would be useful in two ways. First, because it would greatly relieve urban pollution and, second, because eventually gasoline will have to be replaced as our primary vehicle fuel regardless of environmental considerations
When petroleum becomes scarce, perhaps half a century from now, nuclear heat can be employed to gasify coal and further extend the sway of fossil-fueled internal combustion engines and their turbine counterparts. All that is needed is a source of electricity to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen. Nitrogen, if needed, would be taken directly from the atmosphere. If an easily handled fuel, such as ammonia, is synthesized, the fuel plants could be located well away from city centers.
Most of us think of ammonia as pungent and rather disagreeable, hydrogen has a reputation for being explosive and dangerous. The chemical and space industries, however, have tamed both fuels in recent years. In some ways, anhydrous ammonia is just as safe to handle as gasoline; and liquid hydrogen is becoming common as a high- performance rocket fuel.
Ammonia is most often encountered (as far as the nose is concerned) in household cleaners. It is less well known that fully 80 percent of the world's fertilizer requirements are met by synthesizing ammonia from natural gas and steam. It is less well known that fully 80 percent of the world's fertilizer requirements are met by synthesizing ammonia from natural gas and steam. Roughly 40 million tons of ammonia are consumed annually in agriculture.Consumption increases almost exponentially. Thus, we can conceive of ammonia production plants that will "fuel" both farms and cities...
Source: Man and atom: building a new world through nuclear technology, Glenn T. Seaborg - 1971.
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Seven U.S. Senators, all members of the Senate Commerce Committee (the delegation included Vance Hartke, Howard Cannon, Frank Moss, James Pearson, Howard Baker, Glenn Beall, and Robert Griffin) meet for more than three hours with Leonid Brezhnev today, April 22, 1973.
Senator Cannon (D.-Nev.) met with Sergey S. Pavlov, Chief Administrator for Foreign Relations, USSR Ministry of Civil Aviation, as well as various staff personnel.
Senator Baker (R.-Tenn.) met with Andrey M. Petrosynants (sic), chairman of the State Committee for Utilization of Atomic Energy.
While the Senators had requested a meeting with Brezhnev, none expected such a lengthy visit. Newsmen present during a session before the talks said Brezhnev was in a jovial mood greeting the seven senators
Are you going to report back to the President, Brezhnev asked Sen Vance Hartke the leader of the group.
Not only the President but the Congress Hartke replied.
Hartke said the group had seen some of Moscow in addition to meeting with Soviet officials since their arrival last Thursday .
According to Senator Baker, Secretary Brezhnev "talked very frankly and didn't evade any issues, including the Jackson Amendment and the Jewish question."
The talk covered the development of trade and a number of other facets of Soviet-American relations. General Secretary Brezhnev noted the Soviet Union's readiness to broaden and deepen trade and economic ties with the United States, and put them on a long-term basis. He stressed that such ties, as well as others, must rest on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. The U.S. Senators, in turn, expressed considerable interest in developing trade and other forms of economic relations between the USSR and the USA.
Among those participating in the discussion were Andrei Gromyko, member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR; Nikolai Patolichev, Minister of Foreign Trade of the USSR, and Andrei Brezhnev.
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The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) at Oak Ridge nuclear Laboratory, Tennessee operates at around 650 degree Celsius. Future MSR operating temperature will belimited only by material considerations. As materials improve, the temperature can be raised, and the thermal efficiency still further improved. At 850 degree C, we can disassociate hydrogen from water efficiently and produce hydrogen-based fuels.
Source: Report on the MSRE - letter, Oak Ridge director Alvin Weinberg to Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Glen Seaborg - 1968
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"One significant military effort of the 1960s was the Army's NuclearPowered Energy Depot - an early experiment in the hydrogen economy, according to a paper international hydrogen conference, dubbed The Hydrogen Economy Miami Energy (THEME) held in Miami, March 1974.
"Because of increased mechanization, petroleum supply has become one of the major problems of military logistics, especially in Army operations where small, dispersed energy demands often necessitate an extensive, vulnerable fuel supply complex. The nuclear powered energy depot, conceived as a potential solution to the problem, will utilize a nuclear reactor to produce a chemical fuel for vehicle and aircraft engines. The energy depot, logistically independent for a year, would operate with or near the consumer in the field and considerably broaden Army capabilities
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"In November 1963, an Army study submitted to the Department of Defense (DOD) proposed employing a military compact reactor (MCR) as the power source for a nuclear-powered energy depot, which was being considered as a means of producing synthetic fuels in a combat zone for use in military vehicles. MCR studies, which had begun in 1955, grew out of the Transportation Corps' interest in using nuclear energy to power heavy, overland cargo haulers in remote areas. These studies investigated various reactor and vehicle concepts, including a small liquid-metal-cooled reactor, but ultimately the concept proved impractical.
The energy depot, however, was an attempt to solve the logistics problem of supplying fuel to military vehicles on the battlefield. While nuclear power could not supply energy directly to individual vehicles, the MCR could provide power to manufacture, under field conditions, a synthetic fuel as a substitute for conventional carbon-based fuels.
The nuclear power plant would be combined with a fuel production system to turn readily available elements such as hydrogen or nitrogen into fuel, which then could be used as a substitute for gasoline or diesel fuel in cars, trucks, and other vehicles. Of the fuels that could be produced from air and water, hydrogen and ammonia offer the best possibilities as substitutes for petroleum.
By electrolysis or high- temperature heat, water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen and the hydrogen then used in engines or fuel cells. Alternatively, nitrogen can be produced through the liquefaction and fractional distillation of air and then combined with hydrogen to form ammonia as a fuel for internal-combustion engines. Consideration also was given to using nuclear reactors to generate electricity to charge batteries for electric-powered vehicles—a development contingent on the development of suitable battery technology.
By 1966, the practicality of the energy depot remained in doubt because of questions about the cost-effectiveness of its current and projected technology. The Corps of Engineers concluded that, although feasible, the energy depot would require equipment that probably would not be available during the next decade. As a result, further development of the MCR and the energy depot was suspended until they became economically attractive and technologically possible."
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To: Howard H. Baker, Jr., V.S. Senate, Room 2107, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.
Dear Senator Baker,
Thank you for your letter of February 9, 1973, concerning the planned termination of the Molten Salt Breeder Reactor (MSBR) and the radioisotopes development programs at the Atomic Energy Commission's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
The decision to terminate the MSBR was taken after careful consideration of the backup efforts to the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) program. The LMFBR, as you know, represents the President's top-priority program to meet the growing national needs for clean energy and will require large Government expenditures to accomplish the President's objective of successful demonstration by 1980.
In light of the current budget stringency, it was decided that of the two backup efforts the MSBR was the less promising and would require very large future expenditures for completion.
We are not unaware of the difficulties imposed on the affected personnel as a result of terminating these programs at ORNL. However, we think that the impact of these decisions will be minimized by the increased FY 1974 funding for uranium enrichment activities at Oak Ridge and as a result of the decision to build the large LMFBR demonstration plant adjacent to the Oak Ridge reservation. We appreciate the opportunity of being able to provide this information, which we hope will be useful to you.
Sincerely, Frederic V. Malek, Deputy Director.
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To: Melvin Price, chairman, Joint Committee on Atomic energy
Washington, DC
Dear Mel,
During my visit to the Soviet Union in April 1973, I had an opportunity to discuss nuclear power developments with Professor Andronik M. Petrosyants, Chairman, USSR State Committee on the Utilization of Atomic Energy.
He specifically asked me about our efforts in molten salt reactor development.
He indicated his interest in the concept by stating that in his view the molten salt reactor is an excellent area for cooperation between our two countries - much like the Apollo-Soyuz docking.
He seems to be very open to international cooperation, repeatedly citing excellent relations with past AEC Chairman Glenn Seaborg.
In view of the potential of the reactor concept and the opportunity to benefit by an exchange of information, should such agreement be reached, I urge that the Committee authorize the necessary funds to continue this effort at a effort at a reasonable pace.
Sincerely yours,
Howard H. Baker, Jr - United States Senator from Tennessee – May 1973
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BIOGRAPHICAL DATA
WILLIAM A. ANDERS
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
1973-Present.—Commissioner, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Appointed by the President with Senate confirmation. Responsible along with four other Commissioners for national programs of nuclear energy and weapons R&D and regulation for public health and safety.
Alternate U.S. Representative to the Seventh General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, in September 1973.
Chairman of the U.S. Delegation of the U.S./U.S.S.R. Committee on Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy established under Article 5 of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Atomic Energy Agreement of June 21, 1973.
1969-1973
Executive Secretary, National Aeronautics and Space Council. Appointed by the President with Senate confirmation as director of an independent agency within the Executive Office of the President. Participated as a senior member of U.S. negotiating teams developing programs with the U.S.S.R., Japan, and Europe. Acted as a spokesman to Congress and industry on many R&D policy areas. Directed extensive policy studies in such fields as applications satellites, the aerospace and air transport industries, foreign military sales, international cooperation in space^ and launcher licensing. Worked with the Vice President, Cabinet officers, key White House staff members, and agency heads to insure successful implementation of Presidential policy throughout the aeronautics and space fields.
1964-1969 – NASA. Engineering duties—Gemini and Apollo spaceraft responsibilities for environmental control systems design, test, and procedures.
Space Operations duties
Back-up crew for Gemini 11; Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 8 (1st lunar flight) - spacecraft systems experiments specialist; Back-up Command Module Pilot for Apollo 11 (1st lunar landing).
1962-1964.—Nuclear Engineer—USAF Officer.
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" In January 1968 Robert Seamans resigned from NASA to become a visiting professor at MIT. During that period at MIT, Seamans also served as a consultant to the administrator of NASA. In 1969 he became Secretary of the United States Air Force, serving until 1973.
In May 1973, at the time of Seamans's resignation to become president of the National Academy of Engineering, President Richard M. Nixon said that his administration was most fortunate to have had a person of Seamans's leadership and managerial ability directing the development of sophisticated new aircraft and helping to improve U.S. missile systems. Nixon credited Seamans with keeping the Air Force modernization program costs so very close to projected estimates and for creating an environment in which people serving in the Air Force believed they could realize their potential.
Seamans served as president of the National Academy of Engineering until December 1974, when he became the first administrator of the new Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), a post he held until 1977 and the creation of the Departement of Energy.
The ERDA is a byproduct of the Atomic Energy Commission breaking up. It had been decided the monolithic commission could no longer handle both promotion and safety of nuclear power, two goals that had become mutually exclusive.
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“Despite emphatic denial by NASA Deputy Administrator George Low, rumors have circulated that the Lewis Research Center would sever what is now a very tenuous connection with NASA and become part of the new Energy Research and Development Administration, where the major part of its research programs were concentrated.
The ERDA succeeded the controversed Atomic Energy Commission, and coincidently his director Robert Seamans was NASA deputy director until 1969.
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"The Senate has confirmed the appointment of Robert Seamans Jr. as chief of the new Energy Research and Development Administration. Seamans, 56, is a former Air Force secretary and deputy administrator of the space agency. The Senate on Thursday also approved by voice vote and without debate the nomination of former astronaut William Anders as a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
There is a practical logic to the appointment of veteran NASA officials to the energy and nuclear administrations. As Congress put it, "The urgency of the nation's critical energy problems will require a commitment similar to that of the Apollo project. It will require that the Nation undertake, at a minimum, a ten-year $20,000,000,000 research development and demonstration program including a greatly expanded effort in nonnuclear energy technologies."
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...William Anders for his part is a team player, accustomed to situations in which a great deal depends on cooperation and obedience. In the formless, directionless Atomic Energy Commission of 1973, he stepped into what should have been the chain of command.
According to Anders himself
"On June 21, 1973 I become the Chairman of the newly created U.S. Delegation of the U.S./U.S.S.R. Committee on Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy - established under Article 5 of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Atomic Energy Agreement enacted that day.
Commissar Andronik Petrosyants and I, David Anders, were the cochairmen.
The first year the Soviets came in America; during the second we traveled to the Soviet Union. For some unknown reasons, every time that I and Robert Seamans met that Petrosyants, he spoke about a so-called Molten Salt Reactor and insisted heavily we should have a joint program. So did Petrosyants deputy Morozov.
Their insistance picked my curiosity - what the hell was that molten salt reactor, and why were the Soviets so excited by it ?"
I come to understood that Soviet interest for molten salt reactor was the result of a visit by Tennessee Senator Howard Baker in April 1973. The Molten Salt reactor in Oak Ridge nuclear laboratory pet project. And Oak Ridge is located in Tennessee... so it is Baker job to defend Oak Ridge bread and butter programs."
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In 1970 with the molten salt reactor starved of funds I had declared that Oak Ridge was sufficiently interested in the concept that if there were anyone anywhere, including the Soviet Union or Red China that was going to build a molten salt reactor, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory would be interested. The next step is more important than who makes it. Indeed the times had changed; in the era of détente, the Soviets were a bit less the ennemy and as concerned as we were about proliferation.
So I had my friend Howard Baker pitching the molten salt reactor to them during a trip to the Soviet Union in April 1973. In fact I prepared a true sale pitch he was to deliver to the Soviets.
Not only Baker insisted on the proliferation aspects; by making the MSR a joint project with the Soviets we also made it slightly more visible on the agenda.Of course that was a risky business.
"We are not developing a thorium cycle in the Soviet Union and for the time being we are not prepared to deal with one," Ivan Morozov, deputy chairman of the State Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, later said. It explained why his superior, Petrosyants, had been so eager to cooperation on Molten Salt Reactors - much like us, most of Soviet nuclear money was pumped into their breeder program. International cooperation would provide a breath of fresh air to other programs !
Of course all this didn't went very far, at least at the beginning.
Then, the next year, in 1974 things started to move in a pretty unexpected direction.
Baker sale pitch impressed Petrosyants enough he discussed the matter with his American counterparts – William Anders first (before the AEC was disbanded), then Robert Seamans (after the ERDA was created).
Coincidentally both were former NASA officials; and at the time the space agency was actively cooperating with the Soviets to link their Soyuz to an Apollo.
It also happened that at the time NASA own nuclear lab, the Lewis Research Center, was being transferred to Seamans energy agency.
The end result of all this was that Anders, followed by Seamans, decided to ask NASA-Lewis nuclear scientists their opinion over Molten Salt Reactor technology. To mask their intentions they disguised the study under application of the reactor to the space program. With or without the Soviets, in summer 1976 Lewis was given a contract to study potential of the molten salt reactor for space applications.
Some weeks passed and then Seamans called me. He told me the NASA nuclear scientists were very excited. The molten salt reactor, they told Seamans, was just perfect for space – it had high power densities, high temperature operation without pressurization, high fuel burn up and plenty of other characteristics that were just ideal for a space fission system.
To make a long story short, fluoride-salt mixtures suitable for use in power reactors have melting points in the temperature range 850 to 900°F and are sufficiently compatible with certain nickel-base alloys to assure long life for reactor components at temperatures up to 1300°F.
Thus the natural, optimum operating temperature for a molten-salt-fueled reactor is such that the molten salt is a suitable heat source for a modern steam power plant. The principal advantages of the molten-salt system, other than high temperature, in comparison with one or more of the other fluid-fuel systems are (1) low-pressure operation, (2) stability of the liquid under radiation, (3) high solubility of uranium and thorium (as fluorides) in molten-salt mixtures, and (4) resistance to corrosion of the structural materials that does not depend on oxide or other film formation.
The molten-salt system has the usual benefits attributed to fluid-fuel systems. The principal advantages over solid-fuel-element systems are (1) a high negative temperature coefficient of reactivity, (2) a lack of radiation damage that can limit fuel burnup, (3) the possibility of continuous fission-product removal, (4) the avoidance of the expense of fabricating new fuel elements, and (5) the possibility of adding makeup fuel as needed, which precludes the need for providing excess reactivity.
The high negative temperature coefficient and the lack of excess reactivity make possible a reactor, without control rods, which automatically adjusts its power in response to changes of the electrical load. The lack of excess reactivity also leads to a reactor that is not endangered by nuclear power excursions.
That, in a nutshell, is why it made a fantastic space power system.
----------------------------
Udet said, “We tried to shut down. But the moderator was too far out of the core to have any immediate effect. The hydrogen in the core and the jacket boiled quickly and started to expand…”
“And now you’ve got a runaway,” Muldoon continued. “Because the reactor was designed with a positive temperature coefficient.”
