Across the high frontier: a Big Gemini space TL

[Archibald]

Saturday August 10, 1968

The British Interplanetary Society headquarters

London University College.


“I believe that the exploitation of space is limited in concept and extent by the very high cost of putting payload into orbit, and the inaccessibility of objects after they have been launched. Therefore, I would forecast that the next major thrust in space will be the development of an economical launch vehicle for shuttling between Earth and the installations, such as the orbiting space stations which will soon be operating in space […]

Essential to the continuous operation of the space station will be the capability to resupply expendables as well as to change and/or augment crews and laboratory equipment.... Our studies show that using today's hardware, the resupply cost for a year equals the original cost of the space station […]

…Therefore, there is a real requirement for an efficient earth-to-orbit transportation system-an economical Space Shuttle.... ideally it would be able to operate in a mode similar to that of large commercial air transports and be compatible with the environment of major airports....

The cockpit of the space shuttle would be similar to that of the large intercontinental jet aircraft, containing all instrumentation essential to complete on-board checkout.... Interestingly enough, the basic design described above for an economical space shuttle from earth to orbit could also be applied to terrestrial point-to-point transport […]

The Space Shuttle is another step toward our Destiny, another hand-hold on our future. We will go where we choose-on our earth-throughout our solar system and through our galaxy-eventually to live on other worlds of our universe. Man will never be satisfied with less than that"


(NASA deputy administrator George E. Mueller)

(NOTE: there has been a small retcon at the end of post 16, when George Low is searching for a ballast to go with the Apollo 8 CSM)

 

[Archibald]

August 20, 1968
George Low tried to relax in his office. That handful of vacation days in the Caribbean had been delightful – in July but was already so far way ! He had been working ninety hours a week since the Apollo fire, replacing poor Joe Shea that had suffered a nervous breakdown; the man had literally destroyed himself during the investigation.
The last three days had been exhausting; he could see how Sam Philips face was marked.
Doesn’t matter,the decision had been made.
Philips and Paine had phoned to Vienna to discuss the tentative Apollo 8 lunar mission with Webb and Mueller.
Webb wanted to think about it, and requested further information by diplomatic carrier. He had been shocked and fairly negative. So Paine and Philips sent Webb a lengthy discourse on why the mission should be changed.
“He will change his mind with a successful Apollo 7 mission.” Philips told Low. “By the way, Mueller sided with us. He now agree the plan, with reserve. No full announcement will be made until after the Apollo 7 flight; then, it will be announced that Saturn V number three will be manned and possible missions are being studied, but still no mention of a flight around the Moon. Meanwhile an internal document will be prepared for a planned lunar orbit for December.“
Talk about shift in plans. That third Saturn V - it was first to fly unmanned, then to carry a whole lunar stack around Earth. Then we moved the mission to a lunar orbit, before dropping the lunar module since it was not yet ready. George Low realized.
And then the signification of it stroke him.
He had essentially make the novel Around the Moon real.

Jules Verne, nous voilà !

 

[Archibald]

So far we are stuck at a mostly OTL Apollo 8. Small butterflies only. The big POD will come some times later in the story.

 

[nixonshead]

I'm following with interest!
Regarding pictures, I'm afraid I've still got quite a backlog to work through on other projects, but I'll let you know if things free up in the next couple of months. Based on your cover image, I'm expecting plenty of interesting subjects to come up in this TL.

 

[Archibald]

Thank you so much. I'll say - we are not in a hurry.

I do realize that, for Eyes Turned Skywards the pictures closely followed the TL development.
Well I'd say that for my TL it doesn't really matter - I just don't care.
I did manage to make some pictures myself, but my drawing skills are extremely limited, a great frustration. That's the reason why I need people like you and Michel Van.

 

[Archibald]

NOTE: most of that post is NOT MINE.
It is taken from a book :
Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration by Brian Harvey (2007)
I prefer telling it from the start - no question of plagiarism.

Harvey description of a manned Zond mission was just superb. I really needed to integrate it in my TL.

December 9, 1968

"The Proton rocket had been fuelled up about eight hours before liftoff. ​

The crew - Alexei Leonov and Oleg Makarov – had gone aboard 2.5 hours before liftoff. Dressed in light grey coveralls and communication soft hats, standing at the bottom of the lift that would bring them up to the cabin, they had offered some words of encourage-ment to the launch crews overseeing the mission. ​

​

The payload went on internal power from two hours before liftoff. ​

​

The pad area is then evacuated and the tower rolled back to 200 m distant, leaving the rocket standing completely free. There may be a wisp of oxidizer blowing off the top stage, but otherwise the scene is eerily silent, for these are storable fuels. ​

​

The launch command goes in at 10 sec and the fuels start to mix with the nitric acid. This is an explosive combination, so the engines start to fire at once, making a dull thud. As they do so, orange-brown smoke begins to rush out of the flame trench, the Proton sitting there amidst two powerful currents of vapour pouring out from either side.​

As the smoke billows out, Proton is airborne, with debris and stones from the launch area flying out in all directions. ​

​

Twelve seconds into the mission, Proton rolls over in its climb to point in the right direction. ​

A minute into the mission Proton goes through the sound barrier. ​

Vibration is now at its greatest, as are the G forces, 4 G. ​

The second-stage engines begin to light at 120 sec, just as the first-stage engines are completing their burn. Proton is now 50 km high, the first stage falls away and there is an onion ring wisp of cloud as the new stage takes over. Proton is now lost to sight and those lucky enough to see the launch go back indoors to keep warm. ​

​

Then, 334 sec into the mission, small thrusters fire the second stage downward so that the third stage can begin its work. It completes its work at 584 sec and the rocket is now in orbit. ​

​

Once in orbit, the precise angle for translunar injection is recalculated by the instrumentation system on block D. The engine of block D is fired 80 min later over the Atlantic Ocean as it passes over a Soviet tracking ship. ​

​

The cosmonauts experienced relatively gentle G forces, but in no time they soared high above Earth, seeing our planet and its blues and whites in a way that could never be imagined from the relative safety of low-Earth orbit. ​

​

At this stage, with Zond safely on its way to the moon, Moscow Radio and Television announced the launching. Televised pictures were transmitted of the two cosmonauts in the cabin and they pointed their handheld camera out of the porthole to see the round Earth diminish in the distance. The spaceship was not called Zond but Akademik Sergei Korolev, dedicating the mission to the memory of the great designer. ​

​

Day 2 of the mission was dominated by the mid-course correction, done automatically, but the cosmonauts checked that the system appeared to be working properly. Although the Earth was ever more receding into the distance, the cosmonauts saw little of the moon as they approached, only the thin sliver of its western edge. Korolev's dish would be pointed at Earth for most of the mission in any case. ​

​

At the end of day 3 Korolev fell into the gravity well of the moon, gradually picking up speed as it approached the swing-by, although this was little evident in the cabin itself. ​

Then, at the appointed moment, Zond dipped under the southwestern limb of the moon. At that very moment, the communications link with ground control in Yevpatoria were lost, blocked by the moon. ​

​

The spaceship was silent now, apart from the hum of the airconditioning. For the next 45 min, the entire face of the moon's farside filled their portholes, passing by only 1,200 km below. The commander kept a firm lock on the moon, while the flight engineer taking pictures of the farside peaks, jumbled highlands and craters, for the farside of the moon has few seas or mare. As they soared around the farside, the cosmonauts were conscious of coming around the limb of the moon. ​

The black of the sky filled their view above as the moon receded below. As they rounded the moon, they had seen a nearly full round Earth coming over the horizon. ​

​

The Akademik Sergei Korolev would reestablish radio contact with Yevpatoria. This was one of the great moments of the mission, for the cosmonauts would now describe everything that they saw below and presently behind them and as soon as possible beam down television as well as radio. Their excited comments were later replayed time and time again. ​

​

A mid-course correction would be the main feature at the end of day 4. The atmosphere was relaxed, after the excitement of the previous day, but in the background was the awareness that the most dangerous manoeuvre of the mission lay ahead. The course home was checked time and time again, with a final adjust-ment made 90,000 km out, done by the crew if the automatic system failed. The southern hemisphere grew and grew in Korolev's window. Contact with the ground stations in Russia was lost, though attempts were made to retain communications through ships at sea. ​

​

The two cosmonauts soon perceived Korolev to be picking up speed. Strapping themselves in their cabin, they dropped the service module and their own high-gain antenna and then tilt the heat-shield of their acorn-shaped cabin at the correct angle in the direction of flight. ​

This was a manoeuvre they had practised a hundred times or more. Now they felt the gravity forces again, for the first time in six days, as Zond burrowed into the atmosphere. ​

​

After a little while, they sensed the cushion of air building under Zond and the spacecraft rose again. The G loads lightened and weightlessness briefly returned as the cabin swung around half the world in darkness on its long, fast, skimming trajectory. Then the G forces returned as Korolev dived in a second occasion. This time the G forces grew and grew and the cabin began to glow outside the window as it went through the flames of reentry, 'like being on the inside of a blowtorch' as Nikolai Rukhavishnikov later described reentry. ​

​

Eventually, after all the bumps, there was a thump as the parachute came out, a heave upward as the canopy caught the air and a gentle, swinging descent. As the cabin reached the flat steppe of Kazakhstan, retrorockets fired for a second underneath to cushion the landing. On some landings the cabin comes down upright, on others it would roll over. ​

​

Hopefully, the helicopter ground crews were soon on hand to pull the cosmonauts out. The charred, still hot Akademik Sergei Korolev was to be examined, inspected, checked and brought to a suitable, prominent place of reverence in a museum to be admired for all eternity."

(end of Harvey description)

Stop daydreaming, Alexey– Leonov told himself.

He tried to concentrate on the letter he would send to the Soviet leadership, a letter that would decide, or not, if he would be the first man around the Moon, ahead of the Apollo 8 crew. ​

As luck would have it, the same launch window that might take Apollo 8 to the moon opened for America on 21st December but much earlier in the USSR - from 7th to 9th December. This was entirely due to the celestial mechanics of the optimum launching and landing opportunities.

Leonov wrote (to no avail, unfortunately, as future would prove it)

"I and Makarov are prepared, regardless of Zond 6's problems, to take the risk and ride their own Zond for seven days to the Moon and back. So is our backup crew, Valeri Bykovsky and Nikolai Rukavishnikov"

​

 

[Bahamut-255]

Things really were bleak for the Soviet Space Effort post-1965, as NASA opened their lead.

But, I thought that the Zond/Block-D combo was over the 18,500 Kg limit of the Proton at that time, forcing a short burn of the Block-D to get it into Parking Orbit, before TLI.

 

[Archibald]

Apollo 8 - time to start serious business

Continuing with the alternate Apollo 8 and that mysterious ballast. You can try and guess what it is with a little google search
Best is to come. It was an OTL program, yet it was straight out of a James Bond movie - although much, much better than Moonraker.

Little spoiler: Moonraker will be evidently impacted ITTL. But this is a story for much later (1977 is a decade ahead, and there many, many things to happen before).

NOTE: I try to avoid walls of text. I want the story to be easy to read, with space between paragraphs. It takes some times clearing the text after I paste it from my HD.

December 23, 1968
Public Affairs Officer

"This is Apollo Control Houston, we estimate another 7 or 8 minutes before Apollo 8 Command and Service Module will separate from the S-IVB. We have not heard from the crew in the last few minutes, they're busy doing post TLI duties and we are looking at data here and everything we see is quite comforting. That is the next major event, separation from the booster, three hours and twenty minutes into a historical flight..."

003:20:28 Collins:Roger. We have you about 30 seconds prior to separation, and everything's looking good.

003:20:33 Borman:Roger. Call you again after separation, Houston.

(onboard Apollo 8)

003:20:39 Lovell :Okay, I'm coming up on 15 seconds to Sep.

003:20:42 Borman:Alright.

003:20:45 Lovell:10 seconds to go.

003:20:48 Anders:You in Auto?

003:20:50 Borman:Yes, Auto, Auto, right.

003:20:52 Anders:Okay, at zero, turn Hand Controller counter-clockwise, plus-X, and hold.