Michaels sighed and locked his hands behind his head. “Just pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Muldoon grinned tightly. “I know. It took me a while to figure this stuff out. Look: suppose the temperature of your core rises. And suppose that the core is designed so that when it heats up, the reactivity drops — that is, the reaction rate automatically falls. That’s what’s meant by a ‘negative temperature coefficient.’ In that case you have a negative feedback loop, and your reaction falls off, and the temperature is damped down.”
“Okay. It’s kind of self-correcting.”
“That’s right; the whole thing is stable. That’s how they design civilian reactors. But in the case of NERVA, that coefficient was positive, at least for some of the temperature range. So when the temperature went up, the reactivity went up, too—”
“And the rate of fission increased, leading to a further temperature rise.”
“And so on. Yes.”
Michaels glared at Udet. “I can see the fucking headlines now, Hans. Why the hell did we fly an unstable reactor?”
Udet sat forward, his face pale, a muscle in his neck rope-taut with anger. “You must understand that we are not building a reactor to supply domestic electricity, here. We are not heating coffeepots. NERVA 2 is a high-performance booster, a semiexperimental flight model. Stability is not always the condition we require.”
Michaels frowned. And you just hate having to answer these asshole questions, don’t you, Hans? “Why do we need instability? What do you mean?”
Seger put in, “It’s like a high-performance aircraft, Fred. A ship that’s too stable will wallow like a sow. So you might design for instability. If a bird’s unstable, it can flip quickly from one mode to another; if you can control that, you’ve gained a lot of maneuverability”
“But that’s a big if, Bert. And evidently, when it got to the wire, we couldn’t control it. Hans, why didn’t you beef up the control system to cover for this?”
Udet punctuated his words by thumping the edge of his hand on Michaels’s desk. “Because — of — unacceptable — weight — penalties.”
(Stephen Baxter, Voyage)
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I realized that Bob and I had – involuntarily - made NASA a present they could not refuse. In the wake of the Apollo-Soyuz and Helios-Soyuz flights the space agency made limited studies of space molten salt reactors with the Soviets, and the results further confirmed the sheer goodness of that type of nuclear reactor for space applications.
I have to confess that I, Alvin Weinberg, had never been a great supporter of the space program; it was not my area of expertise, plus I had voiced concern that Apollo huge expense might drain money away from more pressing priorities.
With hindsight however Seamans idea was formidable. It gave the molten salt reactor a new life; it placed it out of Clinch River way (and it was as well like that, since even President Carter couldn't cancel the project !).
My only regret at the time was that the space agency had zero interest in the molten salt breeder - they prefered the non-breeding prototype Molten salt reactor, the MSRE. As Rickover told Howard Baker once - " I was asked the question one time at Oak Ridge, why don't you put breeder reactors in submarines ? Rickover answered that the Navy found it more convenient to breed ashore"
As time passed however, I come to recognize we didn't needed breeder on Earth, too, since uranium reserves were far from limited. At the end of the day the space program got the molten salt reactors out of the breeder impasse, and that was a good thing.
In the wake of the Apollo drawdown the space agency desesperately tried to make itself more useful; NASA wanted to prove that the space program could solve the energy crisis or cure pollution,or even cure cancer ! That was they called the space program spinoffs, and they made a big fuss of the thing, grossly inflating and hyping it. What they didn't realized at the time, was that with the molten reactor program they had uncovered the mother of all space program spinoffs...
I found that one NASA facility stood at the center of the agency sprawling effort to solve the energy crisis; it was the Lewis research center. The space nuclear laboratory found itself at the convergence of varied efforts; they had the molten salt reactor, and they had the Army Energy Depot. Put together the two made a stunning picture of a bright energy future where safe nuclear reactors would dissociate water's hydrogen and air's nitrogen into ammonia fuel for cars. It made for a fascinating vision.
When Jimmy Carter entered the White House, he was deeply concerned about proliferation, and willing to cooperate with the Soviets; two facts that literally send the space molten salt project into orbit.
Between 1976 and 1978 NASA and the Soviets ran a joint nuclear space initiative. The program grounded to a stop in 1979, as Cold War temperature dived once again, with each partner going his own separate way.
On the U.S side David Buden and Robin Zubert made paper studies of space molten salt reactors for the next space station and future Moon / Mars bases.
The Soviets however went much farther and actually flew a molten salt reactor into orbit as the primary power source for their giant MKBS space station. That grew as a major political and military concern for the Reagan administration.
It also explains why, in the mid-80's Buden moved from Los Alamos to the brand new SDIO – particularly to a branch called the Office of Survivability, Lethality, and Key Technologies.
At the SDIO Buden promoted Molten Salt Reactors as a power source for all kind of different applications. It was Buden that redirected the SP-100 program toward molten salt technology.
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Soviets in space (13)
Archibald
Banned
May 16, 1974
"It isn’t ours to divine the future."
Boris Chertok was standing on a platform, facing a sea of inquiring looks from a large part of OKB-1 workforce.
"But from the future, which becomes the present, we can examine the past. Assessing the behavior of individual people and staffs, one realizes that we really did make history.
If during the launch of the first Sputnik in 1957 we still did not fully recognize the value of such events, then just five years later—from state leaders and chief designers to thousands of engineers, workers, and soldiers who worked in design bureaus, laboratories, shops, and firing ranges, who to this day remain unknown to his-tory— they understood that they were making history. They understood this just as clearly as a soldier during the Great Patriotic War recognized that he was defending his fatherland and giving up his life, not for foreign, unknown interests, but for his own nation, city, village, and family.
Today we know the history that we are making. We try to plan the future so as to correct the past. Everything in the plans, schedules, and deadlines is broken down year by year, month by month, and day by day. The workday is planned down to the minute. The preparation, launch, and flight of a rocket is calculated and forecast with an accuracy down to tenths of a second.
Having been in the recent past, which just yesterday was our future, and once again looking into this future, which has become the past, we, like chess players, feel vexed as a result of our bad decisions and sorted through dozens of options in order to find the one that would bring victory. My own notes, the stories of friends and acquaintances, and rare authoritative memoirs of that time have corroborated individual events and what at that time seemed like everyday life.
Now, looking at you, my comrades and myself from today’s perspective, I realize that over the last fifteen years we have been involved in tremendous achievements. Episodes that seemed workaday are now great events. However, strict standards forbid the historian describing the past from reflecting on the pages of his work.
So I begg the question: what would have been, if…. However, the majority of people allow themselves to reflect about what would have been if an hour, a day, a month, or a year ago he or she had acted in one way rather than the other. Before beginning the next game, a chess player who has lost a match must thoroughly analyze the preceding game, find his mistake, and finish playing that match with himself proceeding from the assumption that he has made a stronger move.
It is more difficult for a field commander, who knows full well how he must act to prevent his troops from taking a drubbing and to save thousands of lives, but despite his predictions he is ordered “from the top” to act otherwise. There are many examples of this in Marshal Zhukov’s Remembrances and Contemplations [Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya].
Today, we can still turn the tables in the Moon race. Four failed N-1 launches have provided a wealth of experience for the creation of a reliable launch vehicle. Preparation is under way for the launch of N-1 number eight with new reusable engines, which have undergone technological firing tests. Hundreds of modifications have been performed on the launch vehicle based on the results of the previous four launches and also devised “just in case….”
"With the N-1, we have tremendous opportunities for interplanetary flight and other less fantastic projects. That rocket has to live, and it will live. The future lunar base, the enormous MKBS space station, manned expeditions to Mars, the space radio telescopes with antennas hundreds of meters in diameter, and the communications satellites weighing many tons stationkeeping in geostationary orbit - all of this in thoroughly tangible designs is associated with the N-1.
I have proposed our leadership that in the future the N-1 project should be implemented in two phases.
First, on the basis of the second and third stages, produce a separate N-11 rocket with a launch mass of 750 tons, capable of inserting a satellite with a mass up to 25 tons into Earth orbit. Then, and only then, produce the actual super-heavy three-stage N-1 rocket with a launch mass of 2,200 tons.
"In 1962, and despite its obvious logic, this proposal to begin operations on the N-11 ultimately found no support from expert commissions, from the military, or in subsequent decrees. In history, one should not resort to the “what ifs,” but I am not a historian and I can allow myself to conjecture how everything would have unfolded if our 1962 proposal had been enacted.
"There is no doubt that we would have produced the N-11 considerably sooner than the first N-1 flight model. We could have conducted developmental testing on the second and third stages of the rocket on the firing rigs near Zagorsk. The launch systems that were constructed for the N-1 would have been simplified to be used for the N-11 during the first phase. We missed a real opportunity to produce an environmentally clean launch vehicle for a 25-metric-ton payload. To this day, world cosmonautics has a very acute need for such a clean launch vehicle.
In 1962 that idea interfered with Chelomei’s proposals for the UR-500 and Yangel’s proposals for the R-56. Today is different, and we will build that N-11 for a 30-ton payload. The military need this launch vehicle first and foremost for the crucial intelligence-gathering purposes of the Ministry of Defense in Sun-synchronous orbits. As for the N-1, the uprated launch vehicle could fly in a year and apayload needs to be prepared for it. We have received a unique opportunity: to correct - albeit late, but radically—the errors that Korolev, Mishin, and we, their deputies, have committed.
"With the N-1 we are standing at the treshold of a bold future in space.
"8 to 10 launches of the upgraded N-1 and we will have a base for six persons on the Moon. Comrades Barmin and Bushuyev are drafting plans for a lunar base known as Zvezda or Barmingrad.
"The Academy of Sciences is developing the design of a space radio interferometer. The spacecraft, equipped with a uniquely precise parabolic antenna with a diameter of 25 meters, has to be inserted into elliptical orbits with an apogee of up to 150,000 kilometers, and only the N-1 rocket is capable of doing this. Our radio interferometer will make it possible to study the finest structure of the universe right down to the “last boundaries of creation.” The universe is ready to reveal its secrets !
"The first spacecraft was inserted into geosynchronous orbit (GEO) in the 1960s. Since that time, a total of 300 spacecraft have been inserted there, and each year, on aver-age, 20 to 25 new ones are inserted. Geostationary orbit, as the most advantageous location for placing satellite communications systems, will exhaust its resources in the next 20 years. Strict international competition is unavoidable.
"One possible solution could be the creation in GEO of a heavy multipurpose platform. With coverage of nearly 1/3 of the surface of the planet, such a multipurpose platform will be able to replace dozens of modern communications satellites. The platform will require a high-capacity solar power plant. To support dozens of modern communica-tions satellites, the platform will require a capacity of 500 to 1,000 kilowatts. Large parabolic antennas or active phased arrays are capable of creating any given value of equivalent isotropically radiated power at Earth’s surface. The capability of placing hundreds of relays for various ranges on a heavy geostationary platform makes it possible for the owners of such platforms to sell all types of communications trunks for any region on Earth. Heavy multipurpose platforms will be commercially advantageous and will facilitate the global information rapprochement of peoples. Humankind needs the development and creation of such geostationary systems not in the distant future, but in the next 25 to 30 years. We developed a real design for the world’s first heavy universal platform for GEO. The mass of the proposed platform, according to the design, will be 20 tons and of course only the N-1 can launch that.
What will the future be is anyone guess. But whatever happens backed in production by its smaller siblings the N-1 will make that future bold and impressive."
Chertok concluded his speech under a thunder of applause and cheers from the crowd.
"It isn’t ours to divine the future."
Boris Chertok was standing on a platform, facing a sea of inquiring looks from a large part of OKB-1 workforce.
"But from the future, which becomes the present, we can examine the past. Assessing the behavior of individual people and staffs, one realizes that we really did make history.
If during the launch of the first Sputnik in 1957 we still did not fully recognize the value of such events, then just five years later—from state leaders and chief designers to thousands of engineers, workers, and soldiers who worked in design bureaus, laboratories, shops, and firing ranges, who to this day remain unknown to his-tory— they understood that they were making history. They understood this just as clearly as a soldier during the Great Patriotic War recognized that he was defending his fatherland and giving up his life, not for foreign, unknown interests, but for his own nation, city, village, and family.
Today we know the history that we are making. We try to plan the future so as to correct the past. Everything in the plans, schedules, and deadlines is broken down year by year, month by month, and day by day. The workday is planned down to the minute. The preparation, launch, and flight of a rocket is calculated and forecast with an accuracy down to tenths of a second.
Having been in the recent past, which just yesterday was our future, and once again looking into this future, which has become the past, we, like chess players, feel vexed as a result of our bad decisions and sorted through dozens of options in order to find the one that would bring victory. My own notes, the stories of friends and acquaintances, and rare authoritative memoirs of that time have corroborated individual events and what at that time seemed like everyday life.
Now, looking at you, my comrades and myself from today’s perspective, I realize that over the last fifteen years we have been involved in tremendous achievements. Episodes that seemed workaday are now great events. However, strict standards forbid the historian describing the past from reflecting on the pages of his work.
So I begg the question: what would have been, if…. However, the majority of people allow themselves to reflect about what would have been if an hour, a day, a month, or a year ago he or she had acted in one way rather than the other. Before beginning the next game, a chess player who has lost a match must thoroughly analyze the preceding game, find his mistake, and finish playing that match with himself proceeding from the assumption that he has made a stronger move.
It is more difficult for a field commander, who knows full well how he must act to prevent his troops from taking a drubbing and to save thousands of lives, but despite his predictions he is ordered “from the top” to act otherwise. There are many examples of this in Marshal Zhukov’s Remembrances and Contemplations [Vospominaniya i razmyshleniya].
Today, we can still turn the tables in the Moon race. Four failed N-1 launches have provided a wealth of experience for the creation of a reliable launch vehicle. Preparation is under way for the launch of N-1 number eight with new reusable engines, which have undergone technological firing tests. Hundreds of modifications have been performed on the launch vehicle based on the results of the previous four launches and also devised “just in case….”
"With the N-1, we have tremendous opportunities for interplanetary flight and other less fantastic projects. That rocket has to live, and it will live. The future lunar base, the enormous MKBS space station, manned expeditions to Mars, the space radio telescopes with antennas hundreds of meters in diameter, and the communications satellites weighing many tons stationkeeping in geostationary orbit - all of this in thoroughly tangible designs is associated with the N-1.
I have proposed our leadership that in the future the N-1 project should be implemented in two phases.
First, on the basis of the second and third stages, produce a separate N-11 rocket with a launch mass of 750 tons, capable of inserting a satellite with a mass up to 25 tons into Earth orbit. Then, and only then, produce the actual super-heavy three-stage N-1 rocket with a launch mass of 2,200 tons.
"In 1962, and despite its obvious logic, this proposal to begin operations on the N-11 ultimately found no support from expert commissions, from the military, or in subsequent decrees. In history, one should not resort to the “what ifs,” but I am not a historian and I can allow myself to conjecture how everything would have unfolded if our 1962 proposal had been enacted.
"There is no doubt that we would have produced the N-11 considerably sooner than the first N-1 flight model. We could have conducted developmental testing on the second and third stages of the rocket on the firing rigs near Zagorsk. The launch systems that were constructed for the N-1 would have been simplified to be used for the N-11 during the first phase. We missed a real opportunity to produce an environmentally clean launch vehicle for a 25-metric-ton payload. To this day, world cosmonautics has a very acute need for such a clean launch vehicle.
In 1962 that idea interfered with Chelomei’s proposals for the UR-500 and Yangel’s proposals for the R-56. Today is different, and we will build that N-11 for a 30-ton payload. The military need this launch vehicle first and foremost for the crucial intelligence-gathering purposes of the Ministry of Defense in Sun-synchronous orbits. As for the N-1, the uprated launch vehicle could fly in a year and apayload needs to be prepared for it. We have received a unique opportunity: to correct - albeit late, but radically—the errors that Korolev, Mishin, and we, their deputies, have committed.
"With the N-1 we are standing at the treshold of a bold future in space.
"8 to 10 launches of the upgraded N-1 and we will have a base for six persons on the Moon. Comrades Barmin and Bushuyev are drafting plans for a lunar base known as Zvezda or Barmingrad.
"The Academy of Sciences is developing the design of a space radio interferometer. The spacecraft, equipped with a uniquely precise parabolic antenna with a diameter of 25 meters, has to be inserted into elliptical orbits with an apogee of up to 150,000 kilometers, and only the N-1 rocket is capable of doing this. Our radio interferometer will make it possible to study the finest structure of the universe right down to the “last boundaries of creation.” The universe is ready to reveal its secrets !