Jim Lovell occupied the left-hand seat and has access to the Translation Hand Controller. By turning the controller and pushing it forward, he fired the plus-X thrusters.

When separation occurred the Apollo immediately began moving away from the S-IVB. After three seconds, the vehicles separated and Lovell continued firing forward for a further five seconds. A complex sequence of events now unfolded.
A guillotine severed the electrical connections between Apollo and the S-IVB; then a train of explosive cords cut the metal structure joining Apollo to the conical adapter to allow the spacecraft to come free. The conical adapter was cut into four long sections which were now only joined to the S-IVB by spring loaded partial hinges at the centre of their lower edge. Pyrotechnic thrusters, mounted within the intact portion of the adapter, forced pistons to push on the outside edge of each four section, causing them to begin rotating away from the vehicle's centreline. With the panels rotated about 45°, the hinges disengaged, allowing the springs within the hinge assembly to push the panels away.

003:21:00 Anders:3 seconds, Launch Vehicle Tank Pressure indicator, zero; CM/LV Sep; Translational Contr, Neutral; plus-X, Off; TVC Servo Power 1, Off.

Sitting on top of the now peeled-off S-IVB, and revealed for the first time was the Secondary Payload, a passenger that replaced Grumman not-yet-ready Lunar Module.

003:21:37 Lovell:There's one adapter panel.

003:21:39 Anders:After this camera [garble].

003:21:46 Borman:Man, where's the S-IVB? Anybody see it, now?

003:21:49 Lovell:There it is!

003:21:50 Borman:You found it?

003:21:51 Lovell:Right in the middle. Right in the middle of my window. There's not a panel around.

003:21:55 Borman:What a view!

003:21:58 Collins:Looks pretty good, huh?

003:21:58 Lovell:Give me the camera.

003:21:59 Anders:Well, we've got some still pictures we can take...

003:22:01 Lovell:Could you pitch a little more?

003:22:02 Borman:Yes.

003:22:03 Anders:We haven't got in here, yet.

003:22:12 Anders:We've Separated Houston. We got the S-IVB and its payload, right in sight.

003:22:16 Capcom Michael Collins: Roger, Apollo 8.

Jim Lovell turned the camera toward the payload stuck to the S-IVB, puzzled. There should have been a ballast there, a big chunk of instrumented metal called the Lunar-Module Test Article, or LTA.

With Grumman Lunar Module still months in the future NASA engineers would have had to fly the Saturn V with only the load of the Apollo on top.
And they disliked that, for good reasons.

By contrast with a near perfect maiden launch late 1967, Saturn V second flight, coincidentally set the very day Martin Luther King had been assassinated - April 4, 1968 - had been an utter disaster.

The booster suffered violent vibrations in flight, nearly tearing itself apart, shaking over its whole length like a pogo stick, with disastrous results.
Engines shut down with pieces of the booster skin falling apart; astronauts would certainly have been injured had the flight been manned.

For a moment it looked as if the next Saturn V would have to be flown unmanned again. Marshall's position after that had been that the Saturn control system was extremely sensitive to payload weight; von Braun engineers feared any change in the established weights might bring the destructive pogo back.

So further ballast was required to bring the payload's mass towards a figure that the launch vehicle's control system could handle. In simple English, a payload of seven tons had to fill the Lunar Module empty slot. Early on it had been as if a dumb chunk of metal could do the job, but soon George Low changed its mind, resulting in that payload stuck to the top of Apollo 8 S-IVB.

Lovell hold on its camera: orders had been clear enough. Taking picture of the S-IVB payload was absolutely forbidden.
Those National Reconnaissance Office paranoid officers. Lovell rolled his eyes.

He called Borman and Anders to manoeuvre Apollo so that the big rocket body masked the payload; that way he could snap as much pictures he wanted. He had a last glance at the mysterious object they had carried so far away.

The National Reconaissance Office military are really a bunch of paranoid jerks - do they fear a soviet spy hide between our couches ?

The Apollo CSM turned around 180 degrees, docked with the mysterious payload and pull it free. After that they pressed on into lunar orbit...

 

[Archibald]

Introducing the classified National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) military agency

Note: the NRO will play an important role in this TL. Its long running relationship with NASA is just amazing for such a secret military agency.

“The National Reconnaissance Office spends another 1 billion dollars yearly flying reconnaissance airplanes and lofting or exploiting the satellites that constantly circle the Earth and photograph ennemy terrain with incredible accuracy from 130 miles Up”
Benjamin Welles, the New York Times – January 22, 1971
(It was the first time ever that the NRO existence was mentionned publically... the black agency very existence was not publically revealed before the end of Cold War, in 1992 !)


“...presumably through new real time spy satellites being developed that will transmit copious photographic and electronic data collected over the Soviet Union, China or other “targets” intantaneously to U.S Earth stations for fast analysis.
Currently most U.S satellites spew forth data in packets which specially trained air crews recover in mid-air over the Pacific, then fly to Rochester for processing and Washington for analysis – a time consuming process”.
(the same Benjamin Welles, in the Christian Science Monitor dated 23 April 1973. This time Welles had perfectly guessed the KH-11 that only flew in 1976 (!) ; and all the previous spy satellites the NRO was using at the time – Corona, Gambit and Hexagon !)

 

[Michel Van]

The National Reconaissance Office military are really a bunch of paranoid...

Oh yes, NRO is paranoid, a recently Publish PDF about History of Manned Orbital Laboratory Program
In this file, the name of a NRO Comptroller (program responsible) and NRO personnel is black out in the entire text...
Even though NRO publish more generous, there work and hardware if is declassified

On This Apollo 8 payload
There was the option to launch Apollo CSM with NRO reconnaissance Satellite with docking port.
In end it was Lunar Orbiter who flew with reconnaissance Satellite hardware on board.

 

[Archibald]

NRO and Apollo

December 26, 1968


We are flying a manned lunar spysat. How about that, Jim Lovell thought.


The Lunar Mapping and Survey System – LMSS - Apollo 8 carried on its “nose” had been a backup system in the case Lunar Orbiter didn't worked. In the end Lunar Orbiter worked well, so the LMSS had been cancelled in July 1967... only to be revived a year later for Apollo 8.

Amazingly, Lunar Orbiter by itself had been a spy satellite - a failed one the National Reconnaissance Office handled over to NASA. Although a failure as a spy satellite, the Samos E-1 had done exessively well around the Moon.

Because there was no astronauts to retrieve the film, Lunar Orbiter processed the argentic pictures into a scanner, turning them into into digital pictures beamed to Earth at the speed of light. That was called film readout, and somewhat ironically didn't worked at all in Earth orbit for the simple reason the sheer number of pictures just overwhelmed the system; there was no way of storing, scanning and beaming ten thousand high resolution pictures down to the ground based receiving system.

The Moon however was a different matter, and there Samos E-1 worked well. Lunar Orbiter had been a highly successful program.

After the crew doned their AL7 spacesuits Lovell had the Apollo Command Module depressurized. He opened the hatch and reached into the modified Gambit Orbiting Control Vehicle,an unpressurized, squat cylinder with a docking adapter on the front.

In an ordinary, unmanned spy satellite there would be a Recovery Vehicle there, a large reentry capsule. At the front of the KH-7 was a 1 meter diameter mirror akin to a powerful space telescope. But that telescope didn't stared at the stars; instead it peered at the ground, essentially the Soviet Union or China. The system snapped very high resolution argentic pictures. Kilometers of film would then be stuffed into a reentry capsule; at the end of the mission the capsule would reenter the atmosphere above the Pacific and sprout a parachute.
As it hanged below the parachute, a C-130 cargo aircraft would snap it, retrieve it and head toward Hawaii, where a Boeing 707 liner would carry the capsule to Rochester, New Jersey, home of the Kodak company. Once there, thousand of high resolution pictures of the Soviet Union would be handled over to the highly secretive National Reconnaissance Office – an agency which very existence was one of the most guarded secrets in the United States.

Yet that deep black military space agency was collaborating with its exact opposite – NASA, a highly public agency. The NRO top brass must suffer severe stomach ulcers just thinking about it, Lovell smiled.

The KH-7 Gambit was one hell of a system, straight out of a James Bond movie.

With George Low a fan of James Bond, it is no surprise he reminded that system when planning Apollo 8 historical mission last August.

It was rather amazing that the military ever allowed NASA use of such an advanced, highly classified system. But after all, hadn't Kennedy committed the country into a war effort so that a man landed on the Moon before the decade was out ? NASA had been given a blank check that included any resource useful for the lunar landing goal – and that went as far as borrowing the military most advanced imaging systems.

When flying around the Moon a KH-7 obviously couldn't stuff the film into a recovery capsule to be send back to Earth. Instead Jim Lovell crawled into the spy satellite forward section and detached the film takeup reel—sealed to prevent accidental exposure. He pulled it back into the Command Module.

The film takeup reel Lovell handled was a treasure trove. These pictures of the Moon had a resolution never seen before.

According to a pre-flight briefing of the Apollo 8 crew, the KH-7 managed to image details of the USSR as small as 20 feet - looking through the thick Earth atmosphere from a height of 100 miles.

Around the Moon was no atmosphere, so the Apollo with the spy satellite on its "nose" flew quite low, around 30 miles. Needless to say, resolution was even better than on Earth.

Future Apollo landing sites had been imaged at an extremely high resolution, with boulder fields clearly visible on the frames.
And it was only a beginning.
Some more spy satellites had been "hijacked" by NASA; in fact four more systems were in storage, enough to image the whole Moon, although Lunar Orbiter had already done the job pretty well.

An issue however was that the KH-7 Gambit was so heavy, a good 4500 pounds, that a Saturn V couldn't carry it together with a Lunar Module. The thing was too heavy; there was not enough room above the S-IVB to carry both vehicles on the same flight. It was either a lunar module or a lunar spy satellite.

Apollo 8 had no such issue since it didn't carried a lunar module in the first place.

The capabilities of the lunar spy satellite were just too good to be true.

For example, a crash during an early Apollo landing mission could be investigated by an emergency manned lunar spysat mission. Apollo would fly as close as eight kilometers - five miles ! - above the Moon in such a forensic mission. Resolution at that altitude could be as sharp as 15 centimeters - 6 inches !

The Apollo / Spysat combination could also be used for lunar remote sensing, or to scout for landing sites for Advanced Apollo missions.

A global survey of the Moon from polar orbit was also possible.

Although Apollo 8 had left its spy satellite crash into the lunar surface, future missions bore more exciting prospects.

Simple modifications would allow the lunar spy satellite to hibernate in lunar orbit between missions. A more complex approach would have included a lunar spysat capable of continuing a lunar mapping mission after the Apollo crew had reloaded its film.

Kodak had described how the spy satellite could be equipped with the Bimat film readout system that it had developed for Lunar Orbiter. Such an onboard processing and readout capacity would have allowed the astronauts to gauge the status of the KH-7 camera. After the crew reloaded the film reel and departed the lunar spy satellite would have carried an unmanned survey mission.

After they resealed the hatch and repressurized the Command Module Borman, Lovell and Anders undocked from the spy satellite and fired Apollo big SPS to return home.

The abandonned spysat would soon crash onto the lunar surface.

(picture from The Space Review article that inspired this entry, here
- Picture by Giuseppe de Chiara)

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Because there was no astronauts to retrieve the film, Lunar Orbiter processed the argentic pictures into a scanner, turning them into into digital pictures beamed to Earth at the speed of light. That was called film readout, and somewhat ironically didn't worked at all in Earth orbit for the simple reason the sheer number of pictures just overwhelmed the system; there was no way of storing, scanning and beaming ten thousand high resolution pictures down to the ground based receiving system.

Argentic isn't an English word.
Clearly you're talking about a silver based emulsion film, as opposed to e.g. CCDs or a selenium plate or something. I'd just say 'film'.

It was rather amazing that the military ever allowed NASA use of such an advanced, highly classified
system. But after all, hadn't Kennedy committed the country into a war effort so that a man landed on the Moon before the decade was out ? NASA had been given a blank check that included any resource useful for the lunar landing goal – and that went as far as borrowing the military most advanced imaging systems.