"The first spacecraft was inserted into geosynchronous orbit (GEO) in the 1960s. Since that time, a total of 300 spacecraft have been inserted there, and each year, on aver-age, 20 to 25 new ones are inserted. Geostationary orbit, as the most advantageous location for placing satellite communications systems, will exhaust its resources in the next 20 years. Strict international competition is unavoidable.
"One possible solution could be the creation in GEO of a heavy multipurpose platform. With coverage of nearly 1/3 of the surface of the planet, such a multipurpose platform will be able to replace dozens of modern communications satellites. The platform will require a high-capacity solar power plant. To support dozens of modern communica-tions satellites, the platform will require a capacity of 500 to 1,000 kilowatts. Large parabolic antennas or active phased arrays are capable of creating any given value of equivalent isotropically radiated power at Earth’s surface. The capability of placing hundreds of relays for various ranges on a heavy geostationary platform makes it possible for the owners of such platforms to sell all types of communications trunks for any region on Earth. Heavy multipurpose platforms will be commercially advantageous and will facilitate the global information rapprochement of peoples. Humankind needs the development and creation of such geostationary systems not in the distant future, but in the next 25 to 30 years. We developed a real design for the world’s first heavy universal platform for GEO. The mass of the proposed platform, according to the design, will be 20 tons and of course only the N-1 can launch that.
What will the future be is anyone guess. But whatever happens backed in production by its smaller siblings the N-1 will make that future bold and impressive."
Chertok concluded his speech under a thunder of applause and cheers from the crowd.
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The N-1 may yet have a future then? Though the N-1 that launched (and failed) generally massed 2,735 Tonnes, with perhaps 1,900 of that belonging to the Block A IIRC.
But Chertok is right in that had they been allowed to build the N-11 alongside the N-1, they could have tested the upper stages without needing to wait for the massive first stage to be ready first - which if memory serves right, he'd identified as one of the many reasons for the N-1 failure IOTL.
But Chertok is right in that had they been allowed to build the N-11 alongside the N-1, they could have tested the upper stages without needing to wait for the massive first stage to be ready first - which if memory serves right, he'd identified as one of the many reasons for the N-1 failure IOTL.
Here they working on N1-F, in OTL cancelled in may 1974
The N1-F weight 2950 metric tons, that's 200 tons more than N1 flight 7
Block A weight 2070 tons full loaded 126.34 tons empty
Got 30 NK-33 engine, a High Pressure regeneratively cooled staged combustion cycle engine with unique feature, variable Oxygen-rich combustion, allowed variable Thrust level between 50% to 135 %.
propellants are super cooled Oxygen and kerosine replace by Syntin give N1-F rocket engine smoth-running combustion
Block B weight 620 metric tons, 55.7 tons empty
got 8 NK-43 (NK-33 with vacuum nozzle)
Block V weight 210,1 metric tons, 13.7 tons empty
got 4 NK-39V
Block G weight 61.8 metrics tons, 6 tons empty
one swivel mounted NK-31 (replace the static NK-9V)
So far the Plans, how it work in realty ?
Certain the NII would work with the new engine it will bring 30 tons into orbit
Even as NIII with Block V G and third stage of Soyuz rocket bring 5~7 tons in low orbit
but NI ?
Block A need smoth-running shut down of center engine
The last OTL test flight the abrupt shut down of center engine produce a hydraulic shock wav,e what ripping the feed lines for oxygen and kerosine, letting to fire in engine bay.
the NK-33 can do this, but the feed lines need dampers and shook absorber like Saturn V F-1 engines.
by the was NK-33 has some problems...
Archibald
Banned
Thanks for the numbers. Didn't realize how heavy the block A was.
Yes, the N-1 is gonna survive, Glushko won't be able to kill it and take control of OKB-1, merging it with his OKB-486.
Mishin is still out, but OKB-1 remain independant, with Chertok as the new boss.
I picked up Chertok if only because he wrote his memories, Rocket and peoples, so I knew what his feelings were as of 1974.
Glushko burned himself when he insisted the N-1 had to be killed and replaced by his own RLAs - even his good friend Marshall Dmitriy Ustinov couldn't do it politically. Ustinov answer was a polite NO.
Ustinov explained Glushko that the reason why the N-1 survives is that NASA keep a couple of Saturn V in mothballs - no space shuttle derived HLV drawn from a clean sheet of paper (SSME+ SRBs, see the SLS, last avatar of this) . The Soviet Union keeps a handful of N-1 & N-1F in storage, too, within Baikonur MIK-112.
There were a lot of cool space projects tied to the N-1 that died with it only to be brought back to life twelve years later by Glushko for Energia.
After 1987 Glushko just dusted off concepts like the Globis enormous comsat - Mishin had pushed a similar idea for the N-1 in 1973. Same thing for the lunar bases: Glushko 1987 LEK is very much Mishin 1972 L3M launched by a pair of Energias and not a pair of N-1s.
My personal opinion about Glushko 1974 takeover is that he stepped in only because no-one in the USSR wanted a shuttle. Glushko didn't liked Buran either, what mattered was killing the N-1 and build Energia instead. Buran was just a foot-in-the-door on the way to Energia - and a mean of taking control of the whole manned space program.
Then after 1975 Glushko was trapped when the Soviet establishment said they had zero interest in his lunar base. They just wanted Buran and nothing else. Glushko had to bury his lunar base.
Yes, the N-1 is gonna survive, Glushko won't be able to kill it and take control of OKB-1, merging it with his OKB-486.
Mishin is still out, but OKB-1 remain independant, with Chertok as the new boss.
I picked up Chertok if only because he wrote his memories, Rocket and peoples, so I knew what his feelings were as of 1974.
Glushko burned himself when he insisted the N-1 had to be killed and replaced by his own RLAs - even his good friend Marshall Dmitriy Ustinov couldn't do it politically. Ustinov answer was a polite NO.
Ustinov explained Glushko that the reason why the N-1 survives is that NASA keep a couple of Saturn V in mothballs - no space shuttle derived HLV drawn from a clean sheet of paper (SSME+ SRBs, see the SLS, last avatar of this) . The Soviet Union keeps a handful of N-1 & N-1F in storage, too, within Baikonur MIK-112.
There were a lot of cool space projects tied to the N-1 that died with it only to be brought back to life twelve years later by Glushko for Energia.
After 1987 Glushko just dusted off concepts like the Globis enormous comsat - Mishin had pushed a similar idea for the N-1 in 1973. Same thing for the lunar bases: Glushko 1987 LEK is very much Mishin 1972 L3M launched by a pair of Energias and not a pair of N-1s.
My personal opinion about Glushko 1974 takeover is that he stepped in only because no-one in the USSR wanted a shuttle. Glushko didn't liked Buran either, what mattered was killing the N-1 and build Energia instead. Buran was just a foot-in-the-door on the way to Energia - and a mean of taking control of the whole manned space program.
Then after 1975 Glushko was trapped when the Soviet establishment said they had zero interest in his lunar base. They just wanted Buran and nothing else. Glushko had to bury his lunar base.
in 2001: A space Time Odyssey version 2
SpaceGeek and I went for different approach on N1
in 1958 Sergei Khrushchev, (son of Nikita Khrushchev) become engineer at OKB-1 of Sergei Korolyov
with that he got excellent connection to top of Communist party and Nikita Khrushchev in person.
in 1961 after Kennedy announcement of Apollo program
Nikita Khrushchev use his connection to Sergei Korolyov, about how to deal with that challenge
what let to N1 2 3 rockets family and Zond program to land cosmonaut to moon, 2 years earlier as OTL.
as Korolyov died join 1966 his N1 design is much perfected as OTL while Sergei Khrushchev become new Head of OKB-1
in mean time Kuznetsov get chance to test his rocket engine NK-9 on ICBM R-9
His OKB-276 lear precious lesson in rocket engine befor the N1 project
N1 2 3 rockets family ist tested with N3 and N2 first, it shorten the Test rate from 12 to 4 of each Rocket.
so in 1967 the test flights of N1 start
after two unsuccessful launches, the Third was partially success, who got L3-complex into space.
in March 1968 finally the fourth test launch was success and qualification for the N1
until now in Tl they made 17 launches of N1 to Moon
Glushko lost his influence to Kuznetsov, who produce now most rocket engine for Soviet space program
while Glushko face budget cuts and works for Military ICBM, a niche were he survive.
and OKB-1 working on version N1F a step to next generation Rocket for USSR...
SpaceGeek and I went for different approach on N1
in 1958 Sergei Khrushchev, (son of Nikita Khrushchev) become engineer at OKB-1 of Sergei Korolyov
with that he got excellent connection to top of Communist party and Nikita Khrushchev in person.
in 1961 after Kennedy announcement of Apollo program
Nikita Khrushchev use his connection to Sergei Korolyov, about how to deal with that challenge
what let to N1 2 3 rockets family and Zond program to land cosmonaut to moon, 2 years earlier as OTL.
as Korolyov died join 1966 his N1 design is much perfected as OTL while Sergei Khrushchev become new Head of OKB-1
in mean time Kuznetsov get chance to test his rocket engine NK-9 on ICBM R-9
His OKB-276 lear precious lesson in rocket engine befor the N1 project
N1 2 3 rockets family ist tested with N3 and N2 first, it shorten the Test rate from 12 to 4 of each Rocket.
so in 1967 the test flights of N1 start
after two unsuccessful launches, the Third was partially success, who got L3-complex into space.
in March 1968 finally the fourth test launch was success and qualification for the N1
until now in Tl they made 17 launches of N1 to Moon
Glushko lost his influence to Kuznetsov, who produce now most rocket engine for Soviet space program
while Glushko face budget cuts and works for Military ICBM, a niche were he survive.
and OKB-1 working on version N1F a step to next generation Rocket for USSR...
Soviets in space (14) lunar landing
Archibald
Banned
The Soviet lunar program
August 9, 1974
The Soviet rover had been delivered to the Moon three weeks earlier; it had explored Earth satellite at the pace of 1 miles per hour.Now Lunokhod 2 moved into position.
The rover cameras tilted upwards. Far above Lunokhod a star was climbing out of the eastern lunar sky, unblinking, hauling its way toward the zenith. It was a Soyuz (LOK) orbiting the Moon. It had delivered the squat LK lunar lander that was now descending toward the lunar surface, in the direction of the waiting Lunokhod.
The LK was nothing like the American Lunar Module – it fact it was rather pathetic. It was barely able to support a single guy for only six hours, and that was it.
The landing sequence was entirely different.
The Lunokhod cameras now tracked a fast descending point of light that grew bigger and bigger; the LK was coming fast. As it closed from the lunar surface the LK jettisoned the block D rocket stage that had assumed most of the descent. The spent stage flew overhead of Lunokhod and went crashing only a mile away. The LK own propulsion system then took over, kicking dust as the Lunokhod cameras filmed the scene. The diminutive lunar lander landed smoothly and the engine thrust died as moon dust fell back to the surface.
In an alternate reality Alexey Leonov would have stepped out of the LK and planted the USSR flag on the surface. Leonov may have strapped himself to the Lunokhod and driven toward another LK delivered ahead of his landing and to be used as a lifeboat.
None of this happened, however. The LK now standing on the surface was unmanned, and so was the Soyuz LOK orbiting the Moon. Both had been delivered by the N1-8L, in fact the fifth N-1 and the first to suceed.
Three hours later the LK fired its block E engine and the upper module climbed into lunar orbit, where it docked with the waiting LOK. The Soyuz jettisoned the spent lander, and then rocketed out of the Moon gravity well, shedding two more modules before the reentry capsule sunk into the Earth atmosphere. The Soyuz landed in Kazakhstan and the ground team recovered some hundreds of photographies of the lunar surface.
After ten years of harrowing efforts the entire L3 lunar stack was now flight qualified – for nothing, since the system was way too limited and perfectly unseful since Apollo had swept the lunar race in 1969. OKB-1 chief designer Mishin had fought teeth and nail for the automated mission to happen, but there would be no other lunar landing.
The mission had nonetheless been an unmitigated technical triumph, and for a brief moment the soviet leadership seriously considered reavealing its lunar program to the West.
The reason was that, the day the Soyuz landed in Kazakhstan a bolt of thunder was heard worldwide – President Nixon resigned from the U.S Presidency because of the Watergate scandal. With America in turmoil, the stunning revelation of a continuing soviet lunar program might be a major propaganda coup.
The Soviet leadership finally decided that they had nothing to lose, and, as a result, TASS issued a brief news release that stunned the world.
"Today, August 11, 1974 the Soviet Union tested an advanced manned lunar system with much better performance than Apollo. A modified, deep-space Soyuz delivered a LK lander into lunar orbit; the LK then landed near a Lunokhod rover which filmed the whole landing. The L3 lunar complex is now operational, and will led to a lunar base in 1980."
The TASS press release was accompanied with the Lunokhod video showing the LK descent, Block D jettison and crash, and the landing, together with the Block E departure three hours later. The movie was made available to Western medias on August 13, 1974. And truth was, the propaganda coup worked beyond the Soviet leadership wildest dreams; the video perfectly, negatively and shockingly echoed another stunning picture – that of Nixon climbing aboard Marine One, the helicopter to carry him away from the White House.
August 15 1974
The lunar program was now dead, although it had ended with a huge bang. The decrees were on the way; the Soviet space program was reorganizing, although at bureaucratic pace. Glushko had continued hammering Ustinov, day after day, week after week. Glushko even played Mishin own argument: he had had, too, an alliance with Chelomei in the recent past. Considering the hate Ustinov had for Chelomei, at first it looked like a suicide from Glushko. But, as usual, the machiavellian rocket engine designer had a plan.
Glushko had designed massive engines for the never-were Chelomei lunar rocket: the huge, brute-looking UR-700, the great sister of the Proton. That the UR-700 was a competitor to the N-1 explained a lot of things. Glushko never had a single hope the UR-700 would be build someday, even with the equally massive N-1s exploding at every launch atempt. What mattered was the engine itself; Glushko hoped that someday, someone would notice his big RD-270 on the bench, and ask him to design an upgraded N-1 around it. The RD-270 had become Glushko vengence against the N-1, Korolev and Mishin. The alliance with Chelomei was a mere detail in that process.
As of 1974, a handful of RD-270s were running fine on the bench, producing immense amount of thrust; had the N-1F been powered by them, the first stage would have had only five or six engines instead of a staggering thirty, a mind-boggling number that caused so much troubles.
Obviously launch vehicles assembled of a limited number of serially manufactured stages and boosters were cheaper than missile-derived rockets. Attempts to develop a rocket family from the lightest class to the heaviest according to such a modular principle were repeatedly made in the USSR. This applied to Chelomei UR-100/200/500/700/900 and Korolev N-1/N-11/N-111 programs, the later expanded by Mishin and Chertok.
Standardization of the rocket fleet: that was the thing. For two decades such a modular family of rockets had been Korolev, Yangel, Chelomei and Glushko holly grail. So far politics had prevented that, together with the hellish, unending fights among soviet rocket designers. The result was a rather disparate fleet of small, medium and heavy civilian boosters. Tsyklon was Yangel, Soyuz, Korolev, and Proton, Chelomei. And of course the N-1 was Mishin's baby, and every rocket had a different diameter and engines and tooling. It cost the Soviet Union an arm and a leg, plus the Tsyklon and Proton propellants were extremely dangerous and dirty.
Glushko certainly agreed that a modular family of boosters would be a fine thing, but, if it was to derive from the ongoing N-1, to him it would be a lost cause. Now, if he could replace the bloody Kuznestov engines with its cherished RD-270...
Then Ustinov warned him about a different, although related, program he would have to deal with if he took control of Chelomei empire.
"The National Reconnaissance Office has no less than four different space reconnaissance systems. The KH-9 scans broad swaths spanning ten thousands of kilometers at medium resolution. The KH-11 will do a mostly similar job with a huge advantage; it will beam the photos electronically and instantly. Even more worrying, however, are their dual use systems - half civilian, half military. Keldysh is pretty much convinced that NASA Agena space tug and Big Gemini are only a cover for military operations. The space tug is nothing more than a civilian KH-8 Gambit 3; as for that Big Gemini, it is nothing less than a return to the KH-10 Manned Orbiting Laboratory.
Both can take pictures with an extreme resolution of four inches. They can see details of our tanks, aircrafts, ships, ground infrastructures as small as ten centimeters ! Not only their Navy and Air Force is probing our airspace. They are also harassing us in space; there had been case of Agena manoeuvering in the vicinity of our satellites - a reminder of the sixty and their Satellite Interceptor program. They had an Agena outfitted with a camera and a radar to destroy our space assets.
Someday one of their military Big Gemini missions may have an orbit that flew over Moscow on a regular basis. Wouldn't this be a clear message ? Selective political assassination. Say the Politburo is standing outside on May Day and a single nuclear warhead or laser could take them all out…. These things are overhead, they're invisible, but with zero warning they could zap us."
Glushko shivered. Ustinov is getting very paranoid these days.
"Andropov and Keldysh are convinced the Americans are preparing a surprise nuclear attack against us. I personally believe their Agena tug is a cover for a new anti-satellite program. That why I think we should retain the IS system"
"And how does this concern myself ?" Glushko asked rather naively.
"Well Chelomei covers our anti-satellite program - Istrebitel Sputnikov, the destroyer of satellites."
"I thought that program had been killed by the 1972 ABM treaty, or at least put on hold."
"Nope. Recently Breznhev ordered testing to continue. Do you remember what I told you about the space shuttle ? That the American planned to launch it into polar orbit from an Air Base, and Keldysh was led to believe it was to be a nuclear bomber."
"Ah yes, I vaguely remember that."
"Well, had this been the case, the current Istrebitel Sputnikov system could have delt with it, since both only work in low Earth orbit."
"But the shuttle is dead."
"Indeed. Yet it has been somewhat replaced by the Agena, with the difference the Agena can fly much higher, up to the Moon if needed."
"Or into Molnyia orbit" Glushko added.
"Spot on. Thus the American can blind us by saturating space with space tugs. How could we distinguish civilian and military Agenas ?"
"So the I.S system has now to match the Agena capabilities..."
"Up to geostationary orbit and beyond."
"We will need a new engine capable of multiplefirings in space; a propulsion systems for prolonged operations in space, such as the Mars or Lunar probes." Glushko said.
"We want more." Ustinov said. "We want an unprecedented capability for such a large engine to make as much as 75 firings in space. Ideally the system could be launched on alert, much like a nuclear missile, and in fact a nuclear missile would be the carrier."
"A missile like the UR-100, for example."
"Exactly. Another product from Chelomei, thus your shop. Understood ? You will takeover the Breez upper stage and turn it into a space tug similar, or superior, to the American Agena system."
August 9, 1974
The Soviet rover had been delivered to the Moon three weeks earlier; it had explored Earth satellite at the pace of 1 miles per hour.Now Lunokhod 2 moved into position.
The rover cameras tilted upwards. Far above Lunokhod a star was climbing out of the eastern lunar sky, unblinking, hauling its way toward the zenith. It was a Soyuz (LOK) orbiting the Moon. It had delivered the squat LK lunar lander that was now descending toward the lunar surface, in the direction of the waiting Lunokhod.
The LK was nothing like the American Lunar Module – it fact it was rather pathetic. It was barely able to support a single guy for only six hours, and that was it.
The landing sequence was entirely different.
The Lunokhod cameras now tracked a fast descending point of light that grew bigger and bigger; the LK was coming fast. As it closed from the lunar surface the LK jettisoned the block D rocket stage that had assumed most of the descent. The spent stage flew overhead of Lunokhod and went crashing only a mile away. The LK own propulsion system then took over, kicking dust as the Lunokhod cameras filmed the scene. The diminutive lunar lander landed smoothly and the engine thrust died as moon dust fell back to the surface.
In an alternate reality Alexey Leonov would have stepped out of the LK and planted the USSR flag on the surface. Leonov may have strapped himself to the Lunokhod and driven toward another LK delivered ahead of his landing and to be used as a lifeboat.
None of this happened, however. The LK now standing on the surface was unmanned, and so was the Soyuz LOK orbiting the Moon. Both had been delivered by the N1-8L, in fact the fifth N-1 and the first to suceed.
Three hours later the LK fired its block E engine and the upper module climbed into lunar orbit, where it docked with the waiting LOK. The Soyuz jettisoned the spent lander, and then rocketed out of the Moon gravity well, shedding two more modules before the reentry capsule sunk into the Earth atmosphere. The Soyuz landed in Kazakhstan and the ground team recovered some hundreds of photographies of the lunar surface.
After ten years of harrowing efforts the entire L3 lunar stack was now flight qualified – for nothing, since the system was way too limited and perfectly unseful since Apollo had swept the lunar race in 1969. OKB-1 chief designer Mishin had fought teeth and nail for the automated mission to happen, but there would be no other lunar landing.
The mission had nonetheless been an unmitigated technical triumph, and for a brief moment the soviet leadership seriously considered reavealing its lunar program to the West.
The reason was that, the day the Soyuz landed in Kazakhstan a bolt of thunder was heard worldwide – President Nixon resigned from the U.S Presidency because of the Watergate scandal. With America in turmoil, the stunning revelation of a continuing soviet lunar program might be a major propaganda coup.
The Soviet leadership finally decided that they had nothing to lose, and, as a result, TASS issued a brief news release that stunned the world.
"Today, August 11, 1974 the Soviet Union tested an advanced manned lunar system with much better performance than Apollo. A modified, deep-space Soyuz delivered a LK lander into lunar orbit; the LK then landed near a Lunokhod rover which filmed the whole landing. The L3 lunar complex is now operational, and will led to a lunar base in 1980."
The TASS press release was accompanied with the Lunokhod video showing the LK descent, Block D jettison and crash, and the landing, together with the Block E departure three hours later. The movie was made available to Western medias on August 13, 1974. And truth was, the propaganda coup worked beyond the Soviet leadership wildest dreams; the video perfectly, negatively and shockingly echoed another stunning picture – that of Nixon climbing aboard Marine One, the helicopter to carry him away from the White House.
August 15 1974
The lunar program was now dead, although it had ended with a huge bang. The decrees were on the way; the Soviet space program was reorganizing, although at bureaucratic pace. Glushko had continued hammering Ustinov, day after day, week after week. Glushko even played Mishin own argument: he had had, too, an alliance with Chelomei in the recent past. Considering the hate Ustinov had for Chelomei, at first it looked like a suicide from Glushko. But, as usual, the machiavellian rocket engine designer had a plan.
Glushko had designed massive engines for the never-were Chelomei lunar rocket: the huge, brute-looking UR-700, the great sister of the Proton. That the UR-700 was a competitor to the N-1 explained a lot of things. Glushko never had a single hope the UR-700 would be build someday, even with the equally massive N-1s exploding at every launch atempt. What mattered was the engine itself; Glushko hoped that someday, someone would notice his big RD-270 on the bench, and ask him to design an upgraded N-1 around it. The RD-270 had become Glushko vengence against the N-1, Korolev and Mishin. The alliance with Chelomei was a mere detail in that process.
As of 1974, a handful of RD-270s were running fine on the bench, producing immense amount of thrust; had the N-1F been powered by them, the first stage would have had only five or six engines instead of a staggering thirty, a mind-boggling number that caused so much troubles.
Obviously launch vehicles assembled of a limited number of serially manufactured stages and boosters were cheaper than missile-derived rockets. Attempts to develop a rocket family from the lightest class to the heaviest according to such a modular principle were repeatedly made in the USSR. This applied to Chelomei UR-100/200/500/700/900 and Korolev N-1/N-11/N-111 programs, the later expanded by Mishin and Chertok.
Standardization of the rocket fleet: that was the thing. For two decades such a modular family of rockets had been Korolev, Yangel, Chelomei and Glushko holly grail. So far politics had prevented that, together with the hellish, unending fights among soviet rocket designers. The result was a rather disparate fleet of small, medium and heavy civilian boosters. Tsyklon was Yangel, Soyuz, Korolev, and Proton, Chelomei. And of course the N-1 was Mishin's baby, and every rocket had a different diameter and engines and tooling. It cost the Soviet Union an arm and a leg, plus the Tsyklon and Proton propellants were extremely dangerous and dirty.
Glushko certainly agreed that a modular family of boosters would be a fine thing, but, if it was to derive from the ongoing N-1, to him it would be a lost cause. Now, if he could replace the bloody Kuznestov engines with its cherished RD-270...
Then Ustinov warned him about a different, although related, program he would have to deal with if he took control of Chelomei empire.
"The National Reconnaissance Office has no less than four different space reconnaissance systems. The KH-9 scans broad swaths spanning ten thousands of kilometers at medium resolution. The KH-11 will do a mostly similar job with a huge advantage; it will beam the photos electronically and instantly. Even more worrying, however, are their dual use systems - half civilian, half military. Keldysh is pretty much convinced that NASA Agena space tug and Big Gemini are only a cover for military operations. The space tug is nothing more than a civilian KH-8 Gambit 3; as for that Big Gemini, it is nothing less than a return to the KH-10 Manned Orbiting Laboratory.
Both can take pictures with an extreme resolution of four inches. They can see details of our tanks, aircrafts, ships, ground infrastructures as small as ten centimeters ! Not only their Navy and Air Force is probing our airspace. They are also harassing us in space; there had been case of Agena manoeuvering in the vicinity of our satellites - a reminder of the sixty and their Satellite Interceptor program. They had an Agena outfitted with a camera and a radar to destroy our space assets.
Someday one of their military Big Gemini missions may have an orbit that flew over Moscow on a regular basis. Wouldn't this be a clear message ? Selective political assassination. Say the Politburo is standing outside on May Day and a single nuclear warhead or laser could take them all out…. These things are overhead, they're invisible, but with zero warning they could zap us."
Glushko shivered. Ustinov is getting very paranoid these days.
"Andropov and Keldysh are convinced the Americans are preparing a surprise nuclear attack against us. I personally believe their Agena tug is a cover for a new anti-satellite program. That why I think we should retain the IS system"
"And how does this concern myself ?" Glushko asked rather naively.
"Well Chelomei covers our anti-satellite program - Istrebitel Sputnikov, the destroyer of satellites."
"I thought that program had been killed by the 1972 ABM treaty, or at least put on hold."
"Nope. Recently Breznhev ordered testing to continue. Do you remember what I told you about the space shuttle ? That the American planned to launch it into polar orbit from an Air Base, and Keldysh was led to believe it was to be a nuclear bomber."
"Ah yes, I vaguely remember that."
"Well, had this been the case, the current Istrebitel Sputnikov system could have delt with it, since both only work in low Earth orbit."
"But the shuttle is dead."
"Indeed. Yet it has been somewhat replaced by the Agena, with the difference the Agena can fly much higher, up to the Moon if needed."
"Or into Molnyia orbit" Glushko added.
"Spot on. Thus the American can blind us by saturating space with space tugs. How could we distinguish civilian and military Agenas ?"
"So the I.S system has now to match the Agena capabilities..."
"Up to geostationary orbit and beyond."
"We will need a new engine capable of multiplefirings in space; a propulsion systems for prolonged operations in space, such as the Mars or Lunar probes." Glushko said.
"We want more." Ustinov said. "We want an unprecedented capability for such a large engine to make as much as 75 firings in space. Ideally the system could be launched on alert, much like a nuclear missile, and in fact a nuclear missile would be the carrier."
"A missile like the UR-100, for example."
"Exactly. Another product from Chelomei, thus your shop. Understood ? You will takeover the Breez upper stage and turn it into a space tug similar, or superior, to the American Agena system."
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Yes, that would constitute a massive Propaganda Coup for the Politburo. Their 'success' with the unmanned LOK/LK at about the time Nixon Resigned the Presidency in Disgrace.
But as you already said, it's a technological triumph that finally proved that the N1 is finally capable of doing its job, but the fact is the N1-L3 had already effectively been terminated and all they were really doing was running through what they'd already built.
I note you mentioned that the L3 portion did work as intended, on the first real try no less. This I think is the result of the LEO Soyuz flights from which the LOK was based on, and the fact that when they tested the LK in LEO, it did work brilliantly, with only the N1 itself failing IOTL.
And Glushko is really having to work to get as much as he can, given the differing circumstance he finds himself in here.
But as you already said, it's a technological triumph that finally proved that the N1 is finally capable of doing its job, but the fact is the N1-L3 had already effectively been terminated and all they were really doing was running through what they'd already built.
I note you mentioned that the L3 portion did work as intended, on the first real try no less. This I think is the result of the LEO Soyuz flights from which the LOK was based on, and the fact that when they tested the LK in LEO, it did work brilliantly, with only the N1 itself failing IOTL.
And Glushko is really having to work to get as much as he can, given the differing circumstance he finds himself in here.
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what for symbolism
On one site the Soviet automatic L3 Complex mission
On Other Nixon get'z into the Choppa...
What will bring this for USA ?
certain allot US Politician believe now that Soviet take the Lead in Space race again.
and President Ford get demands from them to do something
Interesting there were Plans for such a case at NASA.
this plan consist additional money to restart the Apollo Hardware production.
and try to launch one or Two mission a year to Moon, until shuttle was ready in 1978.
Under Nixon was that no problem
under Ford is another question, he had most urgent problem to solve: Watergate and Nixon.
ehh Gerald Ford is Vice president in this TL ?
On one site the Soviet automatic L3 Complex mission
On Other Nixon get'z into the Choppa...
What will bring this for USA ?
certain allot US Politician believe now that Soviet take the Lead in Space race again.
and President Ford get demands from them to do something
Interesting there were Plans for such a case at NASA.
this plan consist additional money to restart the Apollo Hardware production.
and try to launch one or Two mission a year to Moon, until shuttle was ready in 1978.
Under Nixon was that no problem
under Ford is another question, he had most urgent problem to solve: Watergate and Nixon.
ehh Gerald Ford is Vice president in this TL ?
Archibald, please note that I love this TL and this is in no way a reflection on you or it
However, can we please AVOID using Mr. Baxter's book to "support" anything having to do with Nuclear power and specifically in space thereof? Please?
I enjoyed it as a read, but had to put it down at the point of the whole "NERVA 2" fiasco and recall that Mr. Baxter himself (after being taken to task for this specifically) while telling actual Nuclear Engineers that it was "only fiction" and that he "needed it to happen so he wrote it that way" has admitted the whole scenario CAN NOT actually happen in any way, shape, or form.
It's fiction FOR a reason and that reason is specifically he (Baxter) required an outcome that tainted nuclear propulsion far beyond what was already in place because otherwise there was NO technical or political reason that the Mars mission would not be nuclear propelled and he needed it to be chemically propelled to allow a Venus flyby. (Though it should be clearly noted that in fact IF you get political support for a Mars mission, tossing in a Venus flyby is seriously NOT going to be that difficult)
Seriously. Physically the presented scenario is impossible. None of this could happen because the NERVA didn't/doesn't operate that way and no "NERVA 2" engine would design in enough flaws to HAVE it happen. The engine would not work.
The rest of this will be a point by point "rant" if you will but I ask those who are interested in accuracy to bide a bit and read on:
And that's the MAIN point where the whole concept falls apart. The "moderators" were always external to the core. Drums, not rods and they were MADE so that in any case they would automatically rotate to a tamper position. In order to have the NERVA-TNT engine "explode" these drums had to have specially made rotation mechanisms that ONLY went one way (full on) and then LOCKED into position so they would not move.
Hydrogen boiling and expanding... Ya about that. Considering that everything BUT the core and jacket would burst BEFORE the containment core/jacket system exactly HOW does this not blow the nozzle off first or rupture the feed lines and therefore relive the pressure? Baxter "assumes" a chunk of the core coming lose and blocking the nozzle which is about the unlikeliest possible outcome since by the end of the program core cracking or element shedding had been designed out. (It should be noted that this happened a couple of times during early testing and conditions NEVER reached a point where the nozzle was significantly "blocked" by debris even when the early matrix fell completely apart) Just about everything in the NERVA engine was more likely to "blow out" than the containment vessel and no "flight-weight requirements" were going to force enough change to make it so.
Again they managed it in the NERVA-TNT experiment by the simple expedient of designing the "core" with no actual output and no actual connection to the "nozzle" on the experiment. They then fed in highly pressurized liquid hydrogen and used quick acting valves (much stronger than the material used to construct the containment vessel) to close and LOCK the inputs so they would not blowout. Again, SPECIFICALLY designed to do so and in no way reflecting any actual possible design for an actual engine.