The NRO isn't part of the military.

According to a pre-flight briefing of the Apollo 8 crew, the KH-7 managed to image details of the USSR as small as 20 feet - looking through the thick Earth atmosphere from a height of 100 miles.

Around the Moon was no atmosphere, so the Apollo with the spy satellite on its "nose" flew quite low, around 30 miles. Needless to say, resolution was even better than on Earth.

1) the atmosphere isn't that big a deal in terms of resolution at that level of spysat, IIRC. You're most diffraction limited, I think.
2) Isn't the focal length of a spysat's mirror fixed - if it's meant to image objects at a distance of 100 miles, would objects only 20 miles away be a bit blurry?
3) Ah. Reading that article, it looks like the spysats were (to be) modified for NASA use.
4) if NASA released photos with the kind of resolution a KH7 could have, even of the moon, wouldn't that give away the capabilities of the camera?

 

[Michel Van]

on (2) they found a solution for that otherwise NRO would not offer the option for Apollo
sadly the documents about are classified or unreadable censored

on (4) NASA had some issue that had withhold certain photos on Order of Pentagon
like Skylab 4 crew had photograph a Top Secret US Military installation by mistake.
On Gemini, if information was right, had CIA the right to see Mission Photos first, even claim that they had confiscate Gemini-5 photos according Gordon Cooper.

 

[Archibald]

Yeah, in French argent = silver. as in pellicule argentique.

a silver based emulsion film, as opposed to e.g. CCDs

Yes, indeed. That 's the thing I had in mind. Must correct my file now.

As for CCDs they were invented in 1970 by the Bell laboratories. The NRO jumped on that, and the KH-11, flown in 1976, used the first CCDs. Once again, the NRO worked with NASA: Galileo and Hubble benefited from the KH-11 early CCDs.

NRO isn't part of the military ? ok. Perhaps they belong to the intelligence community as a whole, including the CIA, DIA, NSA and others ?

According to the article

There had been a secret agreement in August 1963 between NASA and the intelligence agencies that limited the resolution of any NASA images of the Earth to 18 meters (60 feet.)

A decade later when they launched the first Landsat the military was obviously nervous and reminded NASA of that agreement. So early Landsat resolution was not very high.

And then in 1986 the French launched SPOT-1, and being not american, SPOT didn't cared about the NRO. SPOT pictures were accordingly better than Landsat. Spot was launched in February 1986 and the first major "hit" was the Chernobyl disaster in April.

And of course today commercial imagery beat the pant of NRO past satellites (Corona and Gambit) to the point that NRO by itself is buying medium resolution pictures from them.
They use the KH-11 / KH-12 only for extreme resolution.

Lastly, KH-11 successor FIA has been an expensive fiasco, the first in NRO history. Lockheed used to build most of the Key Hole, they had forty years of experience but unexplicably the FIA contract went to Boeing, which totally screwed the program.
Such was the project overbudget and expensive they scrapped it and bought upgraded KH-11.
The first two FIA satellites, however, where in advanced stage of construction.
Well, guess what happened ? The NRO gave those half-build, failed spy satellites to NASA. "Turn them into telescopes if you like. Mirror diameter equals Hubble."
(Michel Van provided a link earlier in the thread)

4) if NASA released photos with the kind of resolution a KH7 could have, even of the moon, wouldn't that give away the capabilities of the camera?

As Michel said, the NRO certainly covered their asses to remain in the dark.
To be honest we don't really know, even 50 years after.
The article last paragraph just ask

If NASA had conducted an Apollo-Upward mission to the Moon, the security implications of flying a Gambit are open to speculation.

The appearance of the Gambit-3 spacecraft was not revealed until 2011.

Would NASA have published any photos of the Upward module taken during a mission to the Moon?

Several projects were considered as adjuncts to Apollo, such MOLAB and Lunar Shelter. However, only Upward reached the stage of hardware construction.

If NASA had finished construction of Upward Flight Unit #1, would NASA have sent it to the Moon with Apollo 8?

It is that last question by Phil Horzempa (the author) that excited my imagination.
As you can see we still don't know if, in the hurry of the Apollo 8 decision, in August 1968, George reminded, or not, the LMSS - and briefly considered it to replace LTA-B, the big chunk of metal Apollo 8 carried with them.

As a member of NASAspaceflight.com forum I tried to run some numbers on the subjet - LTA-B versus LMSS as the Apollo 8 "ballast"
Unfortunately I have so far no answer from the top experts there.

To conclude that big post

The amazing thing with LMSS is that unlike so many Apollo-related projects this one was not paper - it was true, solid metal you can touch.

 

[Archibald]

1969-1971: a transition era

As the title says. My main POD is set in 1971, so there are two years that are more or less OTL.
I filled that void with some cool stuff I red and liked. Maybe a little too much on too many different subjects - I might cut some things that are too big.
Hope you'll be appreciate it.


-------

“The remarkable success of the Apollo 8 mission has provided renewed insight to the dramatic public appeal of manned space flight and bolsters our confidence that the manned lunar landing may be accomplished as early as July 1969.

With this convincing demonstration of our strength and capability in space technology we must examine and redefine the future role and objectives of manned space activity in our national space program. A decision regarding this role may be the most critical choice facing the new administration in regard to the space program.
(…)
What are the program items and their urgency for the immediate future ?

Through the Apollo program NASA manned space program is currently centered on the Moon. A crucial question is whether it should stay focused on our satellite or reach for different destinations - Mars or Earth orbit ?

Various items need special consideration. They are a manned space station, the Apollo application program, further manned lunar exploration, manned interplanetary trips, and lowering the costs of transportation to low Earth orbit.

1 - Planetary exploration
The US. program for planetary exploration by instrumented, unmanned probes needs to be strengthened and funds for such probes increased appreciably. However, the great majority of the task force is not in favour of a commitment at present to a manned planetary lander or orbiter, to Venus, Mars or elsewhere.

2 - Lunar exploration
After the first Apollo landing it will be exciting and valuable. But additional work needs to be initiated this year to provide for its full exploitation by means of an adequate mobility and extended stay on the lunar surface.

3 - Space station
We are against any present commitment to the construction of a large space station, but believe study of the possible purposes and design of such a station should be continued. We believe the Apollo Applications Program should proceed instead, as a way of testing man's role in space, of allowing a healthy continuing manned space program, and for the biomedical and scientific information it will yield.

4 - Space Shuttle
The unit costs of boosting payloads into space can be substantially reduced, but this requires an increased number of flights, or such an increase coupled with an expensive development program. We do not recommend initiation of such a development, but study of the technical possibilities and rewards. Some cost reductions in the space program can probably be made simply through experience and stabilization of the level of effort, and through coordination of future NASA and DOD programs.

IN CONCLUSION

We believe that the primary goal of manned space flight in the 1970’s which should be planned now is the scientific exploration of the moon, by both equipment and occasional manned landings using upgraded versions of the present Apollo system.

Alternatives for this choice are a commitment next year to a manned landing on Mars, which some of us believe could be carried out in the early or middle 1980’s, if sufficient effort were made;
or an earth orbital space station to house perhaps six to nine men who would make occasional trips to and from earth.

A great majority of the task force opposes a commitment to a manned Mars landing at this time. We believe that the space program in this second decade should not be built around a single monolithic goal on a fixed timetable.

The task force also recognizes that a Mars landing in the early or middle 1980’s would require a substantial expansion of the NASA budget in the next few years.

We also proposes that the space station receive further study without a binding commitment until its design and purposes are more clearly delineated and the possibilities of a radical reduction in the future of costs of transportation to orbit are more firmly established.

It appears that the AAP program for manned flight, also scheduled for the 70’s might serve many of the purposes of a space station.

- Charles H. Townes.

Source: REPORT ON PRESIDENT NIXON TRANSITION TEAM ON SPACE
Date: January 8, 1969

In November 1968 newly elected President Nixon had created a transition team to handle smoothly Johnson succession in the White House.

These team would present reports before mid-January 1969 and Nixon official entry in the White House.

Among varied advisory groups was a space team that was led by Charles H. Townes.

Townes, much like many others, had been impressed by Apollo 8 outrageous success in the mind of American people.

That success could be summarized by two pictures.

The first was obviously Earth beautiful blue orb standing above the greyish, desolated lunar horizon.

The other picture was much least known; it remained classified – with NASA complaining that retaining that information hurted its transparency as a civilian space agency. The NRO top brass was somewhat embarrassed since their system had worked even better than anticipated and garnered some unwelcome publicity in the process.

The picture showed the Tycho crater. Thanks to its extremely powerful KH-7 spy satellite Apollo 8 had imaged Tycho at a resolution never seen before.

The level of detail was truly amazing.

Near the rim of Tycho stood a squat, squarred artefact. It wasn't a black monolith as in2001; it was the Surveyor 7 probe, landed in 1967 and long dead on the lunar surface.

Charles Townes had been impressed by the level of detail. He felt the very high resolution pictures allowed certification of more landing spots, including zones far out of Apollo equatorial landing strip – Tycho, obviously, perhaps the poles and the farside.
In his mind, Apollo should continue exploring the Moon - Mars, the space shuttle or a space station being only distractions.

Charles H. Townes, father of the laser and 1964 Nobel Prize for this invention.
Also a good friend of NASA George Mueller - both worked at the Bell laboratories.
Thanks to Mueller Townes become a strong advocate of manned spaceflight.
Townes will play a significant role in this TL.

 

[Archibald]

This a little alternate history sci-fi I've found browsing Google newspapers (before the service was shut down in 2012).
It's a little gem I'd liked very much.
The author is Gordon Dickson, a least-known sci-fi writer
It seems that Dickson covered the Apollo 14 launch in February 1971 and that was a life-changing experience for him. The result was this nice little piece of alt space history.
Dickson also wrote a Mars story not unlike Stephen Baxter Voyage, except it was published two decades before, in the mid-70's.

Enjoy !


CAPE KENNEDY – Florida - February 5, 1991

“Today, looking back 20 years on the flight of the Apollo 14 spacecraft with astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell, it is easier to understand the public confusion about the space program which seemed to threaten to make this flight one of the last of the United States manned research programs into space.

“If Apollo 14 had turned out to be one of the last such flights it is hard to see how the present firm balance of power in the world could have been achieved so quickly and harder yet to guess how our social and economic ills could be so far along the road to being cured as they are.

“Almost certainly with the closing down of the space program that was advocated by some people in the early 1970s the space research programs of the Russians, the Chinese and Europe would have forged ahead. Other countries would have gained an advantage of information from basic scientific research too large for this country to overcome.

The result could have been a lagging of US technology, a loss of profits from international trade and a sharp devaluation of the dollar. Inflation, poverty and resultant trouble would have intensified those very ills that opponents of the space program dreamed of mending by diverting funds from it to the attacks even then beginning to be made on our social problems.

“Luckily, none of this was allowed to happen.

“It is easy nowadays in 1991 to forget how it was back then. The Apollo launch drew over a million watchers into Cape Kennedy, the largest attended launch in history. But in spite of the numbers of the watchers and their visible enthusiasm for the space program, many of them had much less understanding of the benefits of what they were observing than we do. In those pre-global communication days much necessary technical information had which to reach the general public swiftly and in interesting easily understood language.

“Like her immediate predecessor Apollo 14 carried a laser experiment as part of her experiment package. Yet probably not one person in a hundred watching the liftoff of the Saturn with its white capsule on top was aware that already even then the laser, that coherent beam of light we all make use of daily in 1991, had already become not only a practical weapon but an industrial tool of so many applications that it was to revolutionize not only manufacturing but the simple process of living.

[It is no surprise than laser inventor Charles Townes – a man who in 1964 was rewarded by the Nobel Prize for that fantastic invention – is also a staunch supporter of the manned space program.] note: this is mine. The laser / Townes connection was too good to be lost.

“Full appreciation of what research like this could mean to problems outside the space program itself only began to be felt by the public with the recognition of the achievements of the research in electronics carried on by research stations later established in Earth orbit and on the Moon to take advantage of the natural hard vacuum of space.