(Biggest complaint about the whole "reasoning" for doing the NERVA-TNT was/is/has always been that it took a lot of effort, resources and money to design something that would "explode" and so much so that it resembled nothing like an actual NERVA engine itself. The ONLY recorded benefit to the entire experiment was it showed how safe and actual NERVA was and how easy it was to contain and clean up)
NERVA's "positive temperature coefficient" was in fact not an issue and IN fact wasn't much more "positive" than any other reactor core. It had no MORE chance of melting down than any other reactor core and this was actually proven fact. One run of the core at full power ran out of hydrogen for a few minutes at the end of the scheduled run due to a faulty gauge. The core overheated and while the matrix melted some, examination post operation showed that the core was still capable of being used in it's present condition for the "required" time if it had been on an actual mission.
(The elements actually "slumped" a bit under gravity where as in microgravity they wouldn't have but no where near enough to actually block any of the channels or nozzle)
Even with it's vaunted (overblown would be more apt) "positive temperature coefficient" NERVA isn't going to do more than melt down AT which point the entire "runaway" fission STOPS.
(And it should be rather obvious that the whole latent heat "issue" is bunk as the system has already SHOWN it isn't an issue when it happens by accident so during normal operation...)
If it seems I'm a bit "oversensitive" on this it's likely because I am having had to (again) tilt-windmills with people who fully accept that Mr. Baxter's "scenario" is not only plausible but highly likely, when it's not even remotely possible at all.
Can we please stop using this as an "example" of anything? Please?
(Note: Not that I think at all doing so here will actually accomplish anything outside of these forums but when tilting at windmills you take the victories you can, when you can
)Randy
Archibald
Banned
Voyage
No worries Ranulf. Over the years I've noticed that Voyage tends to foster "extreme" reactions - space geeks either adore it or hate it.
Michel: NASA (and America ?) troubles are only beginning. The N-1 has all kind of massive projects tied to it.
So far the U.S political landscape has remained untouched when compared to OTL. There will be a minor change - after 1976 Carter will pick up someone else as VP - not Walter Mondale.
The Watergate vs N1-L3 fell in place nicely some days ago. I reminded that the fifth N-1 (8L) was to fly in August 1974, and of course Nixon resigned at this moment.
No worries Ranulf. Over the years I've noticed that Voyage tends to foster "extreme" reactions - space geeks either adore it or hate it.
Michel: NASA (and America ?) troubles are only beginning. The N-1 has all kind of massive projects tied to it.
So far the U.S political landscape has remained untouched when compared to OTL. There will be a minor change - after 1976 Carter will pick up someone else as VP - not Walter Mondale.
The Watergate vs N1-L3 fell in place nicely some days ago. I reminded that the fifth N-1 (8L) was to fly in August 1974, and of course Nixon resigned at this moment.
Battle for the space shuttle (18): the aftermath
Archibald
Banned
the space shuttle ghost
Big Gemini will fly a maximum of four missions a year. There's no way of ramping up flight rates above that level – the bottleneck is the Titan III launcher. At least a space station is being build.
Reading the leaked Matematica report however one can't help daydreaming about the lost shuttle. The morale might be, NASA gambled a lot and ultimately lost. It should be remembered that, as of 1971 per lack of budget NASA went as far as killing the space station, betting everything on the shuttle itself.
Per lack of space station, a tin can laboratory would have been flown within the shuttle payload bay. At first glance that looks like a dubious substitute to a space station, but in fact it was a long-thought gamble. With the lab in the payload bay the shuttle tookover a good chunk of space station missions, and that inflated its flight manifest artificially.
It should be remembered that NASA sought to earn money when flying the shuttle; and to achieve that, the shuttle had to fly a lot, as much as once a week. The more missions the lower the cost - that was the motto. More generally it was hoped that low cost of space transportation to orbit would help creating new missions, closing the shuttle economic case. With perfect hindsight is was a risky, but audacious, bet. We will never for sure whether it would have paid or not – at least not until a successfull atempt at a RLV is made in the future.
FLIGHT International. 29 August 1974
By DAVID BAKER
Recently a disgruntled economist with the name of Klaus Heiss leaked an economic study he had done of the now defunct space shuttle. That study has been the subject of intense controversy. Some see it as a glimpse of a forever lost era – how the shuttle would have flown a lot, turning the usual space launch business upside down. Others said it was just outrageous – the the numbers touted were utterly naive and unrealistic. Taking the Mathematica study as a point of departure, David Baker picks up an interesting angle – that of counterfactual history. He tries to imagine where woud we be had the shuttle not been cancelled three years ago.
Now that the space shuttle is well under way the technical barriers are coming down and confidence is backed with an enthusiastic optimism for the golden age of cheap commuter travel between Earth and near-space. Just three years ago the much publicised Space Station, a follow-on to Skylab, began to price itself out of future plans and the container method came in.
By packaging several instruments together and mounting them on a pallet, the Shuttle's own cargo bay will serve as the platform from which scientific tasks may be conducted, so capitalising on the enormous ready-made volume built in to the Orbiter. If men are needed to tend the equipment a cheap, pressurised compartment can be carried alongside. This, in essence, is Spacelab, and flights using this European-built laboratory will be called Sortie Missions.
But the Shuttle is not an end in itself and even with Spacelab in the cargo bay it will realise only a small part of the ambitious programme now envisaged for it. To effectively plan a space programme for the 1980s Nasa has built up a Mission Model, using proposals for the use of satellites or spacecraft as a yardstick from which the payload priorities over the next decade and beyond can be determined.
An earlier plan developed in 1971 foresaw 327 possible payloads in a 12-year period and the present model raises this to 507 as a result of cancellation of the Space Station. This is naturally more cost-effective because of the increased launch rate. Non-Nasa Government agencies, private consortia and possible European payloads add a further 173, while the Department of Defence estimates that it will require 304 payloads to be flown into orbit.
Because the Shuttle will be capable of carrying more than one payload per flight the 986 packages can be condensed into 725 flights in the 12-year period between 1980 and 1991. Of this total Nasa will launch 501, or 69 per cent.
The Mission Model is best analysed by dividing it into Sortie (Spacelab) flights and direct-launch missions, in which a satellite is put into orbit or "retrieved. About 34 per cent of all Shuttle flights will use Spacelab, and less than half of these are expected to use the unmanned pallet alone (i.e. without the habitable pressure module). Only 12 per cent of Spacelab flights are devoted to non-US payloads, while US commercial users account for 3 per cent and Nasa for 85 per cent. Thus 34 per cent of all Shuttle flights support 69 per cent of the payload envisaged. The remaining 31 per cent of Shuttle payloads will be direct-launch satellites encompassing Earth-orbit, deep-space and planetary objectives.
But the Shuttle has limitations on performance and not all the anticipated payloads can be launched by the Orbiter alone, although some flexibility exists for tailoring the Shuttle to specific payloads. Normally the Orbiter will carry 23,8801b of propellant, sufficient to provide a l,000ft/sec velocity change for manoeuvring purposes from the two 6,0001b-thrust engines mounted in the rear fuselage.
These rocket motors will be used to provide the final boost into parking orbit, to circularise the orbit at a desired altitude, to provide the energy needed for all orbital changes, and to de-orbit the craft at the end of the mission. Flights from the Kennedy Space Centre, from due east up to 55° inclination require less than 150ft/sec velocity change to reach a 50 x 100 n.m. orbit, while a launch from Vandenberg AFB, 55° il04° inclination, needs 350ft/sec to reach the same orbit after mainengine cut-off. This allows the big propellant tank to fall back to the atmosphere without the need for a retro-rocket. Polar flights are heavily penalised by the increased velocity demand, and these are reflected in the payload figures.
In basic form the Shuttle will be capable of placing a 65,0001b payload in a circular 28-5° orbit at 210 n.m. altitude. With the same payload it can attain a 450 n.m. apogee from a 100-mile orbit. For a 90° orbit the payload is reduced to 35,0001b, the altitude falls to 200 n.m. and the maximum apogee available is only 390 n.m. These figures represent the best trade-off between altitude and payload, although weight changes have only a marginal impact on the orbit and the absolute altitude attainable is relatively insensitive to off-loading from the cargo bay. This is reflected in the payload figures for the 28-5° orbit; whereas 65,0001b can be carried to a circular 210 mile path, reducing the payload weight to 1,0001b raises the altitude by only 75 miles.
To reach higher orbits the Shuttle can be fitted with up to three supplementary fuel tanks fitted in the cargo bay and fed to the two manoeuvring engines by means of additional plumbing. With all three tanks installed the Orbiter gains an, extra l,500ft/sec manoeuvring capability over the l,000ft/sec available by using the integral tanks. This permits the Orbiter to deliver 25,0001b to a circular, 585-mile orbit at 28-5° inclination, or a 1,040-mile apogee from a 100-mile perigee. But even this is too low for many of the payloads proposed in the current Mission Model, in which 43 per cent of all flights require a supplementary method of propulsion. In fact, 17 per cent of all Nasa and DoD missions involve synchronous orbits and this reflects a dilemma of the entire programme.
For several years the Shuttle was seen as a cheap economic launch vehicle, carrying scientists destined for large orbital laboratories and piloted by a cadre of astronauts, ferrying massive supply containers to the permanent Space Stations. The demise of the Space Station has given predicted launch rates a boost, as noted earlier, by transferring orbital laboratory experiments into the Shuttle itself. However the economics of Shuttle launch operations can no longer be regarded as a challenge to the existing family of expendable rockets. This is due both to relatively high launch costs compared with small rockets such as Scout and Delta, and in the higher percentage of flights needing orbital altitudes in excess of those attainable by the Shuttle. The extra propulsive stages needed for these flights cannot be regarded as payload, but must be chargeable to the Shuttle. To do so would be tantamount to classifying the Saturn V third stage as part of the Saturn's payload. Because of this the launch cost per lb of payload weight increases well beyond the $160 obtained by dividing launch cost by maximum payload. In fact, several flights indicate a financial disadvantage in using the Shuttle.
An example of this reasoning is illustrated by the proposed 1986 Mariner-Uranus mission. Although the weight in the cargo bay exceeds 46,0001b the actual spacecraft weighs a mere 2,1371b. Two launch cost figures can be deduced from this. If the entire contents of the cargo bay are charged as payload the launch cost per pound of payload weight comes to $218. If, however, the Mariner spacecraft alone is deemed to be the payload then the launch cost is $4,560/lb payload.
This is an extreme example but it serves to show the influence of an additional propulsive stage in the Shuttle. The Mission Model referred to earlier indicates how effective the Shuttle can be if used for only those missions where a heavy payload is required. For example, Nasa forecasts 14 Shuttle flights into near-Earth orbit in 1980. The average load on each flight will be 25,0721b and since all of this is payload the launch cost comes out at a competitive $36.1/lb payload weight.
Taking another 12-month period, 1983 for example, Nasa expects to mount 40 flights and the picture here becomes very different. The Mission Model anticipates 27 direct Shuttle flights and 13 missions involving the use of an additional propulsion unit. The average payload weight per flight reduces to 13,9091b and the launch cost increases to $674/lb payload weight. Again, the additional propulsion unit needed reduces the cost advantage over expendable rockets and since a higher fraction of DoD payloads require such a boost the economics become less attractive.
Because the Shuttle can offer many advantages denied to the conventional launch vehicle, such as re-usability, retrieval of redundant or faulty satellites and the return of a propulsive stage incapable of Earth-entry by itself, any evaluation of economics must take into account the entire programme envisaged for the period 1980-1991. Based on the current Mission Model, accommodating 986 payloads on 725 Nasa /DoD flights, the Shuttle programme would cost $49,370 million at 1972 prices. Included in this estimate is the need for 80 expendable rockets of the Scout, Delta and Titan classes during the 1980-1982 build-up period. Seven Shuttle vehicles are required to support this Mission Model and the three-year build-up envisages maximum acquisition rates of follow-on Orbiters, so keeping production costs down.
By comparison, the equivalent traffic rate using conventional rockets would cost $63,470 million. The difference between Shuttle and expendable models' shows a gross benefit of $14,100 million during the 12-year period. However, it should be stressed that the expendable rocket model uses criteria developed for the Shuttle, with payloads optimised around the Orbiter. By designing the payload model for expendable rockets in the first place the Shuttle would be hard put to justify its existence. Clearly the new Mission Model is built around the Shuttle itself and this further enhances the argument that not only is Nasa developing a new launch vehicle but also promoting a re-direction of effort in the entire space programme.
As the annual launch rate is reduced, so the economics become increasingly unfavourable to the Shuttle. It is instructive to compare the projected launch weights in the Mission Model with those of the past 12 years. The highest annual Nasa total was that of 1972 when 33,6451b was launched, but the average over the last 12 years has been only 14,0581b per annum. This excludes manned flights since a true comparison must ignore the abnormally heavy weights associated with these programmes of the past. There is no equivalent in current planning for the Gemini/Apollo/Skylab projects and such figures would serve only to cloud the issue. Seen against this past 12-year record are the predicted launch weights for the future and in three typical years taken from the 1980-1991 Mission Model the comparison sets a different pace. Some 351,0001b is to be launched in 1980, 556,3561b in 1983 and 1,052,5251b in 1990. It is this level of effort which generates the $14,100 million cost benefit mentioned above. (DoD missions are excluded from both sets of figures.)
It remains to be seen if Nasa, in concert with other users such as the European Space Agency and Intelsat, can really generate such a busy payload traffic from a relatively static budget.
As we saw earlier Nasa and the DoD will not be able to fulfil all their needs with the present Shuttle performance, even with additional fuel for the two manoeuvring engines. Because of this the USAF is to adapt an existing rocket stage for use with Shuttle payloads from 1980. The Interim Upper Stage, as it is called, will be an expendable booster and will probably take the form of a modified Agena. By 1984 it will be replaced by the Tug (to be developed by Nasa), a more sophisticated propulsion unit capable of dispatching satellites to synchronous or highaltitude orbits, boosting spacecraft to the planets and bringing back payloads to the Shuttle for return to Earth. The interim vehicle arid the Tug will both be made available to customers needing them.
It is too early yet to discuss the design aspects of either the Interim Upper Stage or the Tug—manufacturers are only just starting to look seriously at the concept—but the performance requirements are already defined and this indicates, in turn, the ultimate potential of the first generation Shuttle.
The specification for the cryogenic Tug requires transfer of a 7,0001b payload to synchronous orbit and the return of the vehicle to a 160 n.m. parking orbit. It is then retrieved by the Shuttle, placed in the cargo bay and returned to Earth. If the Tug is on a satellite retrieval mission the down-load is limited to 4,2501b, or 2,7501b on a combined deploy/retrieval flight.
To accommodate these requirements the Tug would be about 35ft long, 15ft in diameter, with a dry weight of 5,2001b and a maximum propellant weight of 55,7001b. The performance calls for a 15,0001b-thrust engine with a specific impulse of 461sec. However, the Tug will not be available before 1984 and the less powerful Interim Upper Stage will not make available anything near this performance during the first five years of Shuttle operations. Even the Tug will not provide the performance needed to meet the requirements for several of the proposed planetary missions. For instance, the velocity increment of 18,000ft/sec needed to reach the outer planets would demand the use of a kick-stage attached to the payload itself. The Tug would propel the spacecraft to a partial escape trajectory, separate and then return to the Shuttle's 160 n.m. orbit. The payload meanwhile would need an additional 6,000ft/sec from the expendable kick-stage to escape from the Earth's gravitational influence. This compromises the economics even more owing to the loss of the supplementary boost stage, which disappears into space along with its payload.
It- is too early to be dogmatic about projected mission models for the 1980s. The existing model, developed by Nasa and the USAF, assumes a static Nasa budget of $3,300 million at 1972 prices but it is difficult to see how the high launch rate can be sustained. For the Nasa flights alone (501 from 1980 to 1991) the Mission Model calls for an average annual outlay of $390 million in launch costs alone. This assumes each Shuttle flight will cost $9-05 million at 1972 prices, with an extra $1 million for each of the 152 Tug flights.