“It was achievements like this that gave the US its later overwhelming superiority in electronics that led to the present new era in world trade and a standard of living for all our citizens that allows the least incomed of us more in the way of comfort and conveniences than the richest of us could dream of back in 1971.

“When we go away for four and five days weekends we assume that our household computer will oversee the mechanical housekeeping, shopping maintenance and even repair tasks to be carried on while we are gone. We do not ordinarily stop to think that we and the space-based electronic laboratories that designed such equipment owe it ultimately to experiments like that of the Apollo 14 astronauts with the suprathermal ion detector and cold cathode ion gauge for measuring ion flux density and charge in the lunar environment that was part of their experiment package.

“Similarly we do not think of the fact that the Apollos water consumption measurement test was one of the steps in bringing us a technology of lifesupport systems that enabled us to mend and control a planet-wide ecology that had been ravaged and allowed to fall into disarray.

“Of the $21.75 billion that had been spent up through the flight of Apollo 14 by the space program, fully three quarters, or more than $15 billion had been spent in basic research that was to help make possible cures for the very ills the program’s critics would have taken program funds to attack by more primitive 1971 methods. It was that these critics were wrong as much they suffered from a lack of information about the application of space program research to the very areas with which they themselves were concerned !

“Curiously it was Apollo 14 itself which marked the turning point. It was the greatest attendance over at a space launching, 1700 men and women at the press site, 7000 at the VIP site, and more than a million others watching in boats, on land, lined up elbow to elbow along causeways and beaches to observe the massive white tower spurt orange flames the distance of its own height along the ground then lift brilliantly from the pad and vanish into the cloud cover.

“After the launch the word began to spread. No one knew how. Word about the real values of man’s reaching into the hard vacuum of space for new laboratory tools to carve out the answers to problems that had already threatened to grow too big to be solved on earth itself.
That was the word that spread: and with it information of what the work of the astronauts and others meant or promised. So that today in 1991 we are not only all well-fed, housed and finally at peace with each other, but also face to face with the greatest future ever envisioned by man…”

 

[Shadow Knight]

Very intriguing. I am looking forward to seeing where you take this.

 

[Archibald]

here we go again

"It is necessary for me to have in the near future a definitive recommendation on the direction which the US space program should take in the post-Apollo period.

I, therefore, ask the Secretary of Defense, the Acting Administrator of NASA, and the Science Advisor each to develop proposed plans and to meet together as a Space Task Group, with the Vice President in the chair, to prepare for me a coordinated program and budget proposal.

In developing your proposed plans, you may wish to seek advice from the scientific, engineering, and industrial communities, from Congress and the public.

I would like to receive the coordinated proposal by September 1, 1969."

(President Nixon to his science advisor Lee DuBridge, February 8 1969)


------

In its deliberations, the Space Task Group considered a number of challenging new mission goals which were judged both technically feasible and achievable within a reasonable time, including establishment of a lunar orbit or surface base, a large 50-100 man earth-orbiting space base, and manned exploration of the planets.

The Space Task Group believes that manned exploration of the planets is the most challenging and most comprehensive of the many long-range goals available to the Nation at this time, with manned exploration of Mars as the next step toward this goal.

Manned planetary exploration would be a goal, not an immediate program commitment; it would constitute on understanding that within the context of a balanced space program, we will plan and move forward as a Nation towards the objective of a manned Mars landing before the end of this century.

Mars is chosen because it is most earth-like, is in fairly close proximity to the Earth, and has the highest probability of supporting extraterrestrial life of all of the other planets in the solar system.

We recommend

1- that Apollo-type manned missions to continue exploration of the Moon should proceed.

2- A Space Transportation System that will provide a major improvement over the present way of doing business in terms of cost and operational capability.
Carry passengers, supplies, rocket fuel, other spacecraft, equipment, or additional rocket stages to and from orbit on a routine aircraft-like basis. We need the Space Shuttle.

3- A chemically fueled reusable Space Tug or vehicle for moving men and equipment to different earth orbits. This some tug could also be used as a transfer vehicle between the lunar-orbit base and the lunar surface.

4- A reusable nuclear space tug far transporting men, spacecraft and supplies between Earth orbit and lunar orbit and between low Earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit and for other space activities. The NERVA nuclear engine development program, presently underway and included in all of the options discussed later, provides the basis for this stage and represents a major advance in propulsion capability.

5- A space station module that would be the basic element of future manned activities in Earth orbit, of continued manned exploration of the Moon, and of manned expeditions to the planets.
The space station will be a permanent structure, operating continuously to support 6-12 occupants who could be replaced at regular intervals. Initially, the space station would be in a low altitude, inclined orbit; later stations would be established in polar and synchronous orbits.
The same space station module would also provide a permanent manned station in lunar orbit from which expeditions could be sent to the surface.
By joining together space station modules, a space base could be created. occupied by 50-100 men, this base would be a laboratory in space where a broad range of physical and biological experiments would be performed.

Source : REPORT FROM THE SPACE TASK GROUP TO PRESIDENT NIXON
September 15, 1969
So here we are - Nixon decision.

As you can see Townes transition team recommandation clashes head-on with the Space Task Group own vision.

Had Nixon listened to Townes (January 8, 1969) and not created the Space Task Group a month later, Apollo may very well have continued past 1972. The last three missions had not been canned, and Saturn V production line was stopped but not dismantled yet. In short: Apollo wasn't dead yet. This, by itself, would make for an interesting space TL. (I tried it once, but the current TL pumps all my energy since seven years. Brovane Journeys of the Saturn somewhat fills that void, although with a different, earlier POD)

The Space Task Group was a train wreck. They just asked for everything, and a $10 billion budget a year to do it - Mars in 1982 or 1986. Paine and Agnew were naive idiots.
Michel Van picture is worth a long talk

P.S Michel, who is the last guy on the right ? From right to left : Nixon, Agnew and Paine.

 

[Archibald]

Here come the Soviet space program...

April 2, 1969

Baikonur, Kazakhstan

It rained hydrazine and nitrogen tetraoxide; a deadly, corrosive and toxic rain. The 2M unmanned Mars landers and orbiters had been blown to bits, or even dust. Two hundredths of a second after launch, one of the Proton's first stage engines carrying them had caught fire and exploded.

The robust rocket just shrugged and continued to fly. When twenty-five seconds later destruction and gravity prevailed, the doomed Proton pitched over and began to fly horizontally like some crazy missile.
The eerie vision of a monster rocket flying in the wrong direction did last a mere fifteen seconds, after what the unfortunate Proton impacted the planet about two miles from the launch pad. The huge explosion shook the ground for miles and was followed by a menacing mushroom cloud.
And then disaster struck

The wind blew the cloud in the wrong direction; toxic propellant was blown back across the launch complex ! A panic-stricken military launch comission ran for cover: the rain was acid, corrosive and extremely toxic. But there was nowhere to run, although by pure luck noone died.

Once the dust (and toxic propellants) settled, the scale of the disaster apeared. The pad was undamaged, yet the nasty chemical compounds made it unusable, and there was no way of cleaning the mess. Unless, of course, mother nature rain washed the propellant away. But the rain did not came in time, and Mars was lost for 26 months; it would return only in 1971.

With Proton grounded and its pad paralyzed, there would be no Soviet robots to the Moon and Mars for months. Proton was the second most powerful booster in the inventory behind the huge N-1 build to land men on the Moon. Unfortunately, the N-1 was no better than the Proton, reliability-wise. The first had blown in February in a truly huge explosion starting what would decidedly be a very bad year in Baikonur history. Although the Proton failure was nearly as bad, the worse was to come.


July 3, 1969
Baikonur, Kazakhstan

Only seconds into its flight, the second N-1 lunar rocket lost all of its thirty engines and fell back on its launch pad like some furious asteroid.

Three thousand tons of kerosene and liquid oxygen detonated into an immense blast which rocked the steppe as if a nuclear bomb had exploded. A white-hot fireball illuminated the barren landscape like a man-made sun. The launch gantry was simply vaporized, the blast melting it down to its foundations.

Such was the scale of the fire that it draw attention of American intelligence satellites usually tasked with monitoring nuclear explosions elsewhere in Kazakhstan.

Powerful shockwaves extended in every direction; walls of air as thick as concrete that instantly killed hundreds of birds and animals, busted windows and engineers eardrums and flattened everything standing for kilometers.

Vasily Mishin mouth gapped as a shock wave nearly tipped a twenty ton bus parked nearby. They were eight kilometer away !

It was a cataclysm of truly biblical scale, although no-one died. The lesson had been learned in blood. A decade earlier, after a technical glitch stage 2 of a ballistic missile had fired too early - with stage 1 still under it, and the whole rocket still on the launch pad ! The resulting colossal explosion had literally incinerated 150 people, famously vaporizing Marshall Nedeline that had had the unfortunate idea to sat near the launch pad on a wooden chair.

That day of 1969, from a safe distance of eight kilometers N-1 chief engineer Vasily Mishin watched the disaster unfold desultorily. Gone was the very last chance to beat the Americans to the Moon. Apollo 8 round the Moon flight last december had already wiped out the circumlunar Zond; now last hopes of a landing were burning fiercely. Race to the Moon was lost.

What would the future be ?

If the damn N-1 could made working someday - that was a big if, considering today's fireworks - then there would be three directions.

It could be Mars: just like that old movie Mishin had seen many times in his youth - Aelita.

Or it might be a Moon base - making Mishin's mentor Serguey Korolev dreams real.

Or they could build some giant space station down in earth orbit, an assembly of massive modules thrown by N-1s.

Mishin did not knew.
The soviet space program laid in shambles.
He really missed Serguei Korolev.

Since 1945 the soviet space program had been marred with epic rivalries. Two decades before Korolev had battled Yangel, then the two had been sidetracked by Khrushchev favourite rocket designer, Chelomey, obviously in disgrace since the fall of his mentor.

Manipulating everybody were motorist Valentin Glushko and rocket minister Dmitryi Ustinov.

Mishin had succeeded Korolev after his death, with Yangel quietly retiring from the shark pool. As for the survivors - Mishin and Chelomei, Ustinov and Glushko: both sides just hated each other, fighting teeth and nails, sometimes forging alliances that never lasted very long.

The Soviet lunar program had been a mess. There were two manned lunar ships, Zond and the LOK. There was a manned lunar lander, the LK; an unmanned robot to bring samples back, Luna; and an unmanned rover, Lunokhod.

Zond and the LOK were both sons of Soyuz, but they had nothing in common past that. Zond was a truncated Soyuz light enough to turn a loop around the Moon after a launch by a Proton – their most powerful rocket beside the N-1.

When this rocket would be ready it would launch another, bigger Soyuz, the LOK, and the LK lunar lander. But that was years into the future, as demonstrated by today explosion.

Zond was really a very limited program; unlike Apollo 8 they could not even enter lunar orbit. The Proton was just not powerful enough. Still, had a Zond flown manned around the Moon, say, in the fall of 1968, with or without orbit the Soviets could have claimed to be the first... near Earth satellite.

Of course what ultimately mattered was to touch down on the surface, and there the Americans could not be beaten.

At least the Soviet Union would have scored a symbolic victory !

But Zond had decided otherwise. After a string of failures they had had a very successfull flight in September 1968; truth be told the Soviet Union had been the first in history to shoot living beings around the Moon... But the livings were merely tortoises and worms, a far cry from Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and David Anders.
Still, the American trio could have been beaten to the Moon somewhere in October or November or even early in December; they had the launch windows for that, and very motivated astronauts like spacewalker Leonov.

Fortunately they had had not tried it. The next two Zonds returned to their usual failures, which would have killed anyone onboard; and now Zond was good for nothing. Still, Lenin birthday was to be celebrated next April... perhaps they could shot a couple of cosmonaut around the Moon for the occasion. But sure enough, each Apollo landing made the Zond flybys more pathetic...

Vasily Mishin sighed. It was killing him slowly.

 

[Michel Van]

P.S Michel, who is the last guy on the right ? From right to left : Nixon, Agnew and Paine.

Freiherr Werner Von Braun, also a naive idiot...

on Crash of second N1, here Video about it preparation, launch and ..KBOOOM