Nasa has consistently attempted to justify the economics of a Shuttle-based space programme on the $5,500 million development figure. But this covers only two Orbiters, and the Mission Model now proposed requires procurement of five more Shuttles at an estimated $250 million each. In addition to this the payload prediction includes 12 Interim Upper Stages, seven Tugs and 16 kick-stages. Development of the Tug alone could cost $1,000 million, excluding additional models. Finally, planning for the Spacelab element envisages five support modules (i.e. the pressurised, manned laboratories) eight experiment modules (cylindrical containers attached to the rear of the support modules, carrying experiments) and 45 separate experiment pallets. In short, a lot of equipment will be needed to support the 986 payloads proposed and it is difficult to accurately predict the effects on the economics of even a minor slip in development schedules
Assuming that the ambitious programme anticipated for the 1980s is a realistic proposition the $14,100 million cost advantage in using the Shuttle for 12 years is going to be offset by the increasing quantity of equipment necessary to support such a venture. Any delay in introducing the full inventory of Shuttles, Tugs, kick-stages and other vehicles now envisaged would keep expendable launch vehicles in business for years. Commercial users such as Intelsat will undoubtedly press vigorously for the retention of conventional rockets, particularly Scout and Delta, unless means can be found to substantially reduce the nearly 2:1 cost penalty of using the Shuttle.
But if these figures reveal anything at all it is that the Shuttle must be seen as an investment in future space capability, bearing in mind the limitations imposed by the phased introduction of equipment. The Mission Model assumes availability of an interim Tug in 1981, capable of re-rendezvous with the Shuttle but not of retrieving a satellite from high altitude. Now that the USAF has pursued the Interim Upper Stage as an expendable unit Nasa will be unable to retrieve satellites above 350 miles until the Tug appears in 1984. Combined deploy/retrieval flights lower this figure considerably. Also, the 12 Interim Upper Stages demanded by the Mission Model assume them to be recoverable. By throwing each unit away for the first five years of Shuttle operations the economics are further compromised.
Clearly, the launch of 800,0001b payload per annum relies on too many factors converging at the right time. The ambitious Mission Model has too* many parallels with the programme proposed in 1969 which envisaged longduration stations in space, lunar bases, lunar orbit stations and nuclear shuttles, to be wholly relevant today. Nasa has to develop and effectively use the Shuttle to survive another decade of space operations, but an over-optimistic attitude has, in the past, left the agency with a string of cancelled projects. Only a realistic attitude to future requirements can hope to reverse this trend.
In conclusion - the Shuttle was hailed as a major technical step forward when it appeared on the scene five years ago, sponsored by a Nasa anxious to keep the huge Apollo industrial machine in being. The Shuttle will undoubtedly have a major part to play in the American and European space programme being schemed for the 1980s, but is not perhaps the total launch vehicle that Nasa appears to consider it. If you have a 65,000lb manned scientific laboratory to place in low Earth orbit, then the Shuttle is just the job. But if you have a 1,0001b communications satellite bound for stationary orbit (and paid for by the shareholders) a good old-fashioned rocket will do the job at half the cost.
PRINCETON ECONOMIST KLAUS HEISS ANSWERS DAVID BAKER CRITICISM OF THE PLANNED SHUTTLE FLIGHT RATE.
- INPUTS TO THE 1972 SPACE SHUTTLE ECONOMIC STUDY
Contrary to perceptions, the case for the Space Shuttle – and also for the Space Tug, then an integral conceptual part of a reusable Space Transportation System (STS) to service to all Earth orbits – was NOT based on transportation cost savings. Important presentations by the independent assessment team in 1970-71 started with the realization that the Space Shuttle cannot be justified solely with the narrow argument of transportation cost savings.
Indeed it is this statement – that the Space Shuttle System could NOT be justified on the basis of transportation cost savings – and the logical exposition of the REAL case for the Shuttle that won the author the award to do the independent outside assessment by NASA in 1970 to begin with. Imagine: a $3 million contract, limited explicitly to five pages of substantive exposition AND a full day cross-examination as to the rationale AND to start out the presentation with the statement: “The reusable Space Transportation System (Space Shuttle and Space Tug) can NOT be justified on transportation costs!”
So what WAS the logic for having a Space Shuttle and Space Tug – other than reducing the cost of Space transportation? The very first Table in our 1971 Executive Summary and our Main Report to NASA clearly and simply stated that the life cycle costs would be less for New Expendable (rocket) systems than for a Space Shuttle and Tug – some $11 billion vs. $12 billion, NOT counting the costs for manned Space flight missions!
However one “massaged” the NASA and DoD mission models (we reduced the mission numbers given to us by the agencies by up to 67%) there was no way to “justify” the Space Shuttle based on transportation costs over a 10-year, 20-year or even “infinite” time horizon – where “infinity” has a way of shrinking drastically when reasonable discount costs are applied to “future” savings, which we did.
The various Shuttle configurations considered in the 1971-72 assessment are shown and compared in terms of total non-recurring costs (RDT&E, initial fleet of five orbiters) vs. the cost per flight of the various options. These ranged from a fully reusable version (A “707” sitting atop a “747” taking off vertically with all internal LOX/LH2 tanks), to Thrust Assisted Orbiter Shuttles (TAOS) and a “Reusable Crew Module” launched on expendables.
Also shown in Figure A-2 is the effect of interest rates on technical system choices: were funding, costs and risks no issue, then a case could have been made for a fully reusable Shuttle. However, given those constraints the TAOS set of configurations emerged as the choice.
The ‘Orbital Space Plane’ was rejected out of hand, as with the intended uses (with a reusable Space Tug) for carrying all payloads to low, high and geosyncronous orbit and the ensuing ‘payload effects’ the basic rationale for the new Space Transportation System was foregone. Also noteworthy in this context was the fairy tale of the “assumed” $5 million cost for each Shuttle launch. The range of launch costs was clearly identified in ALL reports and testimony to Congress and in three separate GAO ‘in-depth’ reviews in the 1970’s
For TAOS with Solid Boosters (the configuration ultimately chosen by NASA) these costs ranged anywhere from $15 million to $30 million (in 1970 dollars – or about $60 to $120 millions in today’s dollars) depending on assumed launch rates of up to 24 per year, with a clearly stated launch risk of 2% (98% success rate).
In contrast, TAOS with Liquid (Pressure Fed) Boosters would reduce these costs and risks by about half – and would permit the possibility of intact abort throughout launch.
Furthermore, moving toward a fully reusable STS (using modular designs with standardized spacecraft components) would open up totally new ways of operating and assuring space missions – collectively called ‘payload effects’, e.g.,
· The ability to revisit any and all satellites in Earth orbit would allow for cost effective maintenance, repair and updating of components of these spacecraft. Transportation costs constitute only one third of total STS costs. The rest has to do with spacecraft, instruments, data and their processing – in space and on the ground
– and a modular design with standardized components offers great benefits in further reducing costs of the other two- thirds of total STS costs.
· Standardization of Spacecraft and Space systems at the subsystem level was a revolutionary idea in 1970 (still unimplemented, by the way) that promised up to 67% cuts in support costs for spacecraft. Standardization would facilitate repair and updating a satellite subsystem level – permitting relatively untrained personnel to exchange blue, green, pink and whatever other color boxes. As in 1970, only a few Space missions are “outside” the scope of such standardization.
· Reliable On-orbit service reducing the costs of required high confidence capabilities of key national security satellites, which is very expensive to achieve through redundancy of expensive satellites.
· In-orbit modernization made feasible by such replacement and repair capability. This prospect of updating expensive satellites in Space at the component level, is much to be desired over replacing whole systems or – worse – letting old technology linger in Space providing obsolete services.
In this context, our 1971-72 study examined both manned and unmanned missions. We did not want to rationalize the Space Shuttle simply and solely on the basis of man in Space: that would tilt the analysis much too much in favor of the Space Shuttle.
We observed that Space Tug and Space Shuttle would open up extensive new capabilities, e.g., structures larger than could be carried by any expendable system could be standardized and designed for on-orbit repair, replacements, updates, maintenance, etc8. We identified entirely new classes of Spacecraft for science, commerce or defense – in Low Earth Orbit, intermediate orbits, and up to and beyond Geo-synchronous orbits. Dozens of new Space application missions where designed and outlined for NASA, the DoD and private enterprise – once the Space Shuttle and Tug were fully operational, e.g., for
Space Science: one of our first visits in Princeton was to the astronomy department, chaired at that time by Prof. Spitzer. The result of these meetings was what today is known as the Hubble Space Telescope. I'm strongly convinced that, had the unique capabilities of the Space Shuttle been available, this magnificent instrument could have been built, launched, repaired, maintained and modernized much more easily – on the ground, not in space !We also defined half a dozen other scientific Spacecraft, some in LEO, some in HEO and some in GEO, ranging from radar to infrared to multi-spectral instruments of a size and capability hitherto unknown and unimaginable.
· Commercial Applications: particularly for communications and remote sensing. Some applications would develop with or without the Shuttle, e.g., a vast range of communications and navigation satellites, including GPS, a variety of Global resources sensing satellites, low and high Earth orbit communication satellites at a variety of frequency bands. We also foresaw an entirely new class of satellites with vastly expanded capabilities, e.g., a new generation of communication platforms in geo-synchronous orbit with vastly increased power- requirements, on-board switching, data processing and storage; tens of thousands of spot beams, and satellite-to-satellite optical and laser communications allowing point-to-point communications to any place in the world. Direct access to repair, maintain and modernize these platforms was critical to providing 99.999-plus reliability. We envisioned a Global Resources Information System (GRIS) described in detail in the NRC papers of the Snowmass meetings of 1974. The effect on the distribution of world food supplies through the commodities markets alone accounted for billions of dollars in annual benefits. Environmental, energy, geologic and other resource observations benefited as well, including such arcane applications as archeology. Many of these have become reality today, as they can also be achieved with smaller spacecraft, not requiring the capabilities of the Space Shuttle and Tug system.
· Defense Applications: at least one-third of all applications foreseen for the new STS were defense related. They included some of the applications realized since then in navigation (GPS), in observations, in communications, albeit not to the extent possible if we had truly developed the full Shuttle and Tug capabilities, with vistas for expanded uses of Space very similar to those cited for commercial uses above. Building on the considerations of “Bambi” and a seminal 1968 paper by Max Hunter – a member of our team – showing the technical feasibility (in principle) of a Space based laser defense against ballistic missile attacks, we included BOTH options [kinetic (Killer Bees) and lasers] in our analyses of 1971-1972
While not necessary for a positive Space Shuttle decision, these possible space missions would have significantly added to the benefits of the STS then proposed.
Not included in the cost-benefit analysis was a vision of future energy supplies from Space to Earth, e.g., large Solar Power Satellite Platforms of up to 100 square miles in area, first proposed by Peter Glaser of Arthur D. Little. One such platform alone will be able to supply up to 10 GW of electric power to any point on Earth. Also not included were any manned Space flight missions such as a Space Station, or Lunar missions or missions beyond. While these possibilities were recognized, we chose not to comingle them with unmanned Space missions which alone justified the Shuttle-Tug STS on the basis of a cost comparison. Their inclusion would open new horizons, indeed.
Analyzing literally hundreds of different Space program scenarios, with any and all mixes of foreseeable Space missions and applications, we concluded by the end of 1971 that an STS employing a Space Shuttle and Space Tug was in the interest of the United States, at a substantially reduced cost from the original plans of NASA (a two stage fully reusable design roughly a 707 on top of a 747 taking off vertically with internal hydrogen tanks etc.) saving the country billions of dollars in the development phase (cutting the RDT&E costs by 50% or more) AND allowing a cost effective, new range of Space operations and uses.
The author presented this result to the NASA Administrator in an October 28, 1971 Memorandum (to assure consideration in the Final Design Selection process set for early November and still limited to two stage designs only). This memorandum was followed in January 1972 by a three volume report and separate Executive Summary, documenting the extensive work done by our group in Princeton with support from Aerospace Corporation (Mission modeling) and Lockheed Missile and Space Corporation (LMSC), the leading contractor for the military uses of Space. Notably, this report explicitly stated that the risk of Shuttle Missions failure was one in fifty.
‘break even’ for the TAOS Shuttle configuration was/is around 25 flights (again including all launches out of East and West coast sites) to all orbits. Two broad ‘families’ of Space programs were analyzed: ballistic missile defense and other DoD programs (the upper range of results depicted in Figure 2.3) and scenarios without such advanced uses. Obviously the case for the Space Shuttle system was better with additional uses in low earth orbits.
Contrary to perceptions held by some, NASA did not ‘assume’ 600 or more space flights to ‘justify’ the Shuttle. This is simply not the case as indicated by all of the testimony throughout the Space Shuttle decision hearings before Congress in the 1970’s. To repeat: however one “massaged” the NASA and DoD mission models (we reduced the mission numbers given to us by the agencies by up to two-thirds) there was no way to “justify” the Space Shuttle based on transportation costs over a 10year, 20 year or even “infinite” time horizon – where “infinity” has a way of shrinking drastically when reasonable discount costs are applied to “future” savings, which was done. Transportation costs were at best a “draw”.
The real reason for reusable STS capabilities – to LEO, GEO and beyond, ideally including Lunar orbits – is in the profound effect these capabilities would (will) have on the very conduct of Space missions, their reliability and capabilities. They would lead to a fundamental change in how to conduct ‘Near-Earth’ Space missions. Thus, the opening up of the Moon as our ‘natural’ Space Station and Operations Base for Cis- and Trans-Lunar activities will transform and change forever on how we operate and use Earth and Near Earth Space.
Today, thirty plus years later, the author would not change a single sentence, conclusion or recommendation made in 1971. The concluding observations to NASA deserve highlighting: The economic basis for the Space Shuttle and Tug were sound and solid – AS LONG AS NASA AND THE NATION HAD AN ACTIVE SPACE PROGRAM ALONG THE SCALED BACK SCENARIOS OUTLINED AND USED BY US.
The initial Space Transportation System Recommendations of 1971 – The 1972 decision to proceed with a new Space Transportation System – including the TAOS Shuttle and the Space Tug – was the last significant, courageous and strategic Space program decision assuring an aggressive U.S. Space strategy for the rest of the century to well into the next millennium: all this at an affordable budget profile substantially less than that expended on the Apollo program of the 1960’s, the vision for which President Kennedy and his generation will be remembered in millennia to come. The salient technical transportation components recommended at that time were :
· TAOS instead of Two Stage Fully Reusable Shuttle. The TAOS Orbiter Shuttle represented a substantial reduction in development costs, risks and schedules over the desire by NASA to develop a two stage fully reusable Orbiter AND Booster – with the estimated development costs reduced by a factor of three to four (from 50 to $60 billion in 1970 dollars to 15 to $20 billion for TAOS, a savings of at least $40 billion
· A reusable Space Tug To assure access to all Earth orbit missions to the new STS and its new philosophy of payload standardization for in orbit repairs, refurbishment, updating and rescue for high mission availability;
· An Ambitious Unmanned Space Missions program, including all “conventional” DoD programs then deployed; two novel DoD missile defense missions, one “kinetic” (then called ‘killer bees’), one laser based (Max Hunter’s concept of 1968); “conventional” science and commercial programs such as communications, observations, navigation and life sciences programs; an entirely new class of science and commercial space capabilities (such as Large Astronomy Observation platforms – e.g. the Hubble Space Telescope and several others which availed themselves uniquely of the new STS capabilities – and large geosyncronous Space communications platforms of entirely new dimensions allowing global point to point communications without ground networks.); and
· Enabling whatever Manned Space Program the U.S. might wish to pursue as a
“side benefit” of these capabilities.
Had NASA and the nation fully pursued these programs in the afterglow of the Apollo program achievements, the dominance of the United States in Space would have been absolute. Some of these programs have immensely contributed to changing the strategic perceptions and relations anyhow, others, indeed most still languish to be implemented. The course charted out then still remains to be taken. Most notably in manned Space flight.
NEVER, EVER WOULD IT HAVE OCCURRED TO US, THAT NASA AND THE NATION WOULD ABDICATE THE PURSUIT AND CONQUEST, INDEED DOMINATION OF SPACE.
Big Gemini will fly a maximum of four missions a year. There's no way of ramping up flight rates above that level – the bottleneck is the Titan III launcher. At least a space station is being build.
Reading the leaked Matematica report however one can't help daydreaming about the lost shuttle. The morale might be, NASA gambled a lot and ultimately lost. It should be remembered that, as of 1971 per lack of budget NASA went as far as killing the space station, betting everything on the shuttle itself.
Per lack of space station, a tin can laboratory would have been flown within the shuttle payload bay. At first glance that looks like a dubious substitute to a space station, but in fact it was a long-thought gamble. With the lab in the payload bay the shuttle tookover a good chunk of space station missions, and that inflated its flight manifest artificially.
It should be remembered that NASA sought to earn money when flying the shuttle; and to achieve that, the shuttle had to fly a lot, as much as once a week. The more missions the lower the cost - that was the motto. More generally it was hoped that low cost of space transportation to orbit would help creating new missions, closing the shuttle economic case. With perfect hindsight is was a risky, but audacious, bet. We will never for sure whether it would have paid or not – at least not until a successfull atempt at a RLV is made in the future.
FLIGHT International. 29 August 1974
By DAVID BAKER
Recently a disgruntled economist with the name of Klaus Heiss leaked an economic study he had done of the now defunct space shuttle. That study has been the subject of intense controversy. Some see it as a glimpse of a forever lost era – how the shuttle would have flown a lot, turning the usual space launch business upside down. Others said it was just outrageous – the the numbers touted were utterly naive and unrealistic. Taking the Mathematica study as a point of departure, David Baker picks up an interesting angle – that of counterfactual history. He tries to imagine where woud we be had the shuttle not been cancelled three years ago.
Now that the space shuttle is well under way the technical barriers are coming down and confidence is backed with an enthusiastic optimism for the golden age of cheap commuter travel between Earth and near-space. Just three years ago the much publicised Space Station, a follow-on to Skylab, began to price itself out of future plans and the container method came in.
By packaging several instruments together and mounting them on a pallet, the Shuttle's own cargo bay will serve as the platform from which scientific tasks may be conducted, so capitalising on the enormous ready-made volume built in to the Orbiter. If men are needed to tend the equipment a cheap, pressurised compartment can be carried alongside. This, in essence, is Spacelab, and flights using this European-built laboratory will be called Sortie Missions.
But the Shuttle is not an end in itself and even with Spacelab in the cargo bay it will realise only a small part of the ambitious programme now envisaged for it. To effectively plan a space programme for the 1980s Nasa has built up a Mission Model, using proposals for the use of satellites or spacecraft as a yardstick from which the payload priorities over the next decade and beyond can be determined.
An earlier plan developed in 1971 foresaw 327 possible payloads in a 12-year period and the present model raises this to 507 as a result of cancellation of the Space Station. This is naturally more cost-effective because of the increased launch rate. Non-Nasa Government agencies, private consortia and possible European payloads add a further 173, while the Department of Defence estimates that it will require 304 payloads to be flown into orbit.
Because the Shuttle will be capable of carrying more than one payload per flight the 986 packages can be condensed into 725 flights in the 12-year period between 1980 and 1991. Of this total Nasa will launch 501, or 69 per cent.
The Mission Model is best analysed by dividing it into Sortie (Spacelab) flights and direct-launch missions, in which a satellite is put into orbit or "retrieved. About 34 per cent of all Shuttle flights will use Spacelab, and less than half of these are expected to use the unmanned pallet alone (i.e. without the habitable pressure module). Only 12 per cent of Spacelab flights are devoted to non-US payloads, while US commercial users account for 3 per cent and Nasa for 85 per cent. Thus 34 per cent of all Shuttle flights support 69 per cent of the payload envisaged. The remaining 31 per cent of Shuttle payloads will be direct-launch satellites encompassing Earth-orbit, deep-space and planetary objectives.
But the Shuttle has limitations on performance and not all the anticipated payloads can be launched by the Orbiter alone, although some flexibility exists for tailoring the Shuttle to specific payloads. Normally the Orbiter will carry 23,8801b of propellant, sufficient to provide a l,000ft/sec velocity change for manoeuvring purposes from the two 6,0001b-thrust engines mounted in the rear fuselage.
These rocket motors will be used to provide the final boost into parking orbit, to circularise the orbit at a desired altitude, to provide the energy needed for all orbital changes, and to de-orbit the craft at the end of the mission. Flights from the Kennedy Space Centre, from due east up to 55° inclination require less than 150ft/sec velocity change to reach a 50 x 100 n.m. orbit, while a launch from Vandenberg AFB, 55° il04° inclination, needs 350ft/sec to reach the same orbit after mainengine cut-off. This allows the big propellant tank to fall back to the atmosphere without the need for a retro-rocket. Polar flights are heavily penalised by the increased velocity demand, and these are reflected in the payload figures.
In basic form the Shuttle will be capable of placing a 65,0001b payload in a circular 28-5° orbit at 210 n.m. altitude. With the same payload it can attain a 450 n.m. apogee from a 100-mile orbit. For a 90° orbit the payload is reduced to 35,0001b, the altitude falls to 200 n.m. and the maximum apogee available is only 390 n.m. These figures represent the best trade-off between altitude and payload, although weight changes have only a marginal impact on the orbit and the absolute altitude attainable is relatively insensitive to off-loading from the cargo bay. This is reflected in the payload figures for the 28-5° orbit; whereas 65,0001b can be carried to a circular 210 mile path, reducing the payload weight to 1,0001b raises the altitude by only 75 miles.
To reach higher orbits the Shuttle can be fitted with up to three supplementary fuel tanks fitted in the cargo bay and fed to the two manoeuvring engines by means of additional plumbing. With all three tanks installed the Orbiter gains an, extra l,500ft/sec manoeuvring capability over the l,000ft/sec available by using the integral tanks. This permits the Orbiter to deliver 25,0001b to a circular, 585-mile orbit at 28-5° inclination, or a 1,040-mile apogee from a 100-mile perigee. But even this is too low for many of the payloads proposed in the current Mission Model, in which 43 per cent of all flights require a supplementary method of propulsion. In fact, 17 per cent of all Nasa and DoD missions involve synchronous orbits and this reflects a dilemma of the entire programme.
For several years the Shuttle was seen as a cheap economic launch vehicle, carrying scientists destined for large orbital laboratories and piloted by a cadre of astronauts, ferrying massive supply containers to the permanent Space Stations. The demise of the Space Station has given predicted launch rates a boost, as noted earlier, by transferring orbital laboratory experiments into the Shuttle itself. However the economics of Shuttle launch operations can no longer be regarded as a challenge to the existing family of expendable rockets. This is due both to relatively high launch costs compared with small rockets such as Scout and Delta, and in the higher percentage of flights needing orbital altitudes in excess of those attainable by the Shuttle. The extra propulsive stages needed for these flights cannot be regarded as payload, but must be chargeable to the Shuttle. To do so would be tantamount to classifying the Saturn V third stage as part of the Saturn's payload. Because of this the launch cost per lb of payload weight increases well beyond the $160 obtained by dividing launch cost by maximum payload. In fact, several flights indicate a financial disadvantage in using the Shuttle.
An example of this reasoning is illustrated by the proposed 1986 Mariner-Uranus mission. Although the weight in the cargo bay exceeds 46,0001b the actual spacecraft weighs a mere 2,1371b. Two launch cost figures can be deduced from this. If the entire contents of the cargo bay are charged as payload the launch cost per pound of payload weight comes to $218. If, however, the Mariner spacecraft alone is deemed to be the payload then the launch cost is $4,560/lb payload.
This is an extreme example but it serves to show the influence of an additional propulsive stage in the Shuttle. The Mission Model referred to earlier indicates how effective the Shuttle can be if used for only those missions where a heavy payload is required. For example, Nasa forecasts 14 Shuttle flights into near-Earth orbit in 1980. The average load on each flight will be 25,0721b and since all of this is payload the launch cost comes out at a competitive $36.1/lb payload weight.
Taking another 12-month period, 1983 for example, Nasa expects to mount 40 flights and the picture here becomes very different. The Mission Model anticipates 27 direct Shuttle flights and 13 missions involving the use of an additional propulsion unit. The average payload weight per flight reduces to 13,9091b and the launch cost increases to $674/lb payload weight. Again, the additional propulsion unit needed reduces the cost advantage over expendable rockets and since a higher fraction of DoD payloads require such a boost the economics become less attractive.
Because the Shuttle can offer many advantages denied to the conventional launch vehicle, such as re-usability, retrieval of redundant or faulty satellites and the return of a propulsive stage incapable of Earth-entry by itself, any evaluation of economics must take into account the entire programme envisaged for the period 1980-1991. Based on the current Mission Model, accommodating 986 payloads on 725 Nasa /DoD flights, the Shuttle programme would cost $49,370 million at 1972 prices. Included in this estimate is the need for 80 expendable rockets of the Scout, Delta and Titan classes during the 1980-1982 build-up period. Seven Shuttle vehicles are required to support this Mission Model and the three-year build-up envisages maximum acquisition rates of follow-on Orbiters, so keeping production costs down.
By comparison, the equivalent traffic rate using conventional rockets would cost $63,470 million. The difference between Shuttle and expendable models' shows a gross benefit of $14,100 million during the 12-year period. However, it should be stressed that the expendable rocket model uses criteria developed for the Shuttle, with payloads optimised around the Orbiter. By designing the payload model for expendable rockets in the first place the Shuttle would be hard put to justify its existence. Clearly the new Mission Model is built around the Shuttle itself and this further enhances the argument that not only is Nasa developing a new launch vehicle but also promoting a re-direction of effort in the entire space programme.
As the annual launch rate is reduced, so the economics become increasingly unfavourable to the Shuttle. It is instructive to compare the projected launch weights in the Mission Model with those of the past 12 years. The highest annual Nasa total was that of 1972 when 33,6451b was launched, but the average over the last 12 years has been only 14,0581b per annum. This excludes manned flights since a true comparison must ignore the abnormally heavy weights associated with these programmes of the past. There is no equivalent in current planning for the Gemini/Apollo/Skylab projects and such figures would serve only to cloud the issue. Seen against this past 12-year record are the predicted launch weights for the future and in three typical years taken from the 1980-1991 Mission Model the comparison sets a different pace. Some 351,0001b is to be launched in 1980, 556,3561b in 1983 and 1,052,5251b in 1990. It is this level of effort which generates the $14,100 million cost benefit mentioned above. (DoD missions are excluded from both sets of figures.)
It remains to be seen if Nasa, in concert with other users such as the European Space Agency and Intelsat, can really generate such a busy payload traffic from a relatively static budget.
As we saw earlier Nasa and the DoD will not be able to fulfil all their needs with the present Shuttle performance, even with additional fuel for the two manoeuvring engines. Because of this the USAF is to adapt an existing rocket stage for use with Shuttle payloads from 1980. The Interim Upper Stage, as it is called, will be an expendable booster and will probably take the form of a modified Agena. By 1984 it will be replaced by the Tug (to be developed by Nasa), a more sophisticated propulsion unit capable of dispatching satellites to synchronous or highaltitude orbits, boosting spacecraft to the planets and bringing back payloads to the Shuttle for return to Earth. The interim vehicle arid the Tug will both be made available to customers needing them.
It is too early yet to discuss the design aspects of either the Interim Upper Stage or the Tug—manufacturers are only just starting to look seriously at the concept—but the performance requirements are already defined and this indicates, in turn, the ultimate potential of the first generation Shuttle.
The specification for the cryogenic Tug requires transfer of a 7,0001b payload to synchronous orbit and the return of the vehicle to a 160 n.m. parking orbit. It is then retrieved by the Shuttle, placed in the cargo bay and returned to Earth. If the Tug is on a satellite retrieval mission the down-load is limited to 4,2501b, or 2,7501b on a combined deploy/retrieval flight.
To accommodate these requirements the Tug would be about 35ft long, 15ft in diameter, with a dry weight of 5,2001b and a maximum propellant weight of 55,7001b. The performance calls for a 15,0001b-thrust engine with a specific impulse of 461sec. However, the Tug will not be available before 1984 and the less powerful Interim Upper Stage will not make available anything near this performance during the first five years of Shuttle operations. Even the Tug will not provide the performance needed to meet the requirements for several of the proposed planetary missions. For instance, the velocity increment of 18,000ft/sec needed to reach the outer planets would demand the use of a kick-stage attached to the payload itself. The Tug would propel the spacecraft to a partial escape trajectory, separate and then return to the Shuttle's 160 n.m. orbit. The payload meanwhile would need an additional 6,000ft/sec from the expendable kick-stage to escape from the Earth's gravitational influence. This compromises the economics even more owing to the loss of the supplementary boost stage, which disappears into space along with its payload.
It- is too early to be dogmatic about projected mission models for the 1980s. The existing model, developed by Nasa and the USAF, assumes a static Nasa budget of $3,300 million at 1972 prices but it is difficult to see how the high launch rate can be sustained. For the Nasa flights alone (501 from 1980 to 1991) the Mission Model calls for an average annual outlay of $390 million in launch costs alone. This assumes each Shuttle flight will cost $9-05 million at 1972 prices, with an extra $1 million for each of the 152 Tug flights.
Nasa has consistently attempted to justify the economics of a Shuttle-based space programme on the $5,500 million development figure. But this covers only two Orbiters, and the Mission Model now proposed requires procurement of five more Shuttles at an estimated $250 million each. In addition to this the payload prediction includes 12 Interim Upper Stages, seven Tugs and 16 kick-stages. Development of the Tug alone could cost $1,000 million, excluding additional models. Finally, planning for the Spacelab element envisages five support modules (i.e. the pressurised, manned laboratories) eight experiment modules (cylindrical containers attached to the rear of the support modules, carrying experiments) and 45 separate experiment pallets. In short, a lot of equipment will be needed to support the 986 payloads proposed and it is difficult to accurately predict the effects on the economics of even a minor slip in development schedules
Assuming that the ambitious programme anticipated for the 1980s is a realistic proposition the $14,100 million cost advantage in using the Shuttle for 12 years is going to be offset by the increasing quantity of equipment necessary to support such a venture. Any delay in introducing the full inventory of Shuttles, Tugs, kick-stages and other vehicles now envisaged would keep expendable launch vehicles in business for years. Commercial users such as Intelsat will undoubtedly press vigorously for the retention of conventional rockets, particularly Scout and Delta, unless means can be found to substantially reduce the nearly 2:1 cost penalty of using the Shuttle.
But if these figures reveal anything at all it is that the Shuttle must be seen as an investment in future space capability, bearing in mind the limitations imposed by the phased introduction of equipment. The Mission Model assumes availability of an interim Tug in 1981, capable of re-rendezvous with the Shuttle but not of retrieving a satellite from high altitude. Now that the USAF has pursued the Interim Upper Stage as an expendable unit Nasa will be unable to retrieve satellites above 350 miles until the Tug appears in 1984. Combined deploy/retrieval flights lower this figure considerably. Also, the 12 Interim Upper Stages demanded by the Mission Model assume them to be recoverable. By throwing each unit away for the first five years of Shuttle operations the economics are further compromised.
Clearly, the launch of 800,0001b payload per annum relies on too many factors converging at the right time. The ambitious Mission Model has too* many parallels with the programme proposed in 1969 which envisaged longduration stations in space, lunar bases, lunar orbit stations and nuclear shuttles, to be wholly relevant today. Nasa has to develop and effectively use the Shuttle to survive another decade of space operations, but an over-optimistic attitude has, in the past, left the agency with a string of cancelled projects. Only a realistic attitude to future requirements can hope to reverse this trend.
In conclusion - the Shuttle was hailed as a major technical step forward when it appeared on the scene five years ago, sponsored by a Nasa anxious to keep the huge Apollo industrial machine in being. The Shuttle will undoubtedly have a major part to play in the American and European space programme being schemed for the 1980s, but is not perhaps the total launch vehicle that Nasa appears to consider it. If you have a 65,000lb manned scientific laboratory to place in low Earth orbit, then the Shuttle is just the job. But if you have a 1,0001b communications satellite bound for stationary orbit (and paid for by the shareholders) a good old-fashioned rocket will do the job at half the cost.
***
PRINCETON ECONOMIST KLAUS HEISS ANSWERS DAVID BAKER CRITICISM OF THE PLANNED SHUTTLE FLIGHT RATE.
- INPUTS TO THE 1972 SPACE SHUTTLE ECONOMIC STUDY
Contrary to perceptions, the case for the Space Shuttle – and also for the Space Tug, then an integral conceptual part of a reusable Space Transportation System (STS) to service to all Earth orbits – was NOT based on transportation cost savings. Important presentations by the independent assessment team in 1970-71 started with the realization that the Space Shuttle cannot be justified solely with the narrow argument of transportation cost savings.
Indeed it is this statement – that the Space Shuttle System could NOT be justified on the basis of transportation cost savings – and the logical exposition of the REAL case for the Shuttle that won the author the award to do the independent outside assessment by NASA in 1970 to begin with. Imagine: a $3 million contract, limited explicitly to five pages of substantive exposition AND a full day cross-examination as to the rationale AND to start out the presentation with the statement: “The reusable Space Transportation System (Space Shuttle and Space Tug) can NOT be justified on transportation costs!”
So what WAS the logic for having a Space Shuttle and Space Tug – other than reducing the cost of Space transportation? The very first Table in our 1971 Executive Summary and our Main Report to NASA clearly and simply stated that the life cycle costs would be less for New Expendable (rocket) systems than for a Space Shuttle and Tug – some $11 billion vs. $12 billion, NOT counting the costs for manned Space flight missions!
However one “massaged” the NASA and DoD mission models (we reduced the mission numbers given to us by the agencies by up to 67%) there was no way to “justify” the Space Shuttle based on transportation costs over a 10-year, 20-year or even “infinite” time horizon – where “infinity” has a way of shrinking drastically when reasonable discount costs are applied to “future” savings, which we did.
The various Shuttle configurations considered in the 1971-72 assessment are shown and compared in terms of total non-recurring costs (RDT&E, initial fleet of five orbiters) vs. the cost per flight of the various options. These ranged from a fully reusable version (A “707” sitting atop a “747” taking off vertically with all internal LOX/LH2 tanks), to Thrust Assisted Orbiter Shuttles (TAOS) and a “Reusable Crew Module” launched on expendables.
Also shown in Figure A-2 is the effect of interest rates on technical system choices: were funding, costs and risks no issue, then a case could have been made for a fully reusable Shuttle. However, given those constraints the TAOS set of configurations emerged as the choice.
The ‘Orbital Space Plane’ was rejected out of hand, as with the intended uses (with a reusable Space Tug) for carrying all payloads to low, high and geosyncronous orbit and the ensuing ‘payload effects’ the basic rationale for the new Space Transportation System was foregone. Also noteworthy in this context was the fairy tale of the “assumed” $5 million cost for each Shuttle launch. The range of launch costs was clearly identified in ALL reports and testimony to Congress and in three separate GAO ‘in-depth’ reviews in the 1970’s
For TAOS with Solid Boosters (the configuration ultimately chosen by NASA) these costs ranged anywhere from $15 million to $30 million (in 1970 dollars – or about $60 to $120 millions in today’s dollars) depending on assumed launch rates of up to 24 per year, with a clearly stated launch risk of 2% (98% success rate).
In contrast, TAOS with Liquid (Pressure Fed) Boosters would reduce these costs and risks by about half – and would permit the possibility of intact abort throughout launch.
Furthermore, moving toward a fully reusable STS (using modular designs with standardized spacecraft components) would open up totally new ways of operating and assuring space missions – collectively called ‘payload effects’, e.g.,
· The ability to revisit any and all satellites in Earth orbit would allow for cost effective maintenance, repair and updating of components of these spacecraft. Transportation costs constitute only one third of total STS costs. The rest has to do with spacecraft, instruments, data and their processing – in space and on the ground
– and a modular design with standardized components offers great benefits in further reducing costs of the other two- thirds of total STS costs.
· Standardization of Spacecraft and Space systems at the subsystem level was a revolutionary idea in 1970 (still unimplemented, by the way) that promised up to 67% cuts in support costs for spacecraft. Standardization would facilitate repair and updating a satellite subsystem level – permitting relatively untrained personnel to exchange blue, green, pink and whatever other color boxes. As in 1970, only a few Space missions are “outside” the scope of such standardization.
· Reliable On-orbit service reducing the costs of required high confidence capabilities of key national security satellites, which is very expensive to achieve through redundancy of expensive satellites.
· In-orbit modernization made feasible by such replacement and repair capability. This prospect of updating expensive satellites in Space at the component level, is much to be desired over replacing whole systems or – worse – letting old technology linger in Space providing obsolete services.
In this context, our 1971-72 study examined both manned and unmanned missions. We did not want to rationalize the Space Shuttle simply and solely on the basis of man in Space: that would tilt the analysis much too much in favor of the Space Shuttle.
We observed that Space Tug and Space Shuttle would open up extensive new capabilities, e.g., structures larger than could be carried by any expendable system could be standardized and designed for on-orbit repair, replacements, updates, maintenance, etc8. We identified entirely new classes of Spacecraft for science, commerce or defense – in Low Earth Orbit, intermediate orbits, and up to and beyond Geo-synchronous orbits. Dozens of new Space application missions where designed and outlined for NASA, the DoD and private enterprise – once the Space Shuttle and Tug were fully operational, e.g., for
Space Science: one of our first visits in Princeton was to the astronomy department, chaired at that time by Prof. Spitzer. The result of these meetings was what today is known as the Hubble Space Telescope. I'm strongly convinced that, had the unique capabilities of the Space Shuttle been available, this magnificent instrument could have been built, launched, repaired, maintained and modernized much more easily – on the ground, not in space !We also defined half a dozen other scientific Spacecraft, some in LEO, some in HEO and some in GEO, ranging from radar to infrared to multi-spectral instruments of a size and capability hitherto unknown and unimaginable.
· Commercial Applications: particularly for communications and remote sensing. Some applications would develop with or without the Shuttle, e.g., a vast range of communications and navigation satellites, including GPS, a variety of Global resources sensing satellites, low and high Earth orbit communication satellites at a variety of frequency bands. We also foresaw an entirely new class of satellites with vastly expanded capabilities, e.g., a new generation of communication platforms in geo-synchronous orbit with vastly increased power- requirements, on-board switching, data processing and storage; tens of thousands of spot beams, and satellite-to-satellite optical and laser communications allowing point-to-point communications to any place in the world. Direct access to repair, maintain and modernize these platforms was critical to providing 99.999-plus reliability. We envisioned a Global Resources Information System (GRIS) described in detail in the NRC papers of the Snowmass meetings of 1974. The effect on the distribution of world food supplies through the commodities markets alone accounted for billions of dollars in annual benefits. Environmental, energy, geologic and other resource observations benefited as well, including such arcane applications as archeology. Many of these have become reality today, as they can also be achieved with smaller spacecraft, not requiring the capabilities of the Space Shuttle and Tug system.
· Defense Applications: at least one-third of all applications foreseen for the new STS were defense related. They included some of the applications realized since then in navigation (GPS), in observations, in communications, albeit not to the extent possible if we had truly developed the full Shuttle and Tug capabilities, with vistas for expanded uses of Space very similar to those cited for commercial uses above. Building on the considerations of “Bambi” and a seminal 1968 paper by Max Hunter – a member of our team – showing the technical feasibility (in principle) of a Space based laser defense against ballistic missile attacks, we included BOTH options [kinetic (Killer Bees) and lasers] in our analyses of 1971-1972
While not necessary for a positive Space Shuttle decision, these possible space missions would have significantly added to the benefits of the STS then proposed.
Not included in the cost-benefit analysis was a vision of future energy supplies from Space to Earth, e.g., large Solar Power Satellite Platforms of up to 100 square miles in area, first proposed by Peter Glaser of Arthur D. Little. One such platform alone will be able to supply up to 10 GW of electric power to any point on Earth. Also not included were any manned Space flight missions such as a Space Station, or Lunar missions or missions beyond. While these possibilities were recognized, we chose not to comingle them with unmanned Space missions which alone justified the Shuttle-Tug STS on the basis of a cost comparison. Their inclusion would open new horizons, indeed.
Analyzing literally hundreds of different Space program scenarios, with any and all mixes of foreseeable Space missions and applications, we concluded by the end of 1971 that an STS employing a Space Shuttle and Space Tug was in the interest of the United States, at a substantially reduced cost from the original plans of NASA (a two stage fully reusable design roughly a 707 on top of a 747 taking off vertically with internal hydrogen tanks etc.) saving the country billions of dollars in the development phase (cutting the RDT&E costs by 50% or more) AND allowing a cost effective, new range of Space operations and uses.
The author presented this result to the NASA Administrator in an October 28, 1971 Memorandum (to assure consideration in the Final Design Selection process set for early November and still limited to two stage designs only). This memorandum was followed in January 1972 by a three volume report and separate Executive Summary, documenting the extensive work done by our group in Princeton with support from Aerospace Corporation (Mission modeling) and Lockheed Missile and Space Corporation (LMSC), the leading contractor for the military uses of Space. Notably, this report explicitly stated that the risk of Shuttle Missions failure was one in fifty.
‘break even’ for the TAOS Shuttle configuration was/is around 25 flights (again including all launches out of East and West coast sites) to all orbits. Two broad ‘families’ of Space programs were analyzed: ballistic missile defense and other DoD programs (the upper range of results depicted in Figure 2.3) and scenarios without such advanced uses. Obviously the case for the Space Shuttle system was better with additional uses in low earth orbits.
Contrary to perceptions held by some, NASA did not ‘assume’ 600 or more space flights to ‘justify’ the Shuttle. This is simply not the case as indicated by all of the testimony throughout the Space Shuttle decision hearings before Congress in the 1970’s. To repeat: however one “massaged” the NASA and DoD mission models (we reduced the mission numbers given to us by the agencies by up to two-thirds) there was no way to “justify” the Space Shuttle based on transportation costs over a 10year, 20 year or even “infinite” time horizon – where “infinity” has a way of shrinking drastically when reasonable discount costs are applied to “future” savings, which was done. Transportation costs were at best a “draw”.
The real reason for reusable STS capabilities – to LEO, GEO and beyond, ideally including Lunar orbits – is in the profound effect these capabilities would (will) have on the very conduct of Space missions, their reliability and capabilities. They would lead to a fundamental change in how to conduct ‘Near-Earth’ Space missions. Thus, the opening up of the Moon as our ‘natural’ Space Station and Operations Base for Cis- and Trans-Lunar activities will transform and change forever on how we operate and use Earth and Near Earth Space.
Today, thirty plus years later, the author would not change a single sentence, conclusion or recommendation made in 1971. The concluding observations to NASA deserve highlighting: The economic basis for the Space Shuttle and Tug were sound and solid – AS LONG AS NASA AND THE NATION HAD AN ACTIVE SPACE PROGRAM ALONG THE SCALED BACK SCENARIOS OUTLINED AND USED BY US.
The initial Space Transportation System Recommendations of 1971 – The 1972 decision to proceed with a new Space Transportation System – including the TAOS Shuttle and the Space Tug – was the last significant, courageous and strategic Space program decision assuring an aggressive U.S. Space strategy for the rest of the century to well into the next millennium: all this at an affordable budget profile substantially less than that expended on the Apollo program of the 1960’s, the vision for which President Kennedy and his generation will be remembered in millennia to come. The salient technical transportation components recommended at that time were :
· TAOS instead of Two Stage Fully Reusable Shuttle. The TAOS Orbiter Shuttle represented a substantial reduction in development costs, risks and schedules over the desire by NASA to develop a two stage fully reusable Orbiter AND Booster – with the estimated development costs reduced by a factor of three to four (from 50 to $60 billion in 1970 dollars to 15 to $20 billion for TAOS, a savings of at least $40 billion
· A reusable Space Tug To assure access to all Earth orbit missions to the new STS and its new philosophy of payload standardization for in orbit repairs, refurbishment, updating and rescue for high mission availability;
· An Ambitious Unmanned Space Missions program, including all “conventional” DoD programs then deployed; two novel DoD missile defense missions, one “kinetic” (then called ‘killer bees’), one laser based (Max Hunter’s concept of 1968); “conventional” science and commercial programs such as communications, observations, navigation and life sciences programs; an entirely new class of science and commercial space capabilities (such as Large Astronomy Observation platforms – e.g. the Hubble Space Telescope and several others which availed themselves uniquely of the new STS capabilities – and large geosyncronous Space communications platforms of entirely new dimensions allowing global point to point communications without ground networks.); and
· Enabling whatever Manned Space Program the U.S. might wish to pursue as a
“side benefit” of these capabilities.
Had NASA and the nation fully pursued these programs in the afterglow of the Apollo program achievements, the dominance of the United States in Space would have been absolute. Some of these programs have immensely contributed to changing the strategic perceptions and relations anyhow, others, indeed most still languish to be implemented. The course charted out then still remains to be taken. Most notably in manned Space flight.
NEVER, EVER WOULD IT HAVE OCCURRED TO US, THAT NASA AND THE NATION WOULD ABDICATE THE PURSUIT AND CONQUEST, INDEED DOMINATION OF SPACE.
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Robotic explorers (1)
Archibald
Banned
JPL, planetary exploration, and the National Academies
It is interesting to compare JPL "whish-list" to the National Academies impartial list of valuable robotic missions.
JPL is excited by technology and has no issue with cost.
The National Academies are precisely tasked with balancing costs against priorities.
The two mostly agree on a list of missions - missions that might form the nucleus of a tentative planetary exploration program for the 80's.
On top of the list are the Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar, the Jupiter Orbiter with Probe, and an out-of-the-ecliptic solar mission.
Ranking fourth is an early cometary flyby (Encke, which short period of 3.3 years provides opportunity in 1976 and 1980). The early cometary flyby is seen as a necessary step before a flight to Halley in 1986.
Moon and Mars polar orbiters are also desirable but they are hampered by Apollo and Viking respective costs.
There's also a tentative Mercury orbiter, perhaps as a follow-on to Mariner 10.
Notably absent from the Academies priorities are Mars landers, rovers, penetrators or sample return crafts, for the simple reason Viking results are not yet known. There JPL disagree, ranking MSR as a top priority mission whatever the Viking results.
Long term endeavour includes a Saturn orbiter and of course the 1986 Halley opportunity.
There's also the question of spare spacecrafts. Pioneer, Helios, Viking, Voyager and Mariner 10 left a trail of duplicate, backup spare crafts around which opportunity missions might be designed.
The backup Mariner 10 craft might be flown as either a lunar orbiter or an Encke flyby craft.
Pioneer H has been proposed as either the Jupiter orbiter or for the out-of-the-ecliptic mission.
Voyager 3 might be flown to Uranus, perhaps with an entry probe.
The third Viking lander might be modified as either a tracked rover.
Helios C has been proposed – once again – as an Encke flyby ship.
Truth be told, spare crafts are rarely flown. What seems to be a valuable idea at first glance usually run into obsolescence and cost issues.
It is interesting to compare JPL "whish-list" to the National Academies impartial list of valuable robotic missions.
JPL is excited by technology and has no issue with cost.
The National Academies are precisely tasked with balancing costs against priorities.
The two mostly agree on a list of missions - missions that might form the nucleus of a tentative planetary exploration program for the 80's.
On top of the list are the Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar, the Jupiter Orbiter with Probe, and an out-of-the-ecliptic solar mission.
Ranking fourth is an early cometary flyby (Encke, which short period of 3.3 years provides opportunity in 1976 and 1980). The early cometary flyby is seen as a necessary step before a flight to Halley in 1986.
Moon and Mars polar orbiters are also desirable but they are hampered by Apollo and Viking respective costs.
There's also a tentative Mercury orbiter, perhaps as a follow-on to Mariner 10.
Notably absent from the Academies priorities are Mars landers, rovers, penetrators or sample return crafts, for the simple reason Viking results are not yet known. There JPL disagree, ranking MSR as a top priority mission whatever the Viking results.
Long term endeavour includes a Saturn orbiter and of course the 1986 Halley opportunity.
There's also the question of spare spacecrafts. Pioneer, Helios, Viking, Voyager and Mariner 10 left a trail of duplicate, backup spare crafts around which opportunity missions might be designed.
The backup Mariner 10 craft might be flown as either a lunar orbiter or an Encke flyby craft.
Pioneer H has been proposed as either the Jupiter orbiter or for the out-of-the-ecliptic mission.
Voyager 3 might be flown to Uranus, perhaps with an entry probe.
The third Viking lander might be modified as either a tracked rover.
Helios C has been proposed – once again – as an Encke flyby ship.
Truth be told, spare crafts are rarely flown. What seems to be a valuable idea at first glance usually run into obsolescence and cost issues.
